Tuesday, March 23, 2004

Finished Moonrise, Sunset, by the late Gopal Baratham. I had wanted to borrow his first and most well-known novel A Candle or the Sun, but no copies were to be found when I was at the local library.

Baratham was a better social activist than writer. The dialogue is clunky -- horribly so when he tries to write Singlish. He has a penchant for off-the-wall characters here, but treats most of them like caricatures. The writing is brash, almost vindictive at times. All these are better suited to political commentary and satire (i.e. A Candle or the Sun) than the metaphysics and drama he tried to tackle in Moonrise, Sunset.

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