Episode 96: Jaunting Down To VivoCity

While heading to VivoCity on 855, I finished reading Jeff Noon's Automated Alice, a quirky hypothetical sequel to Lewis Carroll's own two books about Alice. The language of the novel reads like a modern update of Carroll, although the ideas it presents feel a little dated, to me anyway. I did enjoy the read though, although I'm trying to decide if the ending constitutes an instance of deus ex machina, as it wraps everything up implausibly tidily and conveniently, at the last possible moment. The very last few paragraphs do feel like they're trying a little too hard to inject ambiguity into the matter as to whether it was the real Alice, or her automated 'twin twister', Celia, who made it back to the past. Ah well, it was a small quibble. I had lunch with Shaun and Yi Hua, both of whom I haven't seen since the latter's birthday barbecue. (I just realised that while typing this post.) It was nice, just being able to see old friends again. Not that there's anything wrong with the new ones, but the old ones anchor me to the past, and then only as much as I want to be. I sometimes wonder how all my friendships will be like, when everyone's started working, and I wonder which ones will survive and which ones will fade into the pleasant rosiness of the past. Then I met Ben Chan for a drink and some browsing through the shops. Ended up not buying anything today other than some books from PageOne that I haven't been able to find at Borders or Kinokuniya and another 1 TB hard drive. No more worries about not being able to store all my TV shows! Was supposed to meet my cell for dinner, but we ended up cancelling. Ah well...