Hang Tuah lives

"Hang Tuah was not Malay."
"Are you trying to pick a fight with me?"
"It is the truth."
"How could you say that? That’s the most absurd thing I have ever heard," Subuh stares at Angeh.
"He was not a Malay man."
"What else was he? A lost Arab?"
Jumaat laughs. SiTumi remains quiet and observes his friends.
"Hang Tuah was an aboriginal man like me. He was Semang."
"What?" Jumaat and Subuh say in unison.
"His name was SiTuah, not Hang Tuah; that was the name Malays gave him in Malacca. SiTuah is a common name among the Semang people. It is common to put a prefix Si in front of one’s name in our community, like SiTumi."
"I seriously doubt that," Subuh shakes his head.
"It is the truth. When Malacca fell to the Portuguese, Tuah escaped to Perak. He lived with the aboriginal tribes here and was elected as their leader. He became the chief of a village called Suah Padi Village near Changkat Melintang in Perak. He later died in Lambor Kanan, a town half a day’s journey from his village."
"I very seriously doubt that," Subuh says again.
"Tuah was not only a hero for the Malays, he was a hero for all."
Jumaat and Subuh look at one another.
SiTumi smiles, but says nothing.

The Beruas Prophecy by Iskandar Al-Bakri, Silverfish Books, 2011

Hang Tuah is a great story; so strong that even the Chinese and the Orang Asli want a piece of it. It is a good Malaysian story; unfortunately, it cannot be taught in schools because it is not history; it is a myth, or so says Emeritus Professor Khoo Khay Kim. He is right, of course. Not only is there no historical evidence, the story has many contradictions. (Was it Hang Kasturi he fought or Hang Jebat?) But the Hang Tuah story has far deeper roots than the good professor gives credit, emotional roots, which are not surprising, given that his interest is in history. One dismisses myths at one’s own peril, although it has become increasingly fashionable to do so in some circles (especially in this country).

The power of the myth

An interesting demonstration of the power of the myth was provided by the Sethusamudram project in India that began in 2005, involving dredging the shallow waters of the Palk Straits known variously as Adam’s Bridge, Ram Sethu or Ramar Palam, to reduce navigation distance between east and west of the country by some 650 km. In May 2007, Subramanian Swamy of the BJP challenged the dredging of the Adam’s Bridge arguing that it is a man-made structure going back to Hindu mythology despite Archeological Survey of India (ASI) and the Geological Survey of India (GSI) both having conclusively proved that it is a natural feature. Finally, in July 2008 the Government was compelled to withdraw its submission from ASI due to political and religious sensitivities.

That is the power of the myth. Rama and Hanuman may have been merely products of a fertile imagination (or imaginations), but try telling the 800 million Hindus in India that the Adam’s Bridge was not built by Hanuman, and a horde of monkeys, for Rama. The Ramayana has been a part of the daily life of Hindus for milliniums, and is, on top of that, a great story. Also, one could try telling 1.8 billion Christians that, since there are no historical records currently, Jesus or Moses and other biblical characters are not real. Some may be willing to accept the absence of hard records, but that would hardly diminish the relevance of these stories in their lives for over two thousand years (with minor variations).

“There should be no question that we should pursue the truth” said the headline in the New Straits Times on Sunday 29 January over an op-ed piece. (The rest of the story was not worth reading.) Really? Are you ready for the truth? How much of history is about the truth, whatever the good professor says, or believes it should be. He would protest that history is not perfect, but the shocking reality is how imperfect it is. But is that really a problem? "Western societies remembers its historical figures and separates legend and history ..." Khoo was quoted in the NST interview on the same day. Unfortunately, reality has a way of upending statements like that.

Agincourt

(There are hundreds of examples, but this is a good one): The Battle of Agincourt, which was the centrepiece of the play, Henry V, by William Shakespeare, has been taught for centuries in schools in Britain as a major English victory against a numerically superior French army in the Hundred Years' War. (It was also part of my school curricullum in the early sixties.) According to that version of history (or legend, depending on who you ask), Henry V deployed his exhausted English army of 1500 men-at-arms and 7000 longbowmen,  against a French army of 8000 men-at-arms, 4000 archers and 1500 crossbowmen in the vanguard, and two wings of 600 and 800 mounted men-at-arms, and, complete with a rousing speech, defeated the enemy. This victory of "the band of brothers" became the stuff of popular legend, complete with folk songs. Not so, say modern historians, especially the French (and there is enough information on that on the internet for the reader to check out). The truth is more complicated. But, so what? That victory at Agincourt, that myth, that legend, that lie, played a huge part in making Britain what it became; it gave the Brits self-belief, that cocky confidence that made them the greatest imperial power the world has ever known (whether one likes it or not).

