Read Pico Iyer's This Could Be Home today. Odd little book. Basically about the Raffles Hotel, where he was the first Writer-in-Residence, but also saying interesting things about Singapore in general. The hotel doesn't really represent the island I know, but I enjoyed the book for its insights even though I couldn't relate to what he sees as the peculiarly representative nature of the writer's place of residency. Most of all I enjoyed the sense of the city being celebrated: I was reminded of its many excellent qualities which are so easily forgotten when navigating one's way through the necessity of earning a living here.
He sees something special in the brand of multiculturalism embraced in this Far Place, and I think he's absolutely right. It was refreshing to be so forcibly reminded of something so obvious, yet easy to overlook. And he also says interesting things about Maugham, enough to make me consider reading something by a writer I have somehow contrived to sturdily neglect for so long.
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