Tenggelamnya Kapal Van Der Wijck oleh HAMKA

Penulisan Hamka bukanlah mudah untuk difahami oleh insan yang buta seni bahasa seperti saya. Tetapi gaya bahasa, santun dan kemas tulisannya sangat menarik hati untuk membaca naskah “Tenggelamnya Kapal Van Der Wijck” sehingga ke helaian yang terakhir.

Perjalanan cinta Zainuddin dari tanah Mengkasar sehingga ke Surabaya disusun dengan sangat kemas sehingga saya sentiasa tertanya pengakhiran naskah ini. Namun ada sedikit ralat sepanjang membaca kerana saya tercari-cari kolerasi antara tajuk naskah ini dengan jalan ceritanya. Akhirnya baru saya sedar bahawa penulis mahu mengakhiri perjalanan hidup Zainuddin selepas tenggelamnya Kapal Van Der Wijck bersama cintanya, Hayati.

Kisah sedih Zainuddin, bagaimana merana dan melaratnya hidup setelah kematian ibu sejak kecil, ayah juga pergi setelah bertahun hidup dalam pembuangan, serta cinta yang ditolak dek kerana adat yang menjunjung asal bangsa seseorang. Zainuddin bangun semula dari segala kedukaan, membuka lembaran baru dalam hidup dan berubah menjadi seorang penulis yang ternama dan berjaya. Menceritakan tentang kesetiaan, cinta dan kasihnya Zainuddin terhadap Hayati, gadis yang pernah berjanji sehidup semati namun mengkhianati cinta sejati.

Di akhirnya, penulis bermain dengan perasaan pembaca apabila Hayati kembali menagih kasih daripada Zainuddin setelah diceraikan suami yang telah membunuh diri. Disebalik sifat baik Zainuddin yang ditonjolkan, terselit sedikit sifat negatif seperti dendam walaupun sebenarnya masih ada cinta. Tindakan Zainuddin yang menolak cinta Hayati dan menyuruh Hayati pulang ke kampung halamannya dengan Kapal Van Der Wijck akhirnya menjadi pengakhiran sebuah kisah cinta.

Cerita cinta ini disampaikan oleh Hamka melalui surat-surat yang ditulis oleh Zainuddin dan Hayati juga tidak ketinggalan surat Khadijah,sahabat baik Hayati. Membaca surat-surat ini akan membawa kita melayang ke dunia dan zaman mereka. Sebuah cerita yang menyayat hati. Soal pangkat, darjat, wang dan adat bijak dimainkan oleh penulis.

Secara keseluruhannya, novel ini tidak menjemukan walaupun masih menggunakan gaya penulisan melayu lama. Diluar kisah cinta, sebenarnya penulis banyak menyelitkan ilmu penyetahuan terutamanya tentang adat Minangkabau yang memberatkan perempuan. Paling penting, penulis berjaya membawa pembaca ke dalam cerita ini.

Saya tertarik dengan baris ayat dalam naskah ini.

“ Di belakang kita berdiri satu tugu yang bernama nasib, disana telah tertulis rol yang akan kita jalani. Meskipun bagaimana kita mengelak dari ketentuan yang tersebut dalam nasib itu, tiadalah dapat, tetapi harus patuh kepada perintahnya”.

Tetapi saya juga percaya Dia tidak akan mengubah nasib kita jika kita sendiri tidak mahu mengubahnya.

nota : Kami di The Buku Project ingin mengucapkan terima kasih atas setiap ulasan yang diberikan dan mengalu-alukan ulasan yang lain. Ulasan yang menarik ini telah ditulis oleh seorang rakan kami yang mahukan identiti beliau dirahsiakan. Tambah beliau lagi, buku Tenggelamnya Kapal Van Der Wijck lebih menarik berbanding Titanic. Mungkin peminat Titanic ada sesuatu untuk diperkatakan? :)

After the Prophet: The Epic Story of the Shia-Sunni Split in Islam

This review is written by a friend of the BukuProject's Nazir Harith Fadzilah*

Reading on the crackdown of the Shiite by the officials in Malaysia recently brought back the lessons I used to have in school, mainly those that taught me that Shiism is a blasphemy. Back then, it never occurred to me to question the textbook or even the Ustaz teaching the subject. All I know was, they are different from us, the Sunnis.

