How many times can one read "poetic allusions" to the sky, in one sitting, anyway: "my mind's sky" (Page 10), "pain's blue sky" (Page 14), who-knows-how-many-more skies...
And Cyril Wong's Editorial Note led me to think that I am reading Mr. Cyril Wong's caricature of Mr. Md Mukul Hossine. ("Warm, trusting, garrulous").
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Perhaps the team behind this book might find it helpful to read Edward Said's "Orientalism" and see how its elements may apply to the dynamics between the middle class of Singapore and the migrant-workers on the island.
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I am off to read a play by Elfriede Jelinek, "what happened after Nora left her husband", which is related to Ibsen's "A doll's house". I enjoy that much more
If I remember correctly, I read its fourth edition.)
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In the chapter titled "Bridging the divide: The Singapore experience", Mr. Mahbubani claims, "there are no homeless, destitute or starving people in Singapore".
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But Mr. Mahbubani fails to substantiate such a bold claim with any statistics, studies or such like.
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Clearly I have to think critically about whatever else Mr. Mahbubani claims.
Some may laud Mr. Black's words as a "stream of consciousness", but I felt
as if facts were being stuffed down my throat. An off-putting experience (for me, at least).
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And I recall someone writing: "given the weight of facts, it is very difficult to avoid reporting the facts. This calls for astuteness of means, and a distillation of materials."
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Does Mr. Black come across as astute, through the pages of this book? I leave it to another (new) reader to discover for himself/herself/themselves.
