Don Quixote in Thai?

[chuckwoww]

Hugh is correct. And I like to think of myself as a latter day Don Quixote tilting at windmills on the internet.

[liquidflux]

I don't know many Thais who read for fun, and definitely not 1000 page novels. Usually it's comics or nothing.

 

I'm not sure how well Don Quixote would translate into the language anyway. Even some of the english versions are not very well done.

 

 

[playtheblues]

Actually a modern day Cervantes could do wonders to elevate the standard of Bangkok nightlife stories form their present cliches, pathos, inability to portray the gaiety and wonderful sence of surface reality which pervades the Thai people and the Thai environment. In short, from their embarrassing lack of talent and entertainment value.

 

But I have only read two books in the genre so maybe there are hidden treasures out there. Nonetheless the motto of some of these writers seem to be "Don't read my books, buy them instead!"

[chuckwoww]

Sounds like you might have a book in you yourself.

[playtheblues]

If there is anything I have in common with those writers I was referring to it would be lack of talent!

 

Bu maybe yourself...?

[chuckwoww]

I don't know about talent. There are a couple of us on the board who have made humble attempts.

[Old Hippie]

Play the blues and Buff,

 

My knowledge/interest in Spanish (language) Literature might astound you...Don Quixote remains my favorite book/story, as do all things connected to it.

 

Private Dancer made it's point, though many choose to deny it...

 

Hugh Hoy,

 

Yes, you are right, yet my Valient attempts often fail...

[playtheblues]

For me literature is not so much about making a point or driving home a message. I'm an ars gratia artis kind of guy, art for the sake of art, even when we are talking popular entertainment fiction That's why Shakespeare and Cervantes "rock", and remain the greatest entertainers ever.

 

The problem with books like "Private Dancer" is exactly what you credit it for - they want to make a point. Besides "Private Dancer" failed to make Thailand , and worse failed to make Thais come alive, especially women. Joy did not turn me on, simply because dead women don't excite me.

 

And all those stereotypes: did it really have to be a fat balding guy bouncing Joy up and down on his knees?

 

Btw, I went to a bar the other night and couldn't find any bald and fat guy with or without a girl on his lap. The usual hairy and not so fat Kevin and Brian and Bruce with their usual inflated expat-in-their-thirties, forties egos, probably making fun between each other of those naive fat and balding farangs who send money to bar girls, and the usual cheap "you know I was shagging this stupid baldie's girl friend when she was on the mobile with him" kind of stuff. Staunch Leather supporters all of them I fancy.

[chuckwoww]

I have a theory about why books about Bangkok attract so much antagonism. Apart from them being 90% crap of course. It's the same reason Bangkok bloggers all hate each other so much. Expats and people who've been to Bangkok a few times are all experts on the place. We all understand Bangkok and Thais much, much better than anybody else ever could. Also, ideally, we would like to have the place to ourselves but the riff-raff just keep coming. The irony is that the more we discuss it the more we attract more of the very people we dislike so much...this is just my theory remember. Throw in the fact that deep down we know the Thais will never see us as anything but farang with too much time and money and you have a kind of latent anger that gets taken out on anybody who dares to try and encapsulate it.

 

Really the only way to improve the situation is to write the kind of book you want to read. Then try to get it published and distributed. Make sure you have a thick skin before you start.

[playtheblues]

Agree with most of what you (so eloquently) say, but I stick to the 90% crap explanation. Even so, though, I think I was unfair to Leather in the sense that his story could have been a good one if he only had decided to write it as a writer and not as another Stickman (don't get me wrong, Stickman is mostly OK within his limits). Getting rid of the cliches, the stereotypes, working on the development and portrayal on characters as INDIVIDUALS and not as types and try to discover to sensual essence of Thai women, beyond the hopeless "she had the longest black hair, legs to die for" or whatever it was. Leather shows some dramatic nerve and the plot as such is not bad.

 

Expats being at each others' throat is part of life here. Personally I never "go out with the boys". I just don't want to hear more of those (now I'm at it again) I-was- shagging-fat-bald-farang's-girlfriend revelations of third class minds, no more stories how difficult it is to get rid of that Thai girl bar girl which he of course shags for free etcetera etcetera.

 

Somehow I feel these guys mindset is reflected in the bland and lowlife style and stuff of the Bangkok bestseller stories, as if they had been ghost writers.

 

No, again, I will not try to write any Bangkok story myself - "Private Dancer" would seem to have Dickensian qualities in comparison! To critizise others is one thing, to do it better oneself is another.