Most of us might just accept the facts as they were told to us (which is arguable) and never then revisit them, or to dig deeper on the how, the why, and the consequences of the split. Isn't it strange, considering the Prophet himself constantly preached of unity?

This book, written by Lesley Hazleton, brings us back to the time of tribulation, the time of difficulties, the time of fitna, the time in which the Muslim community was really tested by the Higher Power. Each character, one by one, is stripped from common misconception, either from misleading classes or through sheer lack of understanding

This is not a story that glorifies the characters, and neither is it full of flowers throughout. This is a story of mere human beings, prone to make mistakes, prone to fall to their Jahiliyah insticts, prone to have their judgment clouded by emotions.

These people were not without ideals. It would seem to us that 23 years under the guidance of the Prophet would have prepared them for the coming of this disunity in the Ummah. But we forget that this was the period which most of the characters had prayed they would never see. The period that became known as the beginning of the Sunni-Shiite split.

To be honest, I was nervous about reading this book since every line was new and unfamiliar to me, quite unlike everything I have been taught. Frightened as I was, I did not stop halfway. The author writes with such wit but is never didactic. Since she fills the lines with questions that insist the reader to dig deeper, dig deeper a reader should.

I love the way the book is being presented but I must warn the reader to read with caution and to try to cross-check with much more authentic history books. To call it a major work of Islamic history is short sighted but nevertheless the book shows another side of looking on the history of the Muslim Ummah.

*Nazir is a third year engineering student at the RMIT, Australia. He co-founded the ASAM, a community for artistic souls that sometimes features articles from the BukuProject. "While others enjoy being under the spotlight", Nazir prefers "a candle to light up [his] life". Nazir now resides in Melbourne.

The Adventures and Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

Contains spoilers. Readers, be warned.

Since I've been reading a lot these few days, I might as well write down what I get from those books. So here is a review of one book that I read during my stay in kampung over the weekend. A very famous book revolving around a very famous fictional detective and his equally famous sidekick. A very famous story indeed! :D

I think most everyone knows or has heard of Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson. As a kid, I used to read abridged versions of all his famous investigations, The Sign of Four being my favourite of them all. I haven't watched the 2010 film adaptation starring Robert Downey Jr. However, I did watch an unaired pilot episode of BBC's Sherlock, which is good enough to ignite a long-forgotten passion for investigative works within me. So I got myself a cheap copy of Arthur Conan Doyle's Adventures and Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes just

before New Year, and boy, I don't regret it for the slightest bit!

The styles are different throughout. There are some cases from other compilations that are narrated by Holmes himself, and some by an omniscient voice. But I enjoy the story most when it is Dr Watson that puts on the narrator's hat. After all, he was the one who started all the sensation with A Study in Scarlet. He's a normal person, just like me. We both do not study the science of deduction, and we both have average minds. So it is interesting to be finding out the wonders of Sherlock's deduction from the point of view of one who is not in the know. Plus, Watson is a funny character. He's someone I would be delighted to have conversations with over dinner.

Sherlock, on the other hand, is a bit of an enigma. Even without his incredibly unbelievable skills of finding out things about people that are not very obvious at first, the way he carries himself is also quite strange. I credit Doyle for this impressive work of character building that not only makes Sherlock intriguing, but also human. I am sure I have never encountered such human-ness before, but it feels human nonetheless. Even his patronizing "Elementary" to our much beloved Watson is a delight to read =)

The first part, the adventures, is straightforward cases presented as short stories, so they work really fine for people who like to read during commuting. Every case is a new start so it doesn't require an immense attention span. Perfect! It is the same for the second part, the memoirs. However, the Memoirs is especially famous because it marks Holmes' involvement with the notorious Professor Moriarty. The Final Problem accounts Holmes last moments before he was said to have fallen down the Raichenbach Fall clutched together with his nemesis, Moriarty. I was deeply moved by Watson's last words on his long-time friend, a sleuth that became an icon for the English speaking world and beyond.

