Two good things

It is beginning to get a little down beat living in this city these days, what with exploding maidens, disappearing doctors and PIs, astonishing incompetence, and unbelievable hubris. It is almost as if the Chinese curse 'may you live in interesting times' is haunting us. It did arouse my baser instincts in the beginning but I don't feel that way anymore. To paraphrase one expat who came into the shop recently: "What's going on here? There are so many major issues all over the world and people here are only interested on who did what to whom." I had to concede that this is a bizarre country.

However, I am elated by two bits of pretty exciting news (for me at any rate) that came my way in the last week. The first is the publication of the book Tales from the Court by Matthew Thomas. (I'll come to the next one later.) So, what's so exciting about it, you may ask? Another writer, another book. Only that Matthew Thomas is sixty-two years old and has never written creatively before (except for legal briefs). His short story appeared in Silverfish New Writing 5. As far as I know, he is the only Silverfish New Writer from Malaysia, out of more than 150, to have come up with his own volume of short stories in English (I am not counting those who have recycled their previously published stories), and ironically it has to happen after we decided to end the series.

I didn't know that he had never written before when he asked me if I liked his story in SNW5. He asked if he could send me some more. I said, sure. I had almost given him up as 'another one of those' when he sent me his manuscript some two years later. I was delighted. Later when I found out that he had just finished writing them whilst engaged in his full-time legal practice, and that these were not stories he had written years ago, I was gobsmacked. He was certainly not going to spend the next ten years congratulating himself and milking the glory from the one short story in SNW5. And Matthew is no one-hit-wonder. He is already working on his next book.

As Mohamed M Keshavjee, his very good friend, says in the afterword to the book, 'In this book, all ... characters talk to us. The author captures the very essence of their being ... and their little games in life ...' In Tales from the Court are little anecdotes of little people, much like in the works of RK Narayan or Jorge Amado, and not grand narratives. This is a book by Malaysians for Malaysians. Matthew refuses to pander.

Tales from the Court is the second book in Silverfish Books' Malaysian Literature in English series. And Malaysian literature, it is. This is what we hope to be doing from now on: complete books by Malaysian authors. Currently we have six more in our line-up. Yes, we are not prolific. We prefer to take our time, work with authors and produce books they can live with, and we can live with. How many more Matthew Thomases are there out there? Please raise your right hand and step forward. We need more of you.

Our aims are modest -- about a dozen or more Malaysian authors producing good books consistently should boost the industry. Win prizes? Why not? A Commonwealth Writers' Prize for the South East Asia and South Pacific region is certainly not inconceivable. The Booker? Okay, I am going to let fly on something that I have kept bottled up for a while now:

Page 90, Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai, Atlantic Monthly Press, 2005.

'Bomnabhai's wife's earlobes, lengthened with the weight of South African diamonds, so great, so heavy, that one day, from one ear, an earring ripped through, a meteor disappearing with a bloody clonk into her bowl of srikhand.'

Earring? Meteor? If ever there was a schoolgirl simile ... Okay, give her an 'A' for her composition ... clever Form Five schoolgirl ... but a Man Booker? What were they thinking? Is this the epitome of English prose today? (I can imagine the cattiness in the room after the results were announced and she went up to receive her prize ...)

There is more. The book is full of it -- silly similes and stereotypes. (Is there some kind of competition going on, about who can come up with the silliest?)

Anyone surprised why I cannot read books like this anymore? VS Naipaul got it right: '... Indian Writers in English (IWE's) are responsible for creating a body of literature in exile mainly written by writers and read by readers living abroad ...' Yes I know, European and American readers like this shit, it confirms their stereotype and ignorance, and writers make a lot of money. But, again ... a Man Booker? If anyone wrote that at a Silverfish Writing Programme, I will tell them to 'go and take a shower'. (BTW, a customer told us that this book is in the chick-lit section in one major bookshop. Padan muka.)

Gosh, I am making myself all depressed again.

So, while we look forward to rubbishing this year's winner let's go on to the next good thing that happened to me recently. I got my Malaysian International Passport renewed in one hour and fifty-five minutes. Yes, you read that right. They promise a two-hour service with the new kiosks at Pusat Bandar Damansara. I had to test it. It works. Oh boy, does it work. Finally, something in this country works as promised. No form filling, nothing. One passport photo, photocopy of IC, original IC, old passport, two minutes in front of the touch-screen kiosk, and collect your new passport two hours later. Guess what? No queues.

Cool.