The Heart Keeps Beating

[ Me ]

Nickname: Ursula
Birthday: 7th January 1985
Zodiac: Capricorn
Where From: Singapore

Laidback, sensitive, fickle, easily-tickled, fiercely loyal

Manga and anime lover, enthusist, collector and critic/ Coffee lover, addict and expert maker/ Aspiring future wife of famous culinary chef/ Aspiring future wife of a 1.8m tall hunk

My Friendster link:
http://www.friendster.com/vivis

[ Likes ]

Sleeping, dancing, books, manga, anime, chocolates, coffee, Jap food, Italian food, Ayumi Hamasaki, people, my sister

[ Fave Books ]

Harry Potter series, Artemis Fowl series, The Inheritence Trilogy series, The Da Vinci Code, Memoir of a Geisha, I Don't Know How She Does It... and all my comics n manga!!!

[ Currently Reading ]

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
by Susanna Clarke

Inkheart
by Cornelia Funke

The Well Of Loneliness
by Radclyffe Hall

Midnight's Children
by Salman Rushdie

Madame Sadayakko: The Geisha Who Seduced The West
by Lesley Downer

The Unbearable Lightness Of Being
by Milan Kundera

The Historian
by Elizabeth Kostova

[ The Wishlist ]

My Amazon.com Wishlist:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/ref=yourlists_pop_1/103-2401787-9502236

Phillips MC235 Thin Stereo Microsystem

Kathy Van Zeeland bag
(saw on amazon.com going for bout US$65... Why dun Singapore stock her goods??! >.< I wan it in Topaz colour~!!!)

The Lord of the Rings
by J.R.R. Tolkien

Inu-Yasha Theme Song Collection

12 Kingdoms/ Juuni Kokuki anime VCD sets

GUESS bag (darn, i dun have the $120 required to buy it now and i noe it'll be gone soon, Guess always changing their apparels every month or so u_u)

DKNY gold and crystal-studded watch (very ornamental, more a dress watch then an every-funtion watch. still, pretty~)

Mphosis pale gold SLIPPERS (i run through my shoes and slippers like they cost nth X/)

The BodyShop BLUSHER in Golden Pink

The BodyShop blusher BRUSH

Shiseido eyelash CURLER

Full-length wall MIRROR(s) for my room

A new big every-purpose BAG

Pretty SHOES

A Digital CAMERA

A bloody new PC or laptop with the speed of light and a gazillion GB of memory!! =[

The Sims 2 (PC game edition)

[ The Memories ]

Sunday, October 10, 2004

Elfriede Jelinek

Boy, wat advantages winning the Nobel Prize Award for Literature has... aside from the $10 milion Swedish Kronor (S$2.3 million) prize money of cos. But lets not go into that.

How fickle can the literary world be?
n by that i mean the readers, not writers.

Man, imagine how easily one's winning of the Nobel Prize award for Literarture will propel one's book sales up the charts practically over-night. In a surprising turn of events, the German author of controversial books such as The Piano Teacher (the author's semi-autobiographical novel which was made into a movie; about a music teacher who indulges in violent sex and mutilates her own genitials with a razor), Lust and Women As Lovers - Elfriede Jelinek- shocked the book world with the news of her win.

Aside for The Piano Teacher which was turned into a movie, she was a relatively unknown writer with books that aren't exactly crowd-pleasers either. n u noe wat? i was online checking out her books on Amazon.com n discovered that of her four books, three of which has never stepped into the Top 50 ranking before (the ranking depicting the amt of books of that title sold online on Amazon.com, n therefore the book's popularity), have suddenly shot up the charts. The highest even being in the top 20.

Is it her sudden winning of the Nobel Prize that increased her recognition in the book world that had spur more people to buy her books? Or like me (who checked out her books online), had bought the book mainly to uncover the controversial topics in her books and judge for themselves the worthiness of her win of such a prestigious award?

Frankly, like most of the world out there, i could not see the justice in her win. There are so many other nominees this year whom i find more deserving of this award than her. Unless the judging panel was judging more on the shock value....

I could not bring myself to watch The Piano Teacher when it was released in 2002, neither could i bring myself to pick up the book now, no matter wat recognition it had gained. n judging from the editorial and reader reviews of her other books, they are equally as dark n maybe, more radical.

Maybe i'll jus pick out one of her other books at the library the next time i go and see if its worth the nightmares i'll have to borrow n read =/

+ Ursula r e m e m b e r s again + 1:16 AM

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