So when I found out that Holmes did not actually die and that he made a return in The Return of Sherlock Holmes, I was not exactly sure how to react. I suppose I should be happy for the comeback but part of me still felt a bit cheated. You know, I know for a fact that it's not true but I still harbour irrational suspicion that old Arthur must have needed money real bad or something. Or maybe people just missed Holmes that much that Arthur felt it was cruel to kill Holmes off just like that. And it was cruel. We were left with no credible explanation of what happened to him in the memoirs. So yea, thank God for The Return of Sherlock Holmes.

I won't review here the longer cases like The Hound of Baskervilles, The Valley of Fear and A Study in Scarlet because I think I should revisit those novels before attempting to review them. And thanks to Feedbooks, I can finally do that without emptying my ever thinning pocket!

So to those of you who find the detective as interesting as I do, get buying paperbacks now! Or even better, visit Feedbooks for free titles here:

1. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

2. The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

3. The Return of Sherlock Holmes.

Elementary! :D

Free Books! =)

Hi everyone, I just stumbled upon a cool discovery. It is called FeedBooks, which is one of the largest pools of online books available to download in PDF, Kindle, and EPUB versions! What's even cooler is they are all free. Just go to the Public Domain page on FeedBooks and browse for any interesting titles and get downloading! If you have a Kindle or Kindle for PC, you just need to click on the title of the book and choose the download-for-Kindle option and the book will be automatically stored in your Kindle. It is so easy!

Here are the steps:

1. Go to FeedBooks

2. Click on Public Domain

3. Click on any title

4. Download whichever version you like

You may register if you want to make an online purchase. But if you're just in it for the free books, save yourself the hassle and skip the registration process. Happy reading! =)

Why The West Rules~For Now

This short review is written by a friend of the Buku Project's, Nazri Awang*

This brilliant book is written by Ian Morris, a professor of history at Stanford University. In it, he argues that it is geography rather than racial supremacy, religion, or luck that somehow shapes the world as we know it today. From the start to finish, the author tries to compress and summarize 15000 years of humanity development into a comprehensive analysis of bits and pieces of history, as left by our ancestors.

Over the very long period of human existence, the old world was already shaped by its two geographically unique communities of the east and the west. Morris focused more on the biggest and most developed civilizations at different time instances, therefore some empires were not mentioned as frequently as the more prosperous ones. The main theme of the book was about the advantage of backwardness, explaining how a previously laggard, poorly governed area can evolve in a span of a few hundred years, overtaking the previous super-power.

Western centre of civilization had changed plenty of times, from the ashes of the Greek empire, more city-states sprawled and grew faster than ever. The Romans, Persians, ancient Egyptians were the stars of their time, each one of them occupying distinct prosperous period. Renaissance movement induced more development in northern Europe, Britain in particular. However, in 20th century Pax Britannica slowly faded away and from there, came the new super-power in the form of the Great United States of America.

A similar kind of development was unfolding in the east as well, largely in Chinese mainland. Throughout history, it was not always the west who hold the the winner cap. The east was far on top for a few hundred years before western Europe bounced back from its dark age. Again, applying the theory of advantages of backwardness, the hegemony of the world will always change, favouring those who successfully adapt themselves to the changes in humanity evolution faster and better than the rest, it is inevitable.

"The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see." ~ Churchill

*Nazri Awang is a final year MORSE student at the University of Warwick and is expected to graduate in a few months. Nazri now lives in Coventry and keeps a very informative blog: http://www.nazriawang.com/

OUTLIERS: THE STORY OF SUCCESS by Malcolm Gladwell

This review is written by a friend of the Buku Project's, Hamedullah Muhammad*

Outlier (def): A person or thing away from others or outside its proper place.

