Cambodia: A Book For People Who Find Television Too Slow

by Brian Fawcett

Brian Fawcett pens a ferociously brilliant book that is sure to challenge readers to see the world through a new set of eyes in his “ringing call for… a self-liberation through the very acts of remembering and imagining” ( Los Angeles Times).

Through thirteen wildly imaginative short stories and a passional essay on colonialism and Southeast Asia, A Book for People Who Find Television Too Slow startles, amuses, and infuriates its readers with juxtaposed images and penetrating insights into the media jungle.

Like subtitles read in a foreign film, the pace of Brian Fawcett’s intoxicating prose accelerates quickly and unfolds right before the readers eyes until it is moving more swiftly than the imagines on the evening moves.

Passion stirs in the pages of Fawcett’s book, urging readers to resist the annihilation of memory and imagination in our society.

Genres: Nonfiction, Literature, Short Stories, Essays

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

Reviews

[Peter Landau · Rating 5 out of 5]

Over 30 years ago, Brain Fawcett was already addressing the short-sidedness of literature, its reliance on plot and character and setting and all the other trappings needed to produce the dream of fiction. I like a good page-turner as much as the next guy, but there’s no denying that novels have fallen into a rut. The cliches snap together like Lego and you’re trapped. CAMBODIA: A BOOK FOR PEOPLE WHO FIND TELEVISION TOO SLOW is a path to freedom from these old constraints. It’s a manifesto against navel-gazing and an attempt to wake sleep readers into paying attention to the socio-political events that are shaping our lives. Through a series of short stories that verve from essay to narrative to speculative to humor to absurd and back again, Fawcett grapples with the fundamentally incomprehensible Khmer Rouge genocide of the Cambodian people. But unlike other authors who hide their subtext as if it doesn’t exist and call you ignorant if you can parse it out, Fawcett is explicit. His subtext is sitting on the bottom third of every page, in a book-length essay that speaks on the subject of his stories. It’s not like a teacher’s edition, with the answers in the back, but a thoughtful piece on what bothers him about literature and his obsession with the murder of a people, not so much critiquing the stories as placing them in context.

[Ben Bush]

Each page of this book is divided in two sections: a long odd essay on Cambodia runs along the bottom of the page and short stories on the top two thirds. Pretty successful in that there seemed to be some interesting interplay between the narrative and the essay. The contents are equal parts prescient and dated 80s leftism that felt familiar before I'd read it from growing up with liberal parents. Thought-provoking and unusual, it's a book I'd recommend all the same. I read it because of David Shields' repeated mentions of the importance and innovation he saw in it. It's definitely part of his cannon along with Renata Adler's Speedboat, Chris Kraus' I Love Dick, and Nicholson Baker's U & I.

[Sanad Arida · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was written by Brian Fawcett in 1986, which consists of 13 short stories and a book-length essay, demonstrates mass media's utter domination of North American life and mainly searches for a deeper understanding of Marshall McLuhan's concept of the Global Village and the manipulation of memory by the media. In Cambodia, Fawcett argues that the Khmer Rouge's attempt to obliterate memory and imagination, by executing any literate person or anyone that could read or speak a foreign language, is also happening to people around the world through media's most powerful weapon; the television.

Admittedly, there might be some fallacies regarding Fawcett's argument about the negative effects of the global village. However, given the effective use of rhetorical devices and the persuasive force of some of the points made, i find myself tending to agree with Fawcett's claim that people are being brainwashed by the media.

Fawcett renews my rebellious spirit; against where-ever media and politics are taking us, through his witty and disheartening insight about the inter connectedness of our modern society.

I highly recommend this book to any college student! This book acts as a signal which promotes awareness when the world desperately needs it.

[ea · Rating 1 out of 5]

One star, begrudgingly given!

I honestly don't even know how this book got published. Oh, wait, it was written by a straight white dude in the 80s!! Seemingly Fawcett attempts to relate the cultural homogenization of the 1980s to the genocide which occurred in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. This fails, not only because the principle is absurd, but because despite being a "fair-skinned, extensively if not well educated, teacher, student, urban professional from a rural background" Fawcett is incapable of rationally or logically supporting any of his arguments, instead they peter out into rambling tangents end-butted with cultural criticisms.

Thank God the instructor who assigned this is work retiring or else I would begin a campaign for his dismissal.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

I give the sentiment behind this book 5 full stars, but sentiment alone does not a great book make. It's a bit awkward to read in the internet age we're now in since he talks so much (and negatively) about the "Global Village" and the book was written in 1986. But he is prescient on many things, and his diagnosis of the incredible BS we're fed is right on point. Here's a representative sentence: "The contrary nature of reality in the 20th century: that an almost identical barbarity grows out of an overabundance of technological wealth as comes from its relative absence."

I'd be curious to see Fawcett update this book, or just hear him talk about comparing today's gruesome politics and technology culture with the gruesome politics and culture of tecnology that he was writing about.
For instance, he writes: "Experience is a two-way process; you affect what affects you. That’s how democracy is supposed to function. But if you try to affect your television set or your Big mac, it doesn’t work. You can only consume or refuse those things. Anti-democracy, anti-memory."
So would he feel liberated by blogging, by the internet's invitation to respond and comment? Or claustrophobic because of it?

[Steven Dunlap · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although his perspective looks somewhat outdated from the perspective of the 21st century, Canadian writer and cultural analyst Brian Fawcett uses an innovative format to combine fiction and non-fiction in order to convey his ideas on modernity and the changes we experienced in the 20th century. A single essay shares each page with a series of short stories as the essay runs along the lower half of the page while the stories take the upper half, making you think about the imaginary and the factual at the same time. We wonder what he might think of the internet, but that just makes you think about how much the internet, as it has evolved and not its initial promise, fails to address Fawcett's questions. I read this in the 80s when first published. I recall experiencing one epiphany after another. Worth reading and re-reading.

[Kurt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm curious as to how other people read the book. I read the bottom portion, cover to cover, first, then read the 13 stories on top second, often letting my eyes drift down to the bottom of the page, noting the connections and how Fawcett was creating his own context.

[HILDER RIVERA · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book

[Spark Angel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why its not opening

[Mat · Rating 3 out of 5]

this is this wierd book i found at a used bookstore one. I wouldn't reccomend it for most because it doesn't hang together all that well as a whole. But i have to admit, i'm very glad i read it because a couple details have really stuck with me and i find myself rereading bits of it periodically. There's an essay about the apostle paul as PR man which i find fascinating. Also, the structure of the book with it's concurrent texts has started an obsession with me; one which led me to delaney and seeded some ideas for things i am working on.

[Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

i really liked the format and i liked a lot of the writing. the parts about cambodia were pretty interesting. however, as the book wore on, it seemed increasingly pretentious and irritating -- sort of like 'zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance'. it was also extremely dated, with lots of cultural references to the late '80s.

[Vicki · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a thorny, challenging, brilliant book. A series of essays illustrating and reflecting on the effects of mass media is underpinned by a running commentary (footnoting intentionally not sync'ed to the beginnings and ends of each essay) on how the Khmer Rouge destroyed the memories and imagination of the Cambodian people and culture.

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book about ten years ago and really loved it. In the last year or two, I've made it a goal to read more nonfiction and I decided to start by rereading this book. Really smart, cutting social commentary that's almost over my head.

[Professor · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is an inventive, wonderful hybrid of thirteen short stories with an essay on colonialism and Southeast Asian running across the bottom. Mainly you need to read "Universal Chicken," an amazing, funny story about the destruction of uniqueness.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

That text wants to be free.