This weekend, I managed to get a chance to see the Norman Foster exhibition, The Art of Architecture at KLCC. I had been informed that it was a very good presentation, and that I shouldn’t miss it before it ended. However, what I saw was fairly generic, albeit with some insanely detailed models (the British Museum Great Hall, and the Gherkin were notably excellent). I don’t know whether it was because I had previously seen his work exhibited, but whatever the reason, I left fairly dissapointed.
It was then that my friend suggested going to the local book shop a floor above and perusing the aisles. As we got there, we realised that there was a discussion with an author, whom it turned out to be was Tan Twan Eng – the recent recipient of the Man Asian Literary Award. He was there to promote the winning book, The Garden of Evening Mists. Feeling drawn into the talk, I listened to him answer some questions ranging from the generic (How do you write?) to the probing (Are you a Spiritual Man?). During his talk, he had won me over, and so I decided to buy the book after quickly reading the blurb.
After waiting in line, I managed to also get him to sign my copy. It was during this time of waiting, that I noted two distinct types of people that rubbed me the wrong way. Firstly, there was the Paparazzi-esque lets-take-as-many-photos-with-him-as-we-can-and-hold-up-the-line type. I’m all for taking a quick shot of your favourite author, but I draw the line after 3 different variations of the same group (just the guys, just the girls, just me…). The second type was even worse in my opinion – the Dictator. No, I don’t mean some Middle-eastern General, but rather those people that dictate exactly what they want written on the page. I don’t know about the rest of you, but if I were to finally meet my favourite author, I would think that having anything written from their own brain is infinitely better than proposing to dictate to them, as if I were somehow superior and knew what to write better than they did.
Fair enough, I may have been a bit irritable while waiting in the line, but still. I didn’t dictate to him and I now possess a quirky comment from the author within my copy of the book, which I know is definitely better than asking him to write some overused phrase…Hmm, you never know, maybe I should have asked him to write “Follow your dreams”…
