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.

Are you Malaysian or Malaysiana?

We were at the tail end of our question and answer session after my talk: Malaysian Writing in English – the Silverfish experience, at the MalaysiaKu event on the 16th of September at the Bangkung Row, when Farish Noor joined us. After listening to the discussions for a while he asked what I thought about the label ‘Malaysiana’ commonly used by local bookshops to designate books from and about the country. I told him, I thought the term was insulting. One does not find local books in an Indonesian bookshop labelled Indonesiana, or in the Philippines as Filipiana, or whatever in Thailand. (Said one wag after the event: bookshops in India don’t have an Indiana section either.) In most countries, the majority of books in their bookshops would be those by their own authors, unlike Malaysia where most of our titles are Anglo-American! It has been said before: this is a bizarre country.

After 50 years of independence, we are still being told that we are Malaysianas. Watch the Malaysia Truly Asia tourism commercial or look at the giant pitcher plant at Dataran, and you’ll understand. We are told we are an exotic species; that we live in this Fantasy Island, this theme park; that we should constantly grin like ninnies, be perpetually in costume, and dance. Welcome to the Brown and White Malaysiana Show. (Farish A Noor quotes from a sixties tourism brochure in his book From Inderapura to Darul Makmur: Berserah, situated a few miles away from Kuantan is a typical fishing village of the East Coast. Seeing these brown fishermen (sic) in their colourful boats returning with their catch is a sight that only the East can offer.)

I went to the finale of a dance festival a week ago. The last time I saw something like this half a century ago on the TV (and not much has changed). Okay, imagine: Awang, Ah Kow and Mutu prancing about the stage in costumes and face-paint. I am aware that shows like this still exist on TV and in tourism events, but I didn’t think I’d see it at a dance festival. One mat salleh woman gave the performance a standing ovation, while her (embarrassed?) husband sat next to her. I thought I had seen her before; having her photograph taken next to that giant plastic pitcher plant. Maybe she was a tourist. (Look, if they can believe that Juliet was a real person who had a house in Verona, they’ll believe anything.)

Going back to the Bangkung Row session, the one before mine was a book launch with a panel discussion. Except that, it was not much discussion. It was a session with lots of vociferous agreement -- ‘I agree with you more than you agree with me’; lots of righteous outrage – ‘I am more outraged than all of you;  and rants that flew across the room in such rapid fire that I took cover behind the seats (and into Milan Kundera’s essays). The topic they were so worked up about? Malaysians  and Malaysianess. (I was there for the last 30 minutes while waiting for my turn.) It was nothing new. Pretty much the same old, same old; I am more outraged that thou; speaking to the converted, and all that.

Three Malaysias were thrust into my face last month: one, (apologies Farish Noor) an exotic multi-culti eastern paradise with pineapples thrown in for effect; two, a country in state of rage-filled dystopia; and, three, the Undilah video by Pete Teo, which the Minister of Information has declared ‘offensive’. I know which one I enjoyed the most.

Here are more stories about the Malaysia we all think we know. Browsing through big Malaysian chain-bookshops could make visitors wonder which country he or she is in; as could some of our national newspapers. A story I have told before is about my acute embarrassment when asked about our Malaysian collection (of English books) by an American academic when we first opened shop in 1999. (It was one of the reasons we decided to start our own publishing imprint.) We had about thirty titles on our tiny shelf; ten of them, part of the Black & White Rhino Press series. Now, we have a collection of over 1250 Malaysian titles, an increase of over 4000%, the largest collection of any bookshop in the country, and growing.

The Malaysian publishing industry in the country is experiencing a minor boom, but one will not get an inkling of this from reading our local newspapers. One excuse: we receive so many books from the publishers and distributors, that our cupboards are full. Our reviewers only pick what they like to read. That’s about right. Many are still reluctant to give local books a chance. Another commonly heard theme from local authors is that they do not like to read local books. Why? Do you think Malaysian publishing is not good enough? If you don’t read them, why should anyone read yours? (This is a strange sentiment indeed, considering how much writings from this country are being recognised and sought after internationally.)

Once, back from a short holiday in Sarawak, I met a gentleman (a good friend) who asked if I visited the cultural village in Santubong where they hold the Rainforest Festival every year. When I said yes, he went on and on about how wonderful he thought it was. When he finally let me get a word in, I said, “Did you notice that the Iban long houses in the show-village are built using steel nails?” He didn’t quite get it, and I was surprised that he didn’t. I thought the whole show-village was touristy and tacky, including the ‘Malaysiana’ cultural show that was complete with face-paint and polyester costumes.

