Time for an MAFB Fair -- A Malaysia Alternative Frankfurt Book Fair?

Well, we have the KLAB Fair -- KL Alternative Book Fair -- so why not an MAFB Fair?

The Frankfurt Book Fair is on 10 October 2012, and Malaysia's official Frankfurt Bookfair organisational dance drama has started, and is getting quite tiresome. Again. It appears that the Malaysian pavilion at Frankfurt this year is going to become another event comprising of the usual suspects, for the usual suspects, by the usual suspects. For some it will be junkets: air fares and hotel accommodation, and all other expenses.

Like in the case of anything organised 'officially' by Malaysia, the laws of entropy have long set in.

My first year at Frankfurt was 2010. I was there as a guest of the Book Fair and not the Malaysian contingent, and I had my own stand in Hall 5.  (Many were surprised to see two Malaysian stands there!) Anyway, I decided it would be impolite not to visit the country's official pavilion, and I so did. It was humongous, and some would have even regarded it as pretty.  But where were the books? Then I found them; a couple of dozen hidden in the crevices. It felt like a monumental waste of money.

"A book fair should be about books, not about a manufactured tourism culture," I said to one of the organisers last year. "There are dozens of independent publishers in the country, and they are doing fantastic work."

So last year, we had a real book fair stand, and many visitors and inquiries. The theme was Books Enrich the Mind. (I had no part in making that up!) Books by several independent publishers were displayed, and the stand actually looked good, worthy of a book fair.

Unsubstantiated rumours say that the theme for the Malaysian pavilion this year will be wayang kulit. Don't ask. Is the Malaysian Tourism Board going to pay for it? Again, don't ask. While the cost per exhibitor last year was RM1000.00 (for a 2 sq. m. space), this year (according to usually reliable sources), it will be around RM7000.00. Apparently, it has been decided that publishers are commercial entities, and they should be asked to pay more.

So its back to the usual suspects again. This sum is fine if someone else is paying for it, and for big publishers who have already made it. But for the rest of us, independent publishers, who take our work seriously, who have to account for every cent paid out and received, RM7000.00 is a hefty sum. (This sum does not include airfares and accommodation.)

This gets even more glaring when one considers that a 4 sq. m. stand at Frankfurt (with a tables and two chairs) will cost about RM4500.00, which if shared by two publishers will come to RM2250.00 each. Certainly, it will have no 'pavilion' look, but who needs that if it pushes up costs by over three times?

The idea of a kongsi stand is to bring down costs; so more can participate. It's about sharing. There's no point to a kongsi when some get a free ride at the expense of those who struggle daily to barely survive. With airfares touching the RM4000.00 mark, and astronomical accommodation and subsistence costs, while one does not expect handouts, one also does not enjoy being exploited. Was the budget for the wayang kulit pavilion discussed and approved by all the other participants? How much of the budget allocation is going to be used for airfares, hotel accommodation and subsistence?

So is it time to organise an MAFB Fair for publishers who are tired of subsidising unnecessary and expensive pavilions? With just over RM2000.00 a piece (excluding airfares, hotel and other costs) we can set up a handsome modern stand for books, and only books.

Raman Krishnan
Silverfish Books

The literary fiction debate

I haven't done it in a long time but last week, when I saw a news heading on Pulse that said, 'Man Booker Prize 2012 Longlist announced,' I clicked the link. First, congratulations to Tan Twan Eng on making the list. Second, it has been sometime since I lost interest in the Man Booker lists.

I cannot remember when that happened. Maybe, it was the year Peter Carey's True History of the Kelly Gang won the prize over Matthew Kneale's English Passengers. I read both and, as much as I like Peter  Carey, I couldn't understand the choice. Was it not literary enough? But, it sure was damned good story telling! Perhaps that was the problem; it had a story. Or maybe it was the year Yann Martel's Life of Pi won the Booker. After reading a few pages about a Tamil boy named Patel (What? All Indians are Patels? Do editors no longer check facts?), and a corny dialogue between a (Christian) priest, a pundit and an imam (which was not too many pages into the book), I tossed it aside. After that it was DBC Pierre's Vernon God Little that put me off. I did not even try to finish the book. The proverbial last straw was Kiran Desai's The Inheritance of Loss: '... 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.'

That is literary?

My major problem, of course, is that I am a bookseller. Many years ago, one well-read customer (a senior and native English speaker) asked me about a certain book. After an infinitesimal pause, I described it as 'literary'. Maybe she caught my pause, or maybe she had already made up her own mind about that 'l' word. She said, "You mean boring." I was embarrassed, and she was right.(I don't recall the title of the book, but remember it as one of those prize-winners, and quite excruciatingly boring.)

It is all well and good for barely literate chain-store sales clerks: a 'The Winner of the ... Prize' sticker on the cover is enough information. Let the buyer beware. Unfortunately, that doesn't work at Silverfish Books. Everyone here reads, and widely too. And we are expected to know, and (worse still) to give customers an honest opinion.

Arghhhh!

Prize-winners are not the only books we have difficulty selling. There is nothing in modern Anglo-American literature, to inspire us any more. "Enough about Jewish mothers. Enough," I screamed at Philip Roth's Portnoy's Complaint all those years ago, before tossing the book. Now I scream, "Enough about Indian mothers, enough about arranged marriages, enough about incestuous rape, enough about bound feet, enough about breasts like mangoes, enough about ... oh, hell."  "Enough, Jonathan Franzen; stop whining. You sound like a aeroplane getting ready for take off." (But, I admit, I still have a weakness for Salman Rushdie and JM Coetzee, although they are now merely pale imitations of their old selves.)

So what does an indie bookseller do? Thank God for the Europeans, and the Latin Americans, and the Africans, and the Chinese, and the Japanese, and South Asians who don't write in English, and the Vietnamese, and ... everyone else. Jose Saramago is one of our best selling authors. And we can push Arturo Perez Reverte and (now) Carlos Ruiz Zafon without cringing. If you want to look clever, read Milan Kundera. Garcia Marquez, Vargas Llosa and Jorge Amado are our perennials. If you like the bizarre, try Mo Yan; the kinky, Tanizaki; or exquisite beauty, Kawabata. As for Indians, I prefer authors from Kerala, Kanataka, Andhra and Tamil Nadu -- yes, the southerners. Bengali writers have been a tad overexposed and, besides, they appear to want to write mostly in English now; following the money trail.

So it was not without some amusement that I read the story in Salon.com: English teacher: I was wrong about “Hunger Games”.

"I urge my students to read smart new books. But it turns out that acclaimed literary fiction isn't better than YA," says Brian Platzer an eight grade English Teacher. He continues, "With so many adult readers of the Harry Potter, Twilight and Hunger Games series, journalists are more frequently asking the question, What, if anything, separates literary fiction from genre fiction in general and young adult fiction specifically?" After having convinced his student to read one of those current 'literary' novel, he concludes, "I stole hours from James’ summer vacation when he could have experienced the same kind of pleasure watching a sitcom or thriller."

So there.

A story without good language is still a story. A story with good language is a good one, maybe even a great one. A book with good language, but no story is meaningless. The result is either a freak show (in which case the author should join a circus), or is a substitute for valium.

So, dear reader, don't be ashamed of a book you like just because it has a story. But, seriously, try one of those books in translation. Remember, translators need to have extremely good language skills to pull it off. And, considering how much money they make (compared to authors), they can only be doing it for the love of it, and because they think it's important.

Raman Krishnan
Silverfish Books