The English language fixation

"The study of literature in the national education system should not only focus on English literature," said Royal Professor Ungku Abdul Aziz Ungku Abdul Hamid, according toa Bernama report datelined 24 August 2012. "He said the education system should instead promote the study of literature in all of the world’s languages."

Interesting, but not at all surprising coming from the good professor. It is a sentiment I share, and have felt this way for a very long time. (Caveat: it has nothing to do with the 'look East' policy, which was really political and, seriously, quite lame).

Do we have an English fixation? Yes, I think we do. Not only that; some of us even have an England fixation. Ever seen Malaysians supporting the England football team? They can be so vociferous that one cannot help but cringe and feel embarrassed for them. Many English expatriates and tourists (in Malaysia) have expressed the exact same sentiments.

Can the colonised mind ever truly be free?

But that aside, let's examine the question: can the colonised mind ever truly become free? Decades ago during my first trip to London, I was astonished at how Roman everything looked. And a trip to the US confirmed my worst suspicions: why are they trying so hard to look British? Indians love everything English, so much so that South Indian restaurants will try to sell you tomato soup as a side order (or starter) to thosai with chutney meal.

One understands influence, but one also immediately smells worship. Maybe it's the seduction of power, nostalgia, romance, an inferiority complex, a memory of more equal times, or all of that. Whatever the reasons, a large number of Malaysians have a fixation about everything English.

From the technological point of view, it makes no sense at all. England has almost nothing to contribute to the world any more. Their car industry is either German, Japanese or Korean. Sure, the London Olympic's opening ceremony was (surprisingly) well done, but it was all about the past. When Tim Berners-Lee was presented as the inventor of the internet, I cringed and felt more than a little embarrassed for them.)  The closest they got to today was in pop culture, even then the best bits were from the past, from about 50 years ago. The Americans? Ditto. They make great iPhones and iPads, but who else in the USA is making great stuff apart from Apple? Okay, it is too early to write off the Americans, but they are surely not the force they once were. Tech wise, our English fixation is a shackle that prevents us from moving forward; from learning from the Germans, Koreans, Japanese, or even the French, Italians, Russians, Chinese, Indians and Brazilians.

In terms of economics, knowledge of English could (theoretically) be useful for the penetration of Anglophone market, but no mastery is required; ask the Germans, Japanese, Koreans, Chinese, Vietnamese, Cambodians, or anyone else.

Culture wise, there's pop, and there's literature. Regarding the former, there's no a great language requirement (though the Japanese did use The Beatles to teach English in the sixties). As for literature, my opinion is that, this fixation we have with English is a shackle not a boon.

Reading Kafka

The last English novel I read was On Chesil Beach by Booker Prize winning author, Ian McEvan five years ago. (I also read Salman Rushdie's The Enchanteress of Florence the following year, but I'm not counting that because I tend to get this irrational attacks of rushdie-itis whenever his books come out.) And, having had enough of the New Orientalism coming out of the sub-continent, I avoid Indian writers in English. So, all English authors have been off my menu for a while. In the last decade, my authors have largely come from Latin America, Europe, China, and Japan. (I still have customers who declare quite loudly that they do not like to read translations because 'the meaning is lost'. My response? I cannot imagine my life without having read Kafka, and I don't read German.)

Bernama continues, "Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, who is also education minister, had said the government planned to re-introduce English Literature as a subject in secondary schools." Interesting. My question: what's 'English Literature' the minister is refering to? Would that be the literature of the English people? (No doubt, many parents and academics would think that.) Perhaps, he was thinking of the literature of countries that have adopted English as their native language. Or could it be, simply, any literature written in English? Colonial? Post-colonial? Or could the minister simply mean that English will be taught using literature?

It gets quite complicated only when 'literature' is removed from 'people', particularly, when the latter is replaced with 'market'. A literature without a 'people', or country, regardless of what language it's written in, makes no sense (unless, it's a consumer product -- in which case its study belongs in marketing). It is a record of thoughts and ideas of a people who share a common history and culture. With that in mind, one can only hope that the minister was referring to Malaysian literature written in English, because it makes no sense to have secondary school students slog through the literature of a foreign tribe in a foreign land, unless they are working on a doctoral thesis.

Why do 'English language' departments at universities teach literature?

I am in total agreement with Ungku Aziz when he says, “As a Malaysian, we must understand literature not only in English but also other languages such as Russian, Italian and Japanese to understand their cultures.” Let's start with the universities, where the current situation is quite bizarre. Why do 'English language' departments at universities teach literature? Literature is a by-product of a language (just as an automobile is a by-product of engineering, which is a by-product of physics, maths, chemistry and ingenuity). Literature can be used to teach English, but not the converse. It's a subject that's far more about the culture and history of a people, than language. Perhaps, what the universities really mean is: theirs is a Cultural Department specialising in the literature of the people of England and other Anglophone countries. There's nothing wrong if that's what some people want to major in.  But, let's not call it a language department.

Hence, the argument for a Literature Department at our universities, teaching literature from all continents and all countries, and all languages. It can be taught in any language, and those who want go further could opt to read the material in the original form. Considering the number of translated works there are in English, that would be a good place to start. 

As the professor said, let's not fixate on English literature.