That story alone should be enough to discourage devaluation of legends. I have always been fascinated by the influence of myth, however patently false they are, and how history and science remain powerless it their presence. Is it only a matter of time before myths are broken down and replaced with truths? What would happen then? No more stories and no more storytellers? Imagine living in such a world; will we even remain human? We can live without food for a while, but once we stop telling (or listening to) stories, we're dead, even if there's still a pulse.

Hang Tuah may be a myth, but that does not in any way take away its relevance and power. Khoo, in dismissing its value (albeit only with respect to history) has stepped on an emotional minefield. One can take away Hang Tuah (or Hang Jebat) from the Malay ethos as much as one can attempt to remove the Ramayana from Hindus, or Journey to the West from the Chinese. Myths give us our aspirations and inspirations; our rights and wrongs; our prides and prejudices. But I agree;  they should not be part of the history syllabus. Their content is cultural and should be part of the humanities. Literature would be a good place. Unfortunately, this subject is either not taught at all, or chucked under language. (Literature with a small 'l'; what the hell is that?!)

Why do language departments in universities teach Literature, with all their provincial interpretations? Literature studies should be open and not subject to language limitations. One should be able to study and analyse Hang Tuah, Ramayana or the Journey to the West in the same class, or even Kalidasa, Cervantes and Shakespeare (or any other combination). But that calls for enlightenment minds, a commodity in extreme short supply at the moment in this country. 'Parochial' is the best we've got.

On a parting note: The late Professor Lim Chee Seng told us how he was taken on a tour to visit Juliet's house in Verona. Yes, that same Juliet of Shakespeare's fiction. If the Italian tourism officials can do that, surely it's not too much for the museum authorities of Melaka to pass off a fake tomb as Hang Tuah's.

Raman Krishnan
Silverfish Books

Living in interesting times

It was the best of times, and the worst of times for the book industry in 2011; a year of living dangerously. Borders finally shuttered its stores after a long terminal illness. It seemed like the end of an era when, in fact, it was not. The international age of the superstore started only in 1999, when the super chain store opened shop in Singapore. Within 12 years, it was all over. Twelve years is not an era; it is an aberration. It was bizarre to any thinking person: how could bookstores that operated on such small profit margins, most of which they were giving away as discounts on bestsellers, afford to rent such large expensive real estate in prime locations in major cities throughout the world? After killing off thousands of independents over the decade, the romance with the mega bookstore has ended, leaving the landscape looking like Japan and Germany after the second world war.

A war zone

If book retailers tried to defy gravity, the 'big four' publishers were involved in a weird outer-space ballet in the first decade of the second millennium. By some accounts, out of 300,000 new titles published by Anglo-American industry, 3,000 or one percent made it to bookstore shelves, given three months to perform before being axed. Most books sold in double digits, many of those shortlisted for the Man Booker doing no more than three digits. Add to this overprinting and the SOR terms for book retail, it was waiting to be exploited and it was (by the major chains). The wreckage in the aftermath of this disaster looks like another war zone.

In Frankfurt, I decided to walk around Hall 8, the international hall, on Friday afternoon of the Bookfair after most business transactions had been concluded. In the last -- or was it the first -- row, I came across the stands for remaindered book dealers from the US and the UK. I was browsing through one, The Book Depot, and speaking to the bloke who was there, who asked me where I was from. You should have seen his face light up when I told him that I was from Malaysia. He has several Malaysian customers, he said happily, and rattled off a few names. I was not surprised to hear the name of one independent remainder-books shop, but when I heard the names of the other two, both major chains in the country, I was taken aback. So the big boys are in it, too. It’s no wonder The Book Depot guy’s face lit up. Looks like I've got another live one, here!

The Yellow Submarine

2011 was also the year of the e-book and print-on-demand (POD). The e-book is of the future, and is still work-in-progress (as anyone who’s looked at the free download of The Yellow Submarine from the iBook store can see). How big it is going to be? That depends on how creative the products become. Something is bound to happen, there are too many talented people out there for it not to. As for POD, we have always had vanity publishing. It has now gone high-tech, although most sales numbers are still in single or double digits. POD is good for keeping publisher’s backlists in print, but that’s not the only reason to support it.

I read this in a Publishing Perspective’s story, What is the ‘New’ Publisher? : ‘The “new publisher” is a creative intermediary between the author and reader, and not merely a gatekeeper.’ Strange. That’s what I used to think all publishers were about -- to be creative intermediaries. As a bookseller, I was frustrated when local distributors (who don't read) decided what books the people got to buy. Life was bad enough with government censorship, only to discover later that big Anglo-American publishers subscribed to the same ethos. POD is, in part, a reaction against this hegemony. It is a little sad, because there are many talented writers out there who will have to be satisfied with double digit sales because they do not avail themselves of the ‘creative intermediary’ role good publishers can provide.