Often, when we read about a success story or a rags-to-riches tale, it talks much about the person. It talks about sacrifice, dedication, perseverance and uncompromising attitude.

More often than not, we will also come across something along the line of "..despite his poor background..." or "..although disadvantaged in.." or something similar. Well, "Outliers" is a book about success. But, it is also about why we should, instead of saying "despite" and "although", say "because".

The author, Malcolm Gladwell, divides this book into two chapters. The first is entitled Opportunity. Malcolm asserts that in order to make sense of success, we need to look at a bigger picture rather than merely concentrate on individuals. He talks about advantage, opportunity and luck; inter alia

• How being born in the first four months of the year can make one a professional ice hockey player in Canada,

• Why without Hamburg there would be no The Beatles,

• Why out of 70 of the richest people throughout human history 20 are Americans born around 1834 and

• Why IQ scores don't really matter.

By the end of chapter one, you will get a sense of what Malcolm wanted to convey; success is not as individualistic as we have come to acknowledge it today. He said “the biggest misconception about success is that we do it solely on our smarts, ambition, hustle and hard work”.

His second chapter is titled 'Legacy'. Malcolm argues that we have become a society too wary of making generalization. We thought that it would be rude to associate success or in more obvious case, failure with race or culture. We're afraid that we may appear to be undermining people. Malcolm begs to differ. He mentions about:

• How being a Korean or Colombian flight pilot makes one more prone to crash a plane in the 70's, and
• How Korean Airlines turned from notoriously known for plane crashes to one of the safest in the world today.

Interestingly, Malcolm also tackles the "Asians are good at math" notion in one of the subchapters entitled Rice Paddies and Math, explaining the influence of language and rice paddies on children's mathematical ability.

Malcolm has an extraordinary skill of turning dry statistic data, one that would probably bore us in its raw form, into something we can identify with and worth pondering over. This book is not in any way undermining the determination and effort of successful individuals. It is merely saying that success has a blueprint; it is a function of opportunity and legacy. Success is intertwined with society. Bigger forces are at play. And they could be measured. And what gets measured gets managed.

The enjoyment of reading Outliers, in my opinion, comes from its ability to make one think "I am an outlier". Not that one could become successful suddenly. But one would become more appreciative of his/her world and possibly would look harder for opportunity and chance. That is probably the main message Malcolm wanted to pass through; that success can be shared to everybody if we as a society can make sense of it.

*Hamedullah graduated from UCL in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering.He's currently employed by MISC Bhd. Being a Malaysian, he started taking interest in reading a bit late, about two years ago. He heard about thebukuproject some time ago in London, thought it is a brilliant endeavour but only now decides to contribute something. As they say, "Hands that give also receive".

Delayed Chic Flick Chic Part 1: Eat Pray Love

Okay, okay I know that my last post was quite a decade ago (In which i am meant to say, happy 2011!). Wasting a few lines for an excuse is pretty much pointless so, let's go straight to the point. Now, drum-roll please!

Yes, yes I know. This is quite an outdated book, some might say, since the sequel is already been published (and some already reviewed it). I am so wishing to make this earlier but again, due to the time constraints, earliest would be now.

So here's the story of the book and I, behind the scene : First, the only thing that I knew the moment I ever touched this book, made my way to the cashier and paid for it was: It is a movie by Julia Roberts. The rest, zilch. I even thought that this book is 100% fictional! Yes I know, I should have made my own research first. I just love surprises, most of the time.

Luckily, the book worth every penny. Or ringgit.

