New Soul by Yael Naïm

Yael Naïm, a lovely female singer from Paris, presents the top-of-the-line voice ever. I adore her not just for every half-lazy-half-dreamy note she makes but for the vigor she brings to her songs. No doubt! Her laziness brings strength and nostalgia as well. This time, New Soul is for me, anyone who visits this page and also for our country. Wish my new soul opens a new eye to the new world in Australia.
__ __ __ __

I'm a new soul
I came to this strange world
Hoping I could learn a bit bout how to give and take
But since I came here, felt the joy and the fear
Finding myself making every possible mistake
La, la, la, la (21x) La, la, la, la (21x)

See I'm a young soul in this very strange world
Hoping I could learn a bit bout what is true and fake
But why all this hate? try to communicate
Finding trust and love is not always easy to make
La, la, la, la (21x) La, la, la, la (21x)

This is a happy end Cause you don't understand
Everything you have done
Why's everything so wrong
This is a happy end
Come and give me your hand
I'll take you far away
I'm a new soul
I came to this strange world
Hoping I could learn a bit bout how to give and take
But since I came here, felt the joy and the fear
Finding myself making every possible mistake

New soul... (la, la, la, la,...)
In this very strange world...
Every possible mistake
Possible mistake
Every possible mistake
Mistakes, mistakes, mistakes...

Tokyo to be continued

I am definitely the last one who's crazy for Japanese stuff, from romance to cartoon or music. Buta yes I'm heading for that city where I ain't in love with but may be after the backpacking. Whatsover, i'm expecting the coming of July 10 when i'm flying to Nippon. I'd be there with an empty mind without any bias toward the dense city and return with overflows of memory and stunners. Please wow me! Tokyo!

The Book Thief: I Steal, Therefore I Am

If you expect to realise more about Nazi Germany or the Holocaust by reading a novel, “The Book Thief”, a whimsical piece far different from what Markus Zusak has created before, may be a letdown albeit that it is set in Molching, the ground zero of Nazism, during the Hitler Era. “The Book Thief” is, dare I say, more than that of seeking to elucidate the ins and outs of the Nazi’s brutality or to call for animadversion upon the Swastika. However, I must confess that I had the book untouched on my teak bookcase for several dawns and dusks after it’d been released. My scepticism towards “The Book Thief” is inevitable since I am a broad reader of diverse books concerning the Holocaust and naturally sceptical about whether the seeming cliché lying on the bookshelf would be bestowed with novelty.


But “The Book Thief” itself attests to the originality of what Zusak has campaigned to do. First, the story is narrated by Death, the Grim Reaper you have known very well as he behaves in Elie Wiesel’s “Night,” one of his trilogy in the Holocaust, colluding with war to shed innocent blood. However, it is not the case here. Zusak reverses the impression that Death used to leave in our minds. Death confides, just in one of many scenarios when he has a chance to conciliate his readers, that “to me, war is like the new boss who expects the impossible,” forcing him to carry on with expiry of human beings. The boss will never be fulfilled but only ask for more. “You see?” Death says with commiseration and sentiment after he grants the last breath to Rudy Steiner, the Heroine Liesel Meminger’s closest friend. "Even death has a heart."


Among other highlights, “The Book Thief” is Zusak’s audacious and imaginative headwork which leads the whimsy-whamsy to a tear-jerker. Liesel Meminger, traumatised nine-year-old heroine, is the one we are grieving for. All spring from "The Grave Digger's Handbook," the first book that Meminger stole. It not only guides gravediggers to grave-digging success but, most importantly, opens a gateway for the book thief (viz. Meminger) to her love affair with words which are the link to knowledge. With words, she finds she does exist. During the hours reading with her foster father, the genial accordionist Hans Hubermann, words, which she used to lack but now is acquiring, are the only consolation for the disappearance of her mother and the demise of her little brother. But she does more. By reading the Führer's “Mein Kampf,” she also shares her love with a Jewish man, Max Vandenburg hidden by the Hubermanns family. While Adolf Hitler manipulates words to propagandise power and inflict havoc, Meminger employs words to heal anguish and brace people’s heart. We are overwhelmed by words.


“The Book Thief” is winding, roundabout and verbose tale punctuated with analepsis and prolepsis. However I don’t adore it the less for the meandering writing. It will be and should be widely read for the sake of the treasure of words. By way of this, let words tell for themselves!