Three thoughts in Mega bookstore!
I have been to Prime Mega store to find some books to read (I am out of books these days and of titles as a matter of fact, any recomendations are more than welcomed) anyway… as i was looking into their english section three thoughts came to my mind:
1- the books are so DAMN expensive, to buy two books it cost me 18 JDs which is way too much for Jordan. If i take into consideration that one of my acquaintences has been working for the last 10 years as a driver for one of the universities for a sallary of 140 Dinars. This guy has 3 or 4 kids one of them is tawjihi this year… this person can NOT afford food, let alone books for leisure. so how will Jordanians be a well read population?
2- I usually like to look into what Arab women writers do, and to my disappointment, the titles i found were things like the promise, Lost honour, Queen God knows what… basically books that tell the world what a shitty society we are. I understand that these are usually things that happen to the writers and I am happy they are sharing their painful experiences with us, but these are very rare cases and they are by no means representative of our society… what about the millions upon millions of normal women, how come no Arab women are writing about our normalcy? So I would not say what is wrong with these people as Natasha says because they are doing their homework but rather what is wrong with us? So finally i settled for a book by a Jewish Writer called Revenge, that talks about an israeli girl looking to avenge her father who was shot by a palestinian “terrorrist” if they have enough pride to say they are good and we are bad, while we always write about how shitty we are, then maybe that is why they are winning and we stay shitty!
3- The Third thought is of course we have so many books about honour killing, how could we avoid problems like this, when we have these two forces working against each other in the Arab world. First is the extreme conservative,if you go out of the house you are dead attitude, contradicted by the second one which is presented in our video clips and songs(I found something about this in Eman-Aquacool bloggs called
Bravo Arabic Music Channels ) which little girls watch and look up to and think if their parents and siblings watch and enjoy, then this must be what our societyconsiders normal. I mean this is really confusing, isn't it?
I must say that Prime Mega Store is one of the best bookstores in Amman, but it'd be perfect if they took into consideration the points you mentioned above. Concerning your 1st thought, I'm so sad to tell you that prices are that high for 2 stupid reasons: the money-crazed world we're living, and the “prestige” complex controlling our societies. I've come across many people who refuse to buy something cheap just to feel different! yes, it's that bad.
As for your 2nd thought, I blame it on 2 factors: believing that criticizing our societies is the only way to get others' admiration and to be called: neutral, AND: supporting the wrong kind of writers either for “wasta” or for money which results in poor work that’s good for nothing but destroying the reputation of our culture.
As you said we’ll stay in this situation as long as we’re always negatively criticizing our societies while allowing others to do the same.
Another reason we’ll always stay the same is our reaction to what we read. If we allow books such as the one you selected, then we must allow our writers to respond to it giving them equal freedom. But what’s mostly happening in the Arab world is that we market books against us, and when someone replies, their work is considered a violation of many laws.
So if we want to improve we need constructive criticism, mentioning the good sides we’re proud of, and give the green light for talents (that does not mean giving the freedom of extremists in any field). And of course on top of all this we need to fix our societies and make them moderate (what you’ve mentioned in your 3rd thought).
Eman-Aqua
(http://livejournal.com/users/)
I dont know what to comment on this very packed entry. The thing is our societies tend to be very critical and negative in terms of thinking and expressing, all you need to do is say to your friends you did something, anything really and they will jump at you to tell you how bad your choice is, or find one million little things that are worth critisizing. that applies to our writers, they are part of the society and they conform with the general trend, the truth: critisim, is what brings money… Why dont you write yourself?!
(http://livejournal.com/users/)
Actually i agree with this person, instead of feeling bad about the lack of books, why dont you write about people like us?!!!! maybe that would get more people to write.
Sammar B.
(http://livejournal.com/users/)
Mariam,
I do not think that we can refer to someone who is translating a book that has been proved to be a hoax as “someone who is doing his job” In this case he would be doing the humanity a favour by Not doing his job;-)
Natasha;-)
(http://livejournal.com/users/shagfeh)
Natasha… please explain to me what you just said here. honeslt i had no clue!!!!
(http://livejournal.com/users/madas)
Prime “Mega” stores is a classic example of Jordanian cultural finesse; holds potential that is pushed deep bellow the surface. An oak seed that takes, sometimes, years to grow, if ever. It's like watching paint drying off the wall… Slower than a sloth moving up the trees of the rain forests of Costa Rica.
Browsing the Prime Mega awe-inducing fantastic glorious majestic super history-making (seriously, what's with the name?! AH! If only people had to pay a penny for each word they utter!)joint one is bound to bump into the odd worthy title. No doubt. However, it has long been a known fact that you can't do that on a relatively small budget. But alas, specialisation has never been the name of the game around here.
Even worse is the pricing policy of the place. It doesn't take much for someone who reads to find out how most of the titles are at least 150% more expensive. Mind you though, I am not even getting near the futile comparison between books prices in the parts of the world where reading is the bread of the day. I am talking about this arid region that is dubbed Middle East (I found more “East” in the European part of Turkey than in this clumsily westernised part of the world). Most of the books at Prime are imported from a Lebanese distributor called Levant. The people at Prime forgot to remove the price tag with Levant name off their books. The price on that price tag read in dollars. The funny thing is that Prime convert each dollar into a JD.
Anyway sorry for the ramblings… That wasn't my intention. I was supposed to recommend few titles
Here they are:
1- The PolySylabic Spree (Nick Hornby) - It's about the famous hip Brit writer's personal project of setting a certain number of books to read each month and see how he keeps up with the self-imposed schedule. Also brief review of the books he read during that period.
2- The Ordinary Person's Guide To Empire (Arundhati Roy) - A collection of articles she published the theme of which revolves around the post 9/11 world. She's quite passionate and uncompromising, and she sure compels one to have an opinion.
3- Terror And Liberalism (Paul Berman) - Berman shows eloquently and rather logically how a genuine spiritual inspiration can be twisted into a fanatical demand for murder.
4- Snow (Orhan Pamuk) - I would safely say the greatest novel to come out in the last ten or fifteen years. A must read.
Goodness gracious me! That was some babbling! Barely a comment eh? lol
Anyway, enjoy.
Ameen Hannoun
(http://livejournal.com/users/)