Malaysian Renaissance Man
Farish Noor - fieldwork in India, 2005
By Umapagan Ampikaipakan
I had the pleasure recently of catching up with Farish Noor. He was between a speaking engagement at a conference and catching a flight to Singapore. We had all of 20 minutes and so we indulged in a little bit of book chatter. What follows are some excerpts from our brief conversation.
On what got him reading: “The very first novel I read, in my teens, was actually 1984 by George Orwell. It is a peculiar experience, the first piece of literature that one reads. Because writing, like anything, becomes something lifelong. But there is always that moment of initiation, in a sense, you lose your virginity. You never forget your first novel. As it was my first novel, I thought all books were like that. I was completely unfamiliar with the notion of differences in genre, and style, and the authorial voice. This was literally the first thing I read and I got hooked immediately.
“Reading at the time was actually a clandestine affair. At St John’s we were told that you can’t bring novels to school. So there were two things we would smuggle — books and records. And records were much bigger then. This was long before the age of iPods. And in those days, all these things had to be secreted away, in all sorts of ingenious ways. You needed to know where to hide the Pink Floyd albums, behind which palm tree so the disciplinary teacher would not find it.”
On how it influenced him: “Until today, I am still very much touched by the character of Winston Smith, when he writes in his diary that his was a voice from the past writing for the future. And in my efforts as an academic activist — work that is, by nature, lonely — there are times when you think if any of what you’re doing means anything. Will it just be lost? And like Smith, I write for a generation that is being born at the moment and hope that at one point in the future some of my efforts will not be exaggerated in their value, but at least be given the credit that is due to them. I think that is what every writer, of both fiction and non, would really hope, and aspire to.”
On what reading is all about: “Communication is what reading is all about. Take the Quran. It means recitation. To read. That is why the Quran is a book that is only alive when it is read. You have to read the Quran aloud. Books on shelves do nothing. They contain only data. They contain no knowledge. Knowledge is produced between the interaction of subjectivities. We produce knowledge together. Robinson Crusoe on the island is nothing. It is only when he reads the Bible that he is brought back into society.”
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Extract from article published in the New Straits Times, 26 May 2010
I had the pleasure recently of catching up with Farish Noor. He was between a speaking engagement at a conference and catching a flight to Singapore. We had all of 20 minutes and so we indulged in a little bit of book chatter. What follows are some excerpts from our brief conversation.
On what got him reading: “The very first novel I read, in my teens, was actually 1984 by George Orwell. It is a peculiar experience, the first piece of literature that one reads. Because writing, like anything, becomes something lifelong. But there is always that moment of initiation, in a sense, you lose your virginity. You never forget your first novel. As it was my first novel, I thought all books were like that. I was completely unfamiliar with the notion of differences in genre, and style, and the authorial voice. This was literally the first thing I read and I got hooked immediately.
“Reading at the time was actually a clandestine affair. At St John’s we were told that you can’t bring novels to school. So there were two things we would smuggle — books and records. And records were much bigger then. This was long before the age of iPods. And in those days, all these things had to be secreted away, in all sorts of ingenious ways. You needed to know where to hide the Pink Floyd albums, behind which palm tree so the disciplinary teacher would not find it.”
On how it influenced him: “Until today, I am still very much touched by the character of Winston Smith, when he writes in his diary that his was a voice from the past writing for the future. And in my efforts as an academic activist — work that is, by nature, lonely — there are times when you think if any of what you’re doing means anything. Will it just be lost? And like Smith, I write for a generation that is being born at the moment and hope that at one point in the future some of my efforts will not be exaggerated in their value, but at least be given the credit that is due to them. I think that is what every writer, of both fiction and non, would really hope, and aspire to.”
On what reading is all about: “Communication is what reading is all about. Take the Quran. It means recitation. To read. That is why the Quran is a book that is only alive when it is read. You have to read the Quran aloud. Books on shelves do nothing. They contain only data. They contain no knowledge. Knowledge is produced between the interaction of subjectivities. We produce knowledge together. Robinson Crusoe on the island is nothing. It is only when he reads the Bible that he is brought back into society.”
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Extract from article published in the New Straits Times, 26 May 2010
Dr. Farish Ahmad Noor (born 15 May 1967 in Georgetown, Penang, Malaysia) is a Malaysian political scientist and historian and is presently a Senior Fellow at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. At the NTU he is part of the research cluster on the contemporary development of trans- national religio-political networks across South and Southeast Asia, where he is studying the phenomenon of Muslim, Christian, Hindu and Buddhist religio-political mobilisation in the public domain.
He was formerly attached to Zentrum Moderner Orient (Centre for Modern Oriental Studies) in Berlin, Germany, Sciences-Po Paris, the Institute for the Study of Muslim Society (IISMM, Ecole des haute études en sciences sociale, EHESS), Paris and the International Institute for the Study of the Muslim World (ISIM), Leiden, Netherlands.
He was formerly attached to Zentrum Moderner Orient (Centre for Modern Oriental Studies) in Berlin, Germany, Sciences-Po Paris, the Institute for the Study of Muslim Society (IISMM, Ecole des haute études en sciences sociale, EHESS), Paris and the International Institute for the Study of the Muslim World (ISIM), Leiden, Netherlands.
