Even here.

This is where I have been for a couple of days. Had to go with husband who had a work related retreat.

Terrible hardship, y’know. I mean, who could possibly WORK in surroundings like these? And me with a deadline – which come hell or high water, I will meet – in another four days.

Below: on the balcony of our room

Below: view from our room

Below: and the room the suite

Below: the art-deco shower recess…

Ah, life is so tough sometimes.

Preeta Samarasan, author of Evening is the Whole Day is a “new” Malaysian author who is deservedly going places. She was interviewed by MPH’s Quill magazine, and the wonderful Sharon Bakar at Bibliobibuli has posted the interview in two parts: Part one and part two, an interview absolutely worth reading, and not just by Malaysians.

Preeta has some exceptionally wise things to say about writing and the Malaysian scene, for a start. I look forward to meeting her in person one day.

As an individual I related to the question on whether it is necessary to leave the country to become a Malaysian novelist of note.

Preeta replies, ‘I think writers are people who identify as outsiders whether or not they have the opportunity to leave physically. Frequently, they identify as outsiders from childhood…’ which I think applies to me, a feeling that was exacerbated by my living almost my whole life in places that did not remotely resemble the place where I grew up.

She adds, and this is something I have been saying for ages and is the main reason I opted out of mainstream literature into genre: ‘But one thing would probably been different (if she hadn’t left Malaysia) : I don’t think I would’ve been brave enough to say these things as loudly as I’m saying them now. Like most Malaysians, I had lots of unexamined fears when I lived in the country. Fears of the government, fears of What People Will Think — between those two, it’s hard to say which is the greater set of fears! I think of my expatriate status as a luxury that allows me to say what I want without these fears.‘

I can remember the moment when I learned the power of What People Will Think in the Malaysian context. It was shortly after I arrived in Malaysia in the early 70s. My husband was abroad, so a friend invited me to stay for a week or two in her remote Kelantanese kampung up near Jelawat. (The hospitality of these people – none of whom had much money – was extraordinary; I have rarely felt as welcomed by strangers as I was in that village.)

Anyway, to get to my point: the houses there used cheap cotton prints for curtains – the kind of material that only has a pattern on one side. They hung these curtains with the pattern facing outwards. It was more important that the house look good from the outside, than that it looked good for you, the owner, living on the inside.

To live in Malaysia and to write an honest book about Malaysia and Malaysians takes enormous courage.

One unfortunate thing about living in Malaysia is the way I am so cut off from other sff* writers and from the vibrant sff community one finds in so many other countries. So it was great to have Donna – an editor and writer – staying with me, even if it was only for a few days.

I probably talked her to death.

Among other things we chatted about were some of the unanswerable questions about writing and publishing. I’ve been thinking this some more and here is my list of 10 (unanswerable) Mysteries about Publishing and Writing:

1. Why poorly crafted books sometimes hit bestseller lists and make a fortune for their authors

2. Why well-written, entertaining, thoughtful books sometimes flop catastrophically

3. Why writers/agents/publishers can’t figure out the answer to the above two questions after all these years…

4. Why so many people think that:

a) writing a book is easy
b) getting it published is only hard because “you have to know someone in the business”
c) writing is lucrative

5. Why many wannabe writers:

a) don’t read
b) don’t buy books and support the industry they hope will support them

6. When a struggling writer, trying unsuccessfully to get published, should give up trying

7. Why genre is so despised, sometimes even by those who write it

8. Why many sf writers/readers look down on fantasy (and occasionally vice versa)

9. Whether books will survive the computer/visual media age

10. And why on earth do I spend most of my days sitting at a computer writing anyway, when I could be out there earning twice as much doing other things?

*science fiction and fantasy

Often, I was asked questions structured like this: “In the book you call poor people sad fuckers. Isn’t that anti-poor?” And I’d explain that in the book a character calls some poor people he encounters sad fuckers, and that is different from me saying that of all poor people. Then the next question would be, “In the book, you say that Muslims are terrorists…”

The above quote is from an Lj post by Nick Mamatas about what happened when he talked about his latest book Under My Roof at a US community college. Quite frankly, what he said was frightening – but I know what he faced. I have heard the same sort of thing in Malaysia about my own work from people who really ought to have known better.

I showed my first writing about Malaysia to locals, university graduates – I thought would know what writing a novel was all about. I was staggered to find that they thought everything that the female protagonist thought and did and heard was straight out of my own life, opinions and all. The protagonist was an Australian woman married to a local, ergo, she was me, and her thoughts and prejudices were mine, even though the story was patently fictional.

Malaysia back then was not mature enough to be able to take criticism in its stride, and educated readers, even people involved in university education, were apparently not sophisticated enough to see the difference between writer and what was written, not when there were so many parallels between writer and protagonist. I was nonplussed.

That was when I realised that if I wrote an honest novel (not some fluffy “isn’t it lovely” thing) I would be in deep trouble, both with the my in-laws and in the wider world. So I opted for a quieter life. I set my books in an imaginary place and now rarely discover if the reader sees his own world reflected back at him. (And I have had to learn not to fume when someone, unintentionally insulting, says, “You write so well, Glenda! Why don’t you write a proper book?”)

Have things gotten any better? I don’t think so. Too many people here still don’t think logically. A minister gets upset by what a blogger writes, so he calls all bloggers liars. Criticize anything Malaysian and you get called disloyal and unpatriotic. Tell the truth: “I am not a Muslim” when one of your parents was a Muslim, and you get your 15 month child taken from you while you are incarcerated for a year of brainwashing to make you see the truth. (Does anyone know what happened to that poor lady Siti? I have been out of touch with the news for a month…)

So I cringe when I read Nick’s experience. If they can’t get it right in the USA, what hope has Malaysia got?

More from Nick’s Lj post:

Finally, someone said, “Well, what were we supposed to learn from this book!” and I said “Nothing.” Later I was able to explain that good novels ask questions; they don’t provide answers.

Someone complained,”If a kid reads this, he may start thinking.” (I should say that that last was from an ESL student; he may not have meant to express his comment as an eventuality to be dreaded.)
….

But the best was when someone asked me about research and telepathy and I explained that I didn’t research telepathy as it doesn’t exist, so I just made the powers up and one woman finally blurted out, “So…this book is a FANTASY!!”

Sigh.

And here’s some pix to cheer you up: flowers taken in the rainforest of Kinabalu Park, Poring. No idea what they are, but they were lovely.