Maybe, the problem is me. My wife says I get insulted too easily. I guess I do, but I can’t see why that’s a fault, though.

Anyway, watch the Undilah video and enjoy. We do take ourselves much too seriously; this is 'a laugh a minute' country.



 

Translations

“We English-speakers are not interested in translations,” says translator Edith Grossman, in a story in Publishing Perspectives (translated from Spanish by Fred Kobrak, that was originally published in La Nación, a daily newspaper in Buenos Aires.)

As a bookseller, I have heard my fair share of this: customers insisting that they do not like books in translation because of what is lost. I have wondered about that, and I have to agree that it would be almost impossible to translate every nuance of one language to another. Let’s take the Malay word merajuk, which is generally translated as ‘sulk’, although the English word does not quite capture all the different shades of meanings it implies. Try translating another Malay word jeling, with all its loaded meanings!

That argument is, certainly, not without merit, but consider what we gain, what our lives would be if we never read Kafka, or Borges, or Saramago, or Kundera, or ... God, the list is endless! There, definitely, is a case for the half-loaf.

Slumdogging

Salman Rushdie, famously (or notoriously) said in his foreword to the Vintage Book of Indian Writing, 1947-1997 that the only writing he considered worth including in this anthology were those originally written in English (apart from Toba Tek Singh by SH Manto). He drew plenty of flak for that, and you can read all about it on the internet, so I do not wish to go there.

Frankly, for me, I am tired of Indian writing in English and have stopped reading them (apart from those by Salman Rushdie and VS Naipaul -- I know, I know) for several years now. Sometimes I forget why. Then, I come across a passage like this (verbatim): Bomanbhai’s wife’s earlobes lengthened with the weight of South African diamonds, so great, so heavy, that one day, from one ear, an ear-ring ripped through, a meteor disappearing  with a bloody clonk into her bowl of srikhand (Kiran Desai’s Inheritance of Loss), and I am reminded why, and I toss the book. (By the way, that sentence also put me off all books on the Booker (and other prize winning) lists. It was waiting to happen.

‘Slumdogging’, is one way of becoming a millionaire. New orientalism sells. Schadenfreude owns the market. (Imagine this dialog, “Ooooh ... it’s so-oo Indian,” said with music score by AR Rahman in the background. Sorry, Daphne.) For me, I’ll take Shivshankar Pillai, NT Vasudevan Nair, OV Vijayan, Asokamitran, UR Ananthamurthy, Bibhuthibushan Bandapadhyay, etc, any day; they are not afraid to tell stories. RK Narayan was not afraid to tell stories.

Is ‘literary’ a synonym for ‘boring’?

Fact is, I am struggling to count the number of books originally written in English, from the UK and the US, that I have read in the last ten years, which has left any impression in my mind -- I have too many fingers. That is not to say there are no good anglophone writers. I am sure there a hundreds of them. Unfortunately, unearthing them is no easy task, given an industry on a death spiral that clings on desperately to the usual suspects. (At one time, I used to buy books by imprints, but even that is not safe anymore.) I had a customer come in once -- anglophone, expatriate, senior with a fair amount of books under her belt -- ask me about a certain book. I said that one could describe it as literary, to which she replied, “You mean boring ...” She was spot on, of course, although I did try to defend the book as I liked the author.

Anglophone writings come in a few broad categories: good story, lousy writing (The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown), good writing, lousy story (On Chesil Beach, Ian McEwen), lousy story, lousy writing (the vast majority) and good story, good writing (like hen’s teeth, like Diane Setterfield’s The Thirteenth Tale). (Guess the winner.) In other words, I am trying to justify why I prefer books in translations. Edith Grossman says that only three percent of the books published in the United States, Great Britain and Australia are translations, whereas in Europe and Latin America this percentage number is between 25% and 40%. Sounds glum, but I look at the positive side: 3% of 300,000 new titles per year works out to 9000, that’s much more than the Anglophone titles I’d like to read!

When I pick up a European, Japanese, or South American title (I am now working towards the Chinese and African), I can be almost guaranteed a good story told in decent English, because most translators have good language skills, too. (Which is more than you can say of some editors in the big houses -- later-day Harry Potters should have been edited down by 30-50%.) No verbal gymnastics, no showing off, no pretensions, and no earrings or meteors. One may argue, it’s because the translated titles have already been curated, but I don’t care.