This book revolved around the life of the author herself, Elizabeth Gilbert (or Liz), post-divorce in which she had traveled to Italy, India and Indonesia (Bali, to be exact). She went all the way crossing the continents, for the love of exploring the world and most importantly, herself. In Italy, she spoiled herself with the lavish food (Now now, this doesn't do much justice. Who doesn't love Italian food, anyway? My sympathy, and *ahem* your loss!) and of course, Italian language. She joined the crowd of soccer fans, swooned by the famous arch and buildings of Rome, and get spontaneous and surprised herself everyday with new things as she enjoyed Italy. In India, she went into another "side of the world", in which she joined the meditation of Guru's Ashram. The first part of her India "exploration" immersed her into frustration as the whole atmosphere brought her into something different than Italy. She met a friend, Richard, in which often referred her as "Groceries", a nickname he profoundly used after he saw how much amount of food she could eat. This journey that started off with depression, swiftly turned 180 degrees as she found tranquility and reason to live: God. Lastly, she found herself on her way to Bali, Indonesia to meet a medicine man she formerly met a couple of years before, Ketut. She promised she would return to Bali to teach Ketut English (how cute!) English, only to find that Ketut, being an old man, had little fond of memories of her. In Bali, she discovered another different culture of Balinese, in which she described as "lodged, completely held, within an elaborate lattice of customs." Think of Hinduism traditions met hierarchical village communities met rich and beautiful paddy fields operated by the local people. She spent her days in Bali to meditate, daily meeting with Ketut, and walked around the town, enjoying the picturesque view of the paddy field ( Ubud's paddy field has such magnificent view! ) or just talked to the people themselves. She met Wayan, a Balinese healer which later turned into a friend, and later on she found herself the "love" part of the "Eat, Pray, Love" ( geddit?), a Brazillian man named Felipe.

My verdict: 4 out 5.

1) In a way, this book is rather a book for feminist. But then again, it's a documented life of a woman, what can be manly about that?

2) What created attention here is how Liz put the story lines and plot. I like the way she narrated in this book for it is so honest, even for the darkest thought. Funny and odd, but honest. She is lucky for she has met people like Ketut, Wayan, or even Richard (who seemed to like nothing but to mock her at the first place) and her bunch of Italian friends. I like how Ketut put it:

"To find the balance you want, this is what you must become. You must keep your feet grounded so firmly on the Earth that it's like you have four legs, instead of two. That way, you can stay in the world. ." ( para 3, page 27)

and how Richard quoted:

" See, now that's your problem. You're wishin' too much baby. You gotta stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone oughtta be." (page 150)

And how Liz used to write to herself in Italy:

"I am stronger than Depression and I am braver than Loneliness and nothing will ever exhaust me." (para 5, page 54)

(We all have one of the days when we feel the world is coming to get us. Come on, admit it.)

and many more I wish I could share. But then again, what fun could it be without reading the book itself, right?:)

3) If you happen to read one of my posts in my personal blog, I have once said that I'd love to do some world-travelling and exploring and consider it is as a job (like Ian Wright and Samantha Brown. Watching too much of Travelling Channel, I presume). What Liz did, was too good to be true to ever happen to me, for this moment of course. I always want to go to Rome or Italy, generally (Ede, remember our foreign exchange students interview? Haha. I said I wanted to go to Italy because of its food. Signed, honest me. Duh) But someday, insyaAllah. Someday. And Ubud, Bali is beautiful too. India, yes. (But my ex-supervisor used to say that if you went to India and returned home without diarrhea, consider your trip invalid. LOL)

4) Liz's favorite word: Attraversiamo :)

5) Apparently I am not really bothered with Felipe, or David (Yes, despite the fact that the role is played by James Franco in the movie version) , or any of Liz's love interest. What amazed me is the people Liz got to meet, like Giovanni, or Sofie, or Ketut, or Wayan or even Richard from Texas. These kind of people she met, by taking chances (and challenges) to go by herself travelling alone. And also, she really is lucky for having friends to help her raised money for Wayan's house. Now that's just awesome, no?

p.s: Delayed Chic Flick Chic Part 2 is coming, erm, soon? I won't promise anything "legend-wait for it-ary* but I will try my best!