Maybe, like Borders and super stores, that hegemony will break. After all, they are run by MBA’s and, if there is more money in watered down syrup, they’ll shift. Despite the unrelenting cry in the media in 2011: the book is dead; the book is dead, we say, “Long live the book.”

Happy New Year.

Raman Krishnan
Silverfish Books

Sharjah: three stories

iOS rules

I went back to my room after my 6.30am breakfast -- yes, I’m one of those disgusting people -- to hang up my clothes (I had checked in only at 12.30am) and returned to the lobby of the Holiday International Hotel at ten to deal with my emails, read some news from home on the Malaysian Insider, and wait for the twelve o’clock bus to take us to the Sharjah Chamber of Commerce for the opening of the professional programme. About eleven-thirty, I saw a crowd forming at the ground floor and guessed these were the other participants -- many hanging about chattering and many others, like me, busy on laptops and mobile devices, many with the bright white Apple logo. I smiled. I wondered, unkindly, how many of them were fashion accessories.

The professional programme on Tuesday, 15 November was revealing. The event was unusual enough, not to mention fascinating, for me. It was speed-dating on steroids: imagine a hundred and fifty publishing professionals from around the world, buyers and sellers, all confined to a room for six hours (generously watered and fed, no doubt), meeting, matching and making deals, many prearranged or match-made, but several spontaneous. On final count I got six requests for ePub (iOS, I assume), two for printed, one for pdf and one for Mobi editions (for Kindle, I think) of my books. Or, in terms of titles: 13 ePub, five Mobi, two pdf and two printed books.

So, in my totally unscientific survey, amongst publishing professionals, iOS rules.

IQ84

This is one book I had decided I was not going to bother to read. The hype was enough to kill it for me. Then, when I saw the book (from afar) in Frankfurt, I said: there's no way I’m going to waste my time on that huge tome. Then it showed up in the shop, at Silverfish, just before my Sharjah trip. The weight of the book, its cheesy page-design and its oh-so-Japanese Mikado: the pop opera dust jacket (Harvill Secker edition), had me resting my head on my hands with a sigh. I was not a great fan of Murakami, although I am not one of those who think it’s cool to exalt the virtues of his namesake, Ryu, like many, even those who have never read him -- I don’t feel that insecure -- but I did like Kafka on the Shore. I’m not taking this to Sharjah, I reiterated. Everything I want to read is in my iPod Touch.

Still, curiosity, go the better of me and I read the first few pages, if for no reason other than to criticise it. I got hooked. The book travelled with me to the Sharjah International Book Fair (SIBF), in the cabin, and was my companion in the hotel through my trip.

What can I say? Haruki Murakami is a master storyteller, and 1Q84 is a masterpiece. A love story in the midst of religious fanaticism, and a literary-fraud sideshow. I love it, and it has earned a permanent (and prominent) place on my shelves (although I kept reaching out for my editors pencil behind my ear throughout Book 1 -- but, surprisingly, not in Book 2&3 -- and it has the appearance of a rushed job), and even if the book is heavy enough to kill a cat if you decide to toss it.

The third-world trap

The professional programme was organise to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the SIBF. All countries want to have book fairs; all countries now have book fairs. Trading rights is the new thing. Sharjah’s professional programme was ambitions. While the SIBF was not a humungous affair like Frankfurt, it was targeted and effective with, I suspect, a higher deal rate. Other countries caught  in a third-world trap with a ‘can’t do’ attitude, could do worse than pay attention.

Sharjah, obviously, has long term plans for this programme: it was too well planned and organised to be a one-shot-wonder. The boldest  move has to be the USD300,000 translation grant in its first year. (Will there be a bigger grant next year? Let’s see.) All deals done during the professional programme on 15 November 2011 are eligible for grants ranging from USD1500 for children’s books and up to USD4000 for general titles, from and to any language. On 17 November, the organisers had already received 135 applications; a total of 500 is expected.

Your move, Malaysian National Book Council.

(The middle income trap is about the pocket, the third-world trap retards the mind.)

The enlightened amateur

At the forum on the opening day of the Frankfurt Book Fair discussing the Trade and Copyright Centre in ASEAN (an initiative mooted by the National Book Council of Malaysia) one of the speakers sees it fit to emphasise: Malaysia is a small country with only 27 million people.