Imprints

It’s strange that I should say this, given that I am a publisher of English language books. Malaysia is not an Anglophone country, and English is the second or third language of most Malaysians, which means the authors do not necessarily think in English, hence giving their stories a ‘translated’ flavour, which is fascinating.

Ultimately, this question must be raised: how is Anglophone writing to save itself? Go back to imprints, I’d say. Let a genre or title be identified with an imprint that defines its quality. The sci-fi, fantasy, horror people already know that. The rest of us can do worse than watch and learn.

You know, I used to bristle at one time if anyone suggested that I was reading ‘story’ books; mere story books! Ah ... but, I was so much older then; I’m younger than that now.

And, the fat lady sings

Or, so says MobyLives. The end of an era? Not quite, I think. After all, the story of the modern book is 600 years old, while that of Borders (at least its predatory incarnation) is about fifteen (forty, if you take it back to its origins). I first heard of Borders when they set up shop in Singapore in 1997, its first store outside the US. In 2003, Borders had 1249 stores worldwide under its own name, and Waldenbooks, which it owned. The Australian, New Zealand and Singaporean stores were sold in June 2008, all the stores in UK and Ireland were shut on December 22, 2009 and on July 22, 2011. Borders started closing its remaining 399 stores in the US, with business operations expected to cease by September 2011.

Harry McCracken, in his story , Borders is toast, But don’t blame the E-books in PC World says, MacCraken also says, "Until late 2010, San Francisco had four Borders stores-three of which were within a mile and a half of each other. I'm no retailing genius, but I couldn't figure out how the city could support so many giant bookstores in so little space ... Borders' smarter rival, Barnes & Noble, only had one store in San Francisco, although that, too, is now gone; there will be no major chain bookstores in the city once the last Borders is history."

(I have written before about the bizarre situation in the Klang Valley when we had twelve mega-bookstores here when Singapore had two. And Bangsar Baru had three MPH branches with their huge Mid-Valley store a kilometre away. Go figure. Then, when there is a financial crisis, the banks will get bailed out while the rest of us pay for it.)

He adds, “If e-books didn't exist, I'm pretty positive that Borders would have still collapsed in much the same way. It might have cratered even if the Internet had never been invented ... Borders is dying (dead?) because it simply wasn't very good at selling books in the 21st century.” I thought it sounded a tad defensive, but I am more inclined to agree with this view rather than with all those others who blame the demise of the chain (no, the entire book industry) squarely on e-books. 

It has been a long time coming, and (to me, at least) a certain inevitability was always part of the script. One could feel the tiredness. It was as if Borders did not want to continue despite the quote in The Detroit Press by defense attorney, Paul Magy, ‘Borders really does want to continue, and I think they really do care about their employees.’ But, is this the end of the physical bookstore, as Laura Bartell, a bankruptcy law professor at Wayne State University says (in the same story)?

What are the implications of Borders closing shop? "The chain's demise could speed the decline in sales of hardcover and paperback books as consumers increasingly turn to downloading electronic books or having physical books mailed to their doorsteps," says the Wall Street Journal.’ So, is Amazon.com, with almost every title in print on its list, the winner? Or, will e-books rule? Or, both? Or, neither?

Miles of bookshelf space have been wiped out. More will disappear if Barnes and Noble goes under, or is sold. There will be less space for new titles and new authors, and one can’t see independents taking up the slack in the short term. Still, in contrast to dozens of blogs and websites I’ve read, I’m not unhappy to see them go. Borders was an aberration; a bull in a China shop. I can live with a bookshop that has every title in the universe, as long as they play fair. Borders didn’t. They undercut the market, sold books below cost and made hundreds of independents bankrupt. The good news is, they are gone. The bad news is, Amazon is now a virtual monopoly.

I have no sentimental attachment to Borders. When I was in school, I loved the MPH on Stamford Road in Singapore. Later, in KL, I became very fond of the MPH in Bangsar Baru. I would be sad to see MPH go, although they are nothing like what they used to be.

Says the New York Times, ‘The news exposed a deep fear among publishers that bookstores would go the way of the record store, leaving potential customers without the chance to stumble upon a book and make an impulse purchase. Publishers have worried that without a specific place to browse for books, consumers could turn to one of the many other forms of entertainment available and leave books behind.’

Help! The sky is falling!