The Master at 90

DEC 15: Our Prime Minister once revealed in an interview that Sidney Sheldon is one of his favourite writers. The novels line an office shelf, with the date of completion neatly penned on each cover-page. This neat habit is a good lesson to those of y'all who treat used books like discarded kuaci skins.

Dr. Mahathir's literary taste made me very happy because I've always maintained that Sheldon's oeuvre can provide interesting clues to the PM's persona. Somewhere between a squillion and a gazillion gallons of blood, sweat and ink have been spilled in an effort to "suss" him out, but Sheldon is an astonishingly good place to start.

I'm probably the first Malaysian intellectual to notice this. Even Khoo Boo Teik's "Paradoxes of Mahathirism" (1995) fails to credit "Sheldon, Sidney" in its 12-page, fine-print index, certainly a shocking lapse in an otherwise brilliant, outstanding and even passable book.

Sheldon's stories are pacy, racy and borderline campy, and from me there can be no higher praise. Judging from the response his tomes get from those rent-a-book enterprises that dot our fair cities, I am not alone: millions of school kids and women in purple tudungs still choose him every year.

Sidney Sheldon, Mahathir Mohamad: how authoritatively alliterative, like brand-names you expect to see confidently embossed on leather bags. Love 'em or hate 'em, they have a habit of coming right up to your face and staying there.

Sheldon's plots revolve around Hollywood starlets, New York lawyers, Washington politicos or even Spanish nuns but the usual thematic constant is "Ambition" with an A plus. All those bruised babes and geared-up guys want so much to slide up the ladder of success. And once they start, they just can't stop.

His best novels were (aptly enough) written in the eighties, and the cream of that crop is "The Master of the Game" (1982). This 100-year saga begins in South Africa, with the difficult and thrilling founding of a mining company called Kruger-Brent, and ends at its powerful matriarch Kate Blackwell's 90th birthday party.

Kate's personality dominates the book. She wasn't conceived in love; her father then drops dead from a stroke after his son is murdered by a bunch of Bantu tribesmen who seek revenge after one of their own kind is killed for trying to smuggle a diamond out of a Kruger-Brent mine in his armpit. You know, the usual story.

At the tender age of five, she and her mother are held captive during the British-Boer war of 1899. This triggers an important psychological insight: "She watched the children around her die, and she was afraid that she would be next. She was powerless to protect her mother or herself, and it was a lesson she would never forget. Power. If you had power, you had food. You had medicine. You had freedom. She saw those around her fall ill and die, and she equated power with life. One day, Kate thought, I'll have power. No one will ever be able to do this to me again."

Well, she shows her precocious will-to-power from that moment on. She's determined to snag her late father's protégé, David Blackwell, as her husband. She gets a huge blow when he says he will marry someone else. But wait! Kate manipulates things and gets her man. How? The complicated process involved a Chicago meat-packing firm and two hundred thousand dollars, and it's better not to try it at home.

It is in fact David who gives her the advice which ends up smack-bang in the book's title: "Business is a game, played for fantastic stakes, and you're in competition with experts. If you want to win, you have to learn to be a master of the game."

Kate thrives on conflict and almost always gets what she wants. Her arsenal of amoral tactics include blackmail, threats, seduction and good old moolah. She justifies it by saying it's all for the sake of her beloved Kruger-Brent: She manipulates David into marrying her, manipulates her son Tony (who's so terrified of her that he stutters in only her presence) into giving up his art career and along the way not only manufactures weapons for the Allied forces but becomes a Schindler-like saviour. She seems to be everywhere at once, and believes that the whole world has a right to her opinion.

Things aren't always peachy. There is the matter of her fed-up son attempting to kill her by pumping her full of bullets, but she overcomes this slight hurdle with steely resolve: "I can face this. I can face anything. I'm going to live. I'll survive. The company will survive." Her indomitable spirit is enough for anyone to say "Kruger-Brent Boleh!"

As I said, the book ends with Kate at 90 and with no signs of quitting. So rich, powerful and envied, with the requisite "regal bearing" and "proud bone structure" of a pulpy matriarch. She gives a wry speech: "I know some of you have travelled from distant countries to be with me tonight, and you must be tired from your journey. It wouldn't be fair to expect everyone to have my energy."

The book ends with Kate trying once again to meddle into someone else's life - this time, that of her eight-year-old great-grandson. Some people would laugh with fond indulgence at Kate's insistence on always trying to run things. But others would find themselves echoing the poster of The Fly: "Be afraid. Be very afraid."

Amir Muhammad
Malaysiakini.com