Wandered out to Holland Village in the late afternoon, footing it all the way there and back, in an attempt to clear the cobwebs stuffed into my skull, occupying the space where my brain should be. The cobwebs settled there as a result of today's marking, and are still resident despite the walk and the rather jolly cup of tea I enjoyed at the Village. This is the problem attendant upon my system of marking which depends on achieving a fixed quota every day, come what may. On those days when my body and brain tell me in no uncertain terms they are just not interested in doing the necessary, the necessary still gets done - at a price.
Mind you, I was still able to summon the concentration to move into the final quarter of Middlemarch whilst quaffing the cup that cheers, so the journey wasn't entirely a waste. And I got to enjoy the trees along Commonwealth Avenue on the way back. These are not terribly special for the city, but special enough when you really focus on them to provide a splendid counterpoint to the MRT line running overhead and the various manifestations of the New Brutality in modern architecture that abound along the way.
The great thing about nature in this 'garden city' is that it manages to hold onto something of its disconcerting echoes of the wilderness, its essential aggressiveness, even when it's tamed along a roadside. It's not difficult to imagine the greenery taking it all back one day.
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4 comments:
Your observation reminded me of an interview with the photographer Nguan (a Singaporean), where he says:
" But I wanted to assert in my pictures that this is a city risen out of a jungle; wild vines burst forth from cracks in her asphalt. I see Singapore as a country whose true nature cannot be paved. And while I was away I remained profoundly haunted by her bougainvilleas."
I've had premonitions of this too.
The sense that Singaore's greenery cannot be tamed and is steadily eroding our efforts to build something lasting within it is particularly striking in J.G. Farrell's The Singapore Grip, now I think of it. Of course, Farrell's novel, about the back end of Empire, is necessarily about things fading. It's a bracing counter balance to the positive narrative of The Singapore Story.
Not sure if you've managed to get my previous comment, which mysteriously disappeared... But it went something like:
Combine the sense of impending environmental catastrophe with local acts of terror (dengue, floods, etc.) and we've got a workable mood for a modern Singaporean novel. It'd be haunted by guilt and premonition: that we shouldn't be allowed to engineer and drill our way to a questionable good (no, better) life. And to wonder: what price will finally be exacted?
Incidentally, I recently read The Siege of Krishnapur and it's possibly my favourite Booker.
Nice comment, especially on The Siege. It had never occurred to me before, but I think it's my favourite Booker too. It certainly has stood the test of time better than some.
A Singaporean novel haunted by guilt! Now there's a thought.
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