About fifty feet behind the Malaysian stand is the modest exhibition of Iceland, the Guest of Honour at this year’s Frankfurt Buchmesse, a country with a population 318,452 (1 January 2011 estimate) that publishes approximately 1500 new titles and sells 2.5 million books a year (8 books per capita), and Reykjavik has just become the fifth UNESCO City of Literature.

(“They might as well invite Bonn as the next Guest of Honour, it has a bigger population than Iceland,” says one German publisher, questioning the choice of this year guest, and adds, “To date, nothing big has ever happened to any of the previous Guests of Honour.”

Still, I had to visit their stand.

I meet Mr Kristjan B Jonasson, the president of the Icelandic Book Publishers Association, a fit, trim individual who looks like he cleans volcanoes on weekdays and does triathlons on weekends. He says that publishing in Iceland went professional in the late 19th century. Many in the industry have degrees in publishing, he says, although there still are many amateurs involved.

“In Britain, I never heard of anyone taking a degree in publishing, or even taking a course in it ... Despite the revolutionary advances in technology, British publishing remains the last outpost of the enlightened amateur -- but without the protection from predatory market forces that such amateurism is supposed to provide.” David Cornwell (aka John le Carre) in Publishing Perspectives.

He adds, “The German publishing, as I come to know it, is made of stronger stuff. It knows its worth and the worth of its readership ... Nobody knows better the value of free speech than those who have been deprived of it ...”

Interesting. I had to ask the Germans.

RK. Is it true that all publishers in Germany need to have professional degrees?
Sabine. Look around you; what do you think?

What I see around me is impressive, Sabine’s cynicism notwithstanding.

But Mr Cornwell's points did get me thinking. Let's start with worth: do Malaysian publishers know the worth of their products or their readership? Does Random House -- ironically owned by a German company, Bertelsmann, since 1998 -- know the worth of their products or their readership? Do any of the other major publishers?

When I set up shop in 1999 I used to buy my Penguins from STP Distributors. I decided to visit them once to see what else they had in their warehouse, and noticed a large stack of books neatly tied up in bundles in one corner. On inquiry, I was told that these were Penguins to be sent for pulping. Being new in the business, I was horrified. What are they going to do to my babies?!  Can I buy them, I offered? Sorry. They had instructions to pulp them. Thinking about that incident now, I can only conclude that they new about 'worth' of their books, then. Nowadays, you find Penguins in remaindered bookshops in the city.

Jeff Bezos was once famously quoted (during the e-book wars) as saying that every book is a monopoly. Not only is every book a monopoly, every one of them is a designer product -- written by one author, designed and packaged by one publisher (whoever that may be). One doesn't find Gucci devaluing their products. Why do publishers and (more recently) authors?

I live far away from Mr Cornwell's world (although I am probably more acquainted with his, than he is of mine), but freedom is a chord that strikes us wherever we are and we amateurs do know a thing or two about it that professionals can scarcely begin to understand. We live with it everyday. Can we publish this? How far can we push it? Will people understand? Will people care?

How does one teach a people who have never known free speech understand its value it after it is no longer deprived? How would one teach an elephant brought up in captivity how to run when its shackles are removed? How will it feed itself? These are extreme examples, no doubt, but what is common -- and far more dangerous -- is the illusion of freedom: you can have any colour you want as long as it's black. Everyone professes freedom; as long as he controls the colour scheme. And, what is this thing about freedom in degrees: freaky.

Malaysian publishing models itself largely after the Anglo-American industry, and quite unthinkingly at that. The only professionals in sight here are accountants. It is an industry still generally propped up by the textbook largesse and political cronyism.  For a long time, there was little room for the professional, and the enlightened amateur survived like a cockroach, by avoiding being crushed by a heavy foot. There have been some changes though, particularly in the last ten years. It looks encouraging, although still a little fragile, but one can only live in hope. Interesting work is emerging, even if a little wobbly at times. (I heard that Martrade now considers the Malaysian book industry to be mature, and thus requires no more assistance. Are they kidding?)

No, Mr Cornwell, Britain is not the last outpost of the amateur, gifted or otherwise. One understands your concerns of predatory business destroying entire industries, leaving behind nothing but piles of sucked oranges. Perhaps, the German professional (read unionised) approach could alleviate some bloodshed but, in most of the world, it is the idealistic amateur who keeps the flag flying against tyranny, oppression, harassment, (self or state) censorship, cronyism, political correctness, chronically uneven playing fields, apathy, ignorance and prejudice, often in the face of isolation, loss of freedom, friends and family, sanction, detention, arbitrary imprisonment and (in some extreme cases) death.

It is only the idealistic amateur who continues to slog, long after the accountants and MBAs have changed their horses.