Since I work in a book store, and I do like books, it’s been a frequent occurence where a customer would come up with a name of a rather well-known title/author, and become dubious, disappointed, or insulted when I couldn’t figure out what they were talking about. Or when they ask for my recommendation as a book store staff, and I could give none. The expectation of a bookseller be familiar with titles and authors is well justified, and his/her creditbility is effected by how well he/r lives up to that expectation. Realizing that, I accept the unspoken responsibility of becoming fluent with books. With the book borrowing program at BN, I’m trying to read as much as possible on several subjects. It’s really difficult because I’m not a reader, am slow at reading English, needs dictionary all the time, and have trouble concentrating beyond 10 pages (if it’s not fiction). But, like all the things, I gotta keep pushing it. Man! I really hope it’s true when they say “humans have much greater potentials than they exercise now”. I’m short on time.

So I’m gonna try to keep notes in this blog of this “project”s progress, along with other miscellaneous entries. Here’s a brief note on one of the books I read recently, “Wicked”, and since I already wrote on a discussion forum (that’s barely moderate) of it, I’ll, by your pardon, Ctrl C and V.

故事是由”綠野仙蹤”裡的西方壞女巫, Elphaba, 以及她身旁人們的觀點來看她的一生, 因為生來異常的綠皮膚, 又和統治Oz的巫師政治觀點相沖而最後被冠上”壞女巫”一名. 因為外在的不同而不被接受, Elphaba常常對於Oz社會的諸多常規嗤之以鼻. 她的叛逆導致她在生活上一直受到很大的壓力.   書裡面的壞女巫, 雖然是從她的觀點來寫, 並沒有把她寫成一個革命的悲劇英雌(雖然她有試著參與革命活動). 而是寫這個人和比她大又超出她控制的阻力搏斗一生的過程.