This
slim volume is self-published with a very utilitarian cover, but youcan banish any notions of "vanity publishing" from your mean little minds.
Uthaya's
Good Sense
This
slim volume is self-published with a very utilitarian cover, but you
can banish any notions of "vanity publishing" from your mean little
minds.
Uthaya
Sankar SB's previous works were brought out by Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka. He
now publishes his own books not because his literary output suddenly took a turn
for the worse but because he had a tiff with that august
body over its refusal to acknowledge the term "Bahasa Malaysia."
This statement of integrity is outlined in his swaggeringly confident
introduction to Sasterawan Pulau Cinta,
a collection of ten stories. Not only that, the phrase "Bahasa
Malaysia" is spelled in large caps whenever it
happens to occur in the stories.
He was willing to sacrifice greater commercial success for this principle, but I
am pleased to report that the stories in here, all previously published in
places like Mingguan Malaysia and Dewan Sastera,
aren't hectoring lessons in political correctness. I don't mind hectoring, but
Uthaya's particular gifts lie in his narrative skill and playful deconstructions
of the story form. He easily ranks among the finest writers in this country
because his seriousness of purpose is wedded to an admirable lightness of touch.
He has fun with the stories, and the fun is infectious.
There are several masterpieces here. I have loved "Yang
Aneh-Aneh" (1996) ever since I came across it years ago. It's got one
of the most amazing openings ever:
"Benar-benar
di luar dugaan saya, wanita itu meluru ke arah tingkap lalu melompat
keluar. Tingkap yang terbuka telah memungkinkannya berbuat begitu dengan mudah.
Jika tidak, tentu tubuhnya tercalar oleh kaca yang pecah."
This comic-absurdist tale goes on to describe how the male narrator has to
detach his leg as compensation to the GRO (guest relations officer) of the
intro, a fallen, broken woman in more than one sense. It also has a train
that will reverse back into the station if you just stand on the platform and
whistle for it, since it thinks it's being called by its lover. It's a deadpan
and raucous tour de force of detachable body parts, anthromorphic objects, and a
caustic subtext to do with environmental depletion and corruption.
Another highlight is "Datuk Datang ke Kampung Kami,"
a satirical account of a certain Malaysian Indian politician who gives a
long-winded speech on a subject he knows nothing about - in this case,
literature. Rather than groan in protest, the enraptured audience periodically
interrupts his banal musings with sycophantic applause, "tidak
ubah seperti budak-budak darjah satu di sekolah Tamil yang gembira mendengar
cerita karut daripada guru mereka."
The contemporary race-based politics and intellectual poverty delineated in this
story serve as excellent backdrops for Uthaya's wry narrative, which builds into
a crescendo of absurdity all the more horrifying for being so very familiar.
Culture and language aside, this satirical gem has more in common with the Hikayat
of Abdullah Munsyi, the Malayan Trilogy of Anthony
Burgess, and even the revues of Instant Café Theatre than the bulk of the
slogan-ridden, sentiment-sloshed cerpen regularly given prominence on our two
National Language broadsheets.
A story that showcases Uthaya's flair for universalising the particular and
making magic the seemingly mundane is "0". With three brothers named
Jamal, Kamal and Zamal, it's a pointed modern fable about the shifting wheel of
fortune, where the landed gentry can turn overnight into beggars. Rather than
simply preach obvious virtues, Uthaya takes us into a complex social dynamic
that involves shifting allegiances, vested interests, and the ease
with which good intentions can turn into hypocrisy. In its unsentimentality and
colour, it could have come from an unexpurgated edition of the Arabian
Nights.
There isn't a single unworthy story, although I wish he had begun the collection
with something other than the alter-ego, pen-name mystery "SB", whose
self-referential intertextuality (think Stephen King's The Dark Half)
renders it one of the less accessible entries. And the story "... dan"
seems like a conventional dakwah (it was even published in Dakwah
magazine) tale that is chiefly of interest to see how he handles this sub-genre.
"Karma II", a sequel to an earlier story not in this book, has a
doppelganger theme out of Poe and Nabokov which goes very well with Uthaya's
interest in literary smoke and mirrors, and its profuse litany of Psychology
text titles strikes you as deliberately campy rather than pretentious.
"Liar"
takes its premise from, ahem, a Jim Carrey movie, but achieves quiet pathos as
the narrator thinks about his son: "Kini
saya tidak berani menatap matanya. Saya bimbang bahawa mata saya akan turut
berbohong kepada Jonathan. Lalu akan hilang satu-satunya deria pada tubuh saya
yang tidak pernah berbohong kepada Jonathan."
The title story, "Sasterawan Pulau Cinta" ends this small but
perfectly informed book with a mock-apocalyptic vision of how a natural
disaster, a landslide, turns into a national alert against all litterateurs and
independent thinkers. It's perhaps the most explicitly political story here, but
it still speaks in terms of allegory rather than name the bodies that have been
buried, and the bodies that did the burying. He's not Shahnon Ahmad but
thankfully, he is a better proofreader!
Uthaya Sankar SB knows how to bait and hook, lure and jab, refine and condense.
Long may he reign even as he so wisely chooses not to compromise his gifts for
the sake of convenience, conformity and filthy lucre.
Sasterawan Pulau Cinta is on sale at Silverfish Books, Bangsar, KL (Tel: 03-22844837) and also from the author's website.
New Straits Times, 13 February 2002