Expatriate Archive Centres Book Review Tropical Affairs22 March 2011

Two good news for Tropical Affairs: Episodes of an Exapts Life in Malaysia. One, a book review appeared on Expatriate Archive Centres blog. Expatriate Archive Centre is also one of the libraries that I mentioned in a recent post. This is, unless Im mistaken, my first book review outside Malaysia/Singapore!
Thoughts on Robert Raymers Tropical Affairs Written by Amanda Potter
Narrative essays collected into a book are a little like the predecessor to modern blogging. Robert Raymers Tropical Affairs, a collection of previously published non-fiction narratives about his life and times in Malaysia, almost reads like one (in a good way). Through his years of essays we learn a little about Roberts life as an American living in Malaysia for more than 20 years, sympathize with his struggles, and cheer in his successes.

Tropical Affairs collects essays from Roberts own life through relationships, work, children, and hobbies and after 20+ years in his adopted country, its clear that Robert loves Malaysia and the people who call it home. The book is organized into a series of themed sections with a little something for everyone to relate to. Personally, I found the expatriate, writing, and being myself sections the most interesting, bu! t parent s and even movie fans will find entertaining and thoughtful morsels as well. Humor and candor play equal parts in Roberts writing, reflecting the complex and multicultural experience of living abroad.

However, although the essays are interesting, often entertaining, and sometimes even inspiring, I was left wanting a stronger central narrative to carry the book as a whole. I had hoped to learn a little about Malaysia through Roberts experiences, but without any prior knowledge of the region, the essays didnt lay the groundwork for me to fully understand his encounters. In addition, I found the way the essays time traveled back and forth through is life to be a bit jarring; especially when there were two essays written about the same exact event but not placed side-by-side.

Ultimately I found Tropical Affairs to be best read by simply flipping the book open and selecting a story at random. Each on its own is sweet and filled with experiences that anyone can relate to. And I like the slightly provocative title which encourages you to have a short, fun affair with each story, but maybe not a long term relationship.

Robert Raymer is also the author of (the equally provocative) Lovers and Strangers Revisited, a short story collection about Malaysia. He writes for several publications and also blogs and maintains a website at borneoexpatwriter.com.
* * *
The second good news, I just got the Tropical Affairs royalty statement, though not as high as Id like it to beis it ever? but it did! mention a second printing around June 2010. Thats good because I recently added buy links on all my 2009 Tropical Affairs excerpt posts, which I accidentally left out. Several of these, particularly on Indochine and Paradise Road, continue to be my most popular posts, maybe because of the cool costumes that I get to wear in the films.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Poetry puzzles

Who is Ozymandias? Why is Coleridge's Lime-Tree Bower his prison? And what is the proper spelling of The Waste Land? The solving of a poem's puzzles is one poetry's greatest pleasures In the late 1990s the indefatigable John Sutherland produced a series of entertaining books about puzzles in fiction (Why is Frankenstein's monster yellow? Where does Fanny Hill keep her contraceptives? Who gets what in Heathcliff's will?). The books were initially linked to reissues of novels in the Oxford World's Classics series, and I was struck at the time how beautifully these little inquisitions of Sutherland's, often on apparently absurd or marginal issues in the text, got readers reading again, with attention and interest. What Sutherland was doing, in effect, was smuggling serious literary criticism into an apparently superficial form of writing. Perhaps, in a sense, he was even re-inventing literary criticism. In this era of academic theorising and the downsizing of m...
Keep reading

BAFFLING BINGO MYSTERY DAY: 10TH ANNIVERSARY - A REVIEW AND GIVEAWAY

Image
WELCOME TO BOOKIN' WITH BINGO'S " BAFFLING BINGO DAY " I'M EXCITED TO ANNOUNCE THIS WEEK'S SPECIAL MYSTERY BOOK CHOICE IS..... 10TH ANNIVERSARY BY JAMES PATTERSON & MAXINE PAETRO ABOUT THE BOOK: For every secret... Detective Lindsay Boxer's long-awaited wedding celebration becomes a distant memory when she is called to investigate a horrendous crime : a badly injured teenage girl is left for dead, and her newborn baby is nowhere to be found. Li! ndsay di scovers that not only is there no trace of the criminals--but that the victim may be keeping secrets as well. For every lie... At the same time, Assistant District Attorney Yuki Castellano is prosecuting the biggest case of her life--a woman who has been accused of murdering her husband in front of her two young children. Yuki's career rests on a guilty verdict, so when Lindsay finds evidence that could save the defendant, she is forced to choose. Should she trust her best friend or ...
Keep reading

CCCP: Cosmic Communist Constructions Photographed by Frdric Chaubin review

These images of Soviet architecture from the Brezhnev era are simply out of this world Soviet brutalism is not something traditionally thought of as beautiful, but Frdric Chaubin's stunning photographs, published under the facetious title CCCP: Cosmic Communist Constructions Photographed , should go some way to changing this. Fascinated by the massive scale of Brezhnev-era architecture, the French photographer has toured the former Soviet Union since 2003, in search of dramatic examples of these sculptural buildings. The 1970s-1990s was a strong period for Soviet architecture, especially in the peripheral republics, where outlandish designs were an expression of the striving for independence, an early inkling of the break-up of the USSR. Architects at this time picked up where they left off following the suppression of the avant-garde by Stalin in the early 1930s, and were able to capitalise on advances made in engineering in the interim period, producing buildings with enormous in...
Keep reading