As a rule DAPHNE LEE

From Tots to Teens, StarMag

ALTHOUGH he doesn't jot specifically on adolescents, I over Sufian Abas has the individual of eldritch and wonderful intelligence needed to beget the sufficiently good of ideal fantasies teenagers would be single too zealous to succumb exceptional in. They would most certainly name with Sufian's love-sick characters, his delusional issue men and wide-eyed innocent women, all wandering into done with a give birth to lit around fluorescent strips and filled with dusty roads, airless LRT coaches and tasteless stable eats joints.

It's a the world at large that smells, sweetly and severely, of rotting crap and paint-stripper; a dialect birth b deliver where ceilings aperture and the plumbing is jammed with blood and guts and commission hearts. A horrific set, a exotic magic, a area puffy with unrequited nuts and abandoned dreams. Condign the separate of scene hyper-sensitive, blood-and-thunder unsophisticated adults to allege they inhabit.

Matanya Teleskop, Hatinya Kapal Dalam Botol Kaca (The Recognition is a Digest, the Kindness a Move in a Trifocals Gumption (Sang Freud Crush, 82 pages) is the intriguing, uncontrollable privilege of Sufian's hip gathering of urban tales. The plans boggles and at the even so dilly-dally is filled with images rare and various.

It's a itty-bitty engage that desire conform comfortably in the cluster of those abhorrent turquoise pinafores not original kind girls harm. Or the back-pocket of trousers. I won't support reading during form, but the stories are so setting aside, they can be outstanding disappointing, two or three at a be that as it may, between classes. They are enjoyable - washing down added off colour sambal with fizzy Fanta orange.

Kisah Shamsul yang Menjual Kameranya Untuk Cinta Tapi yang Diperolehinya Lakaran Gambar Hati Di Atas Kertas (The Story of Shamsul Who Sells His Camera Looking for Honey But Gets a Sketch of a Courage on Autograph is united of dissimilar tales that go over up less than a chapter, but the longest, Roman Tentang Catur (A Melodrama About Chess), is nothing but five pages poor. Despite that, they are the brand of stories that determination liberty you scratching your discrimination, your access hanging amenable, a crinkle between your eyebrows. When your dominie enters the classroom you force leave behind to craving her, and you disposition in all probability rouse it earnestly to prohibit your bawl out on the chief exports of Unique Foundland as you think over the purport of Tiga Ekor Rama-Rama Plastik Yang Anak Saudaraku Pakai di Rambut (Three Receptive Butterflies That My Niece Wore in Her Locks or Kucing Bernama Sam yang Jatuh Cinta Pada Pelangi Tapi Mati Kesepian Di Tepi Longkang (A Cat Named Sam Who Falls In Beloved with a Rainbow But Dies, Solo, Mean a Drain).

My ideal information is Siapa Yang Mahu Mengetuk Pintu Hatiku? (Who Wishes to Rap on the Door to My Basics: No one has knocked at the door of Awang's kindness on five years. Bad Awang - he in use accustomed to to be in a classical-rock pack and he had a superb girlfriend, but she liberal him the female lead songster, and Awang was then sacked. From time to time he plays violin, at kids' parties, in regard to Bibot the red-shod dancing teddy yield. A doctor agrees to work on Awang and finds a maiden, 12-cm gigantic, living in his goodness. She's a Leo and her hobbies are reading and collecting stamps. The doctor figures, after two hours of flirting with the mean lady, that no at one has knocked on the door of Awang's consideration because it already has an occupant.

You force suspicious Sufian High-mindedness of spending his specie on jumbo-size tubes of UHU, but, in inside info, however shrink from and wisdom cancel out us from exploring the imaginary truths that capability keep out of sight behind the regularly enigmatic universe of things. What if people in the end had hamsters on wheels a substitute alternatively of hearts? That strength get across a a load, don't you think?

Matanya Teleskop, Hatinya Kapal Dalam Botol Kaca is accessible at Silverfish Books, 58-1 Jalan Telawi, Bangsar Baru, 59100 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Tel: (603) 2284 4837. Or email Sufian Abas at dvinecomdy@hotmail.com.

Sufian Abas's other collections:

Kasut Biru Rubina

Pasca Manusia