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

Myth and history

I read somewhere: history is what guides you and a myth is what misguides you. The 'learned' dismiss myths as irrational beliefs, quite unable to withstand the rigours of logic, while history is a verifiable and objective record of events that took place at sometime in a time past and is ... well ...  cast in stone; that no matter who the reader is, regardless of his class or creed, it will remain the same, immutable and unalterable. That's the theory. Unfortunately, the world is more complicated than that. In an ideal world populated entirely by impartial scholars, history will be written objectively, uninfluenced by political forces, the writers own subjectivity and his own personal subscriptions to private prejudices and beliefs. In reality, every country has its own version of history, with modifications ranging from mere ornamentation and embellishment, to total rewrites. (China and Japan -- and they are not the only ones -- appear to have an annual festival of contested histories).

Photo-shopped history

Malaysia might be unique in the way different versions of history exist simultaneously in writing and in the minds of people, many of whom are convinced they are being hoodwinked by the powers, while their children are being ruthlessly indoctrinated and exploited in an attempt to reshape the past to conform to a predetermined model. It could be merely a reflection of the confidence (or the lack thereof) that those people have in the readiness, willingness and ability of the administration to speak the truth, or at least not bend it too much. We could consider ourselves singularly fortunate (if we can call it that) to have the opportunity to, actually, see the process of the mythification of history by selective omission, inclusion and embellishment, all in real time; if not (yet) the complete mythologisation and total fabrication.

Hence the irony: history is the primary source of myths. (Superstition is something else.)

Sejarah Melayu

The current collection of Malaysian Classics by Silverfish Books, Marong Mahawangsa, Sejarah Melayu and The Epic of Bidasari, are generally considered 'useless as history', mere myths (note the tone of derision). Are they an important part of our lives, or merely a diversion? There are interesting passage in Sejarah Melayu, some of which made me laugh out loud:

"It was the custom of all the young gentlemen, when they wanted money, to go and represent to the bandahara that the market place in their quarter of the town was not placed even, and had a great many shops irregularly projecting, and that it would be proper to adjust it, for would not His Majesty be in a great passion if he should pass by and see? 'Well then,' said Tun Hasan, 'go all of you with a surveyor and make it all even by the chain.' Then, the young gentlemen would go and, where they saw the houses of the richest merchants, there would they extend their chain and order the houses to be pulled down. Then the merchants, who were the proprietors of the ground, would offer them money, some a hundred and some fifty, and some ten dollars. Such was the practice of the young gentlemen, who would then go away with the surveyor and divide the money."

Nothing much has changed, has it?!

Makota Raja-Raja

Another one, this from Makota Raja-Raja (one of the other tales in The Epic of Bidasari):

"King Harmuz received one day a letter from his minister in which he said, 'Many merchants being in town with a great quantity of jewels, pearls, hyacinths, rubies, diamonds and other precious stones, I bought all they had for Your Majesty, paying 200,000 tahil. Immediately afterwards, there arrived some merchants from another country who wanted to buy these and offered me a profit of 200,000 tahil. If the king consents, I will sell the jewels and later buy others.'

"King Harmuz wrote to his minister the following response, 'What are 200,000 tahil? What are 400,000 tahil, profit included? Is that worth talking about and making so much ado? If you are going into the operations of commerce, who will look after the government? If you buy and sell, what will become of the merchants? It is evident that you would destroy thus our good renown and that you are the enemy of the merchants of our kingdom for your designs would ruin them. Your sentiments are unworthy a minister.' And for this he removed him from office."

Touche.

There are many good stories in these old classics: the one about Raja Bersiong (in Marong Mahawangsa) is interesting in more ways than one; read it and see what you think. Re-editing and publishing these books was immensely educational for us; and, in these days of interesting times, they are good starting points for the lay reader who wants to begin to understand who we are. (It was a challenge to retain the original language and structure as far as possible, and still make it accessible to the modern reader.)

Genetic or memetic

Myths, in many ways, are far more than history and are fundamental to the development of ideologies, religions and cultures. The conventional wisdom says: myths are created to convey a message; history is a record of actual events. Myths are the roots of thought pattern, the foundation of beliefs, and the basis of decision making.

It is far too common to hear the dismissive, "Itu semua mythos," in this country; meaning that they are worthless knowledge. Some have made a career of relentlessly ridiculing them, but they refuse to go away (and even instances when they do, they leave behind a huge vacuum in the culture readily filled be any other passing fad -- benign and malign). I used to be a believer in the separation of the genetic and the memetic, that while the former is biologically driven, the latter is essentially cultural and, therefore, an 'optional' extra, 'apps' that could be added to the basic operating system for personalisation and enhancement. But I am beginning to wonder about that. While myths, per se, are memetic, are we somehow genetically hard-wired to render us incapable of living without them? Can you imagine a world where no one speaks, tells stories or listens to them? How long will we survive? Are we genetically programmed to create myths? Is that why we are such good storytellers?

Only others believe in myths

To those who believe, myths are real and even 'alive'. But for them to remain so, they have to be believed -- totally. Myths of others are not believed because they are considered false. Only the myths of one's own creed are true and, since they are true, they cannot be myths. Besides, to acknowledge one's own beliefs as myths, would be an admission of the creed's belief in falsehood, and that their judgement was really based on a false premise. A creed does not base its decision on falsehood; only others do.

Suicide bombers believe they will go straight to heaven (never mind the virgins); they don't believe that's a myth. The American pioneers 'won' the West against enormous odds because they believed in the myth that it was their destiny, and still celebrate it, although an entire civilisation was annihilated in the process.

As the good poet said, "For you don't count the dead, When God's on your side."