First line: Balik Pulau 1823. Friday evening just after eight. Yaakob lives with his wife and three daughters in a village in the west of Penang Island.
Pendekar Melayu (Malay martial artists) tales written by contemporary authors are few and far in-between. Seriously, ask any Malaysian what comes to mind when they think of Malayan warriors. I guarantee, nine out of ten will either say: "Harr? Lu cho hami?" or "Hang Tuah/Hang Jebat." These answers will either be paired with said Malaysian furrowing their brows and scratching a sudden head itch, or them describing a wide variety of indiscernible features these old dead dudes might have had. Maybe make a few kung-fu noises because who knows, they could've sounded like Bruce Lee.
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| Best "Lu Cho Hami?" face. |
At first, this book truly was a breath of fresh air. We are transported to the 1800s to watch the story unfold between British colonisers going up against Malay warriors, within the backdrop of Pre-independent Malaya. The novel is infused with local myths and legends, familiar and unfamiliar religious practices, swashbuckling pirates (when have they not been swashbuckling, really?), lots of bloodshed, black magic and warring secret societies all tied together by the ravenous hunt for the ancient treasure hoard of Malik Al-Mansur.
And then there's the stale air.
I recently had the opportunity to see the author in the flesh and watch him explain the inspiration behind his (first) novel and while some parts were enlightening, I will be frank:
Interesting concept! But God smite me down, it was terribly delivered. Pretty fucking choppy, too fast paced, too many characters with little to no development that appear and disappear seemingly without reason, too many 'main' characters, too many story arcs, and many more headache-inducing errors that made the read rather disjointed. The main reason why I leave the first line of each novel I review is to give readers a taste of what the book is like. This is exactly the writing style of The Beruas Prophecy. It is flat and simplistic, at best.
I'd hate for this post to become an attack on the author, especially since this was his first book and (god help us all he claimed he had never read a novel in his life) so I will shut up on that front. However if there is one good thing I must say about this book, it is:
History is our greatest liar. It has many faces. You make of it as you wish. As the old adage goes, "history is written by the winners," and when you read through this novel and compare it to Malaysian historical texts, you will see who the clear winners are. But again, history is a many-faced entity.
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| The cake. The cake is the winner. I'm kidding. I do like cake though, lying or not. |
But to his credit, Al-Bakri is very precise in describing the silat moves as well as Malayan 19th century warfare. He provides the names for all the silat techniques within the book and you can even look them up if you want to get a better picture of the action. Unfortunately, no Bruce Lee noises.
All in all, I wasn't blown away. There were too many elements squashed within the 233 page novel, and not all of them were well developed. But I will give credit where it is due, he chose a fairly interesting topic to explore, and this novel was long-listed for The Commonwealth Book Prize in 2012 for the Best First Book category.
tl;dr
Are there animals in the novel?: Do ancient spirit snakes count?
Are there sexy times in it?: Yawn.
Are there dead people in it?: Yep. A lot of dying in this one.
Is it lengthy?: Nah. Probably will take a day or two at most.
Reread?: Fuck no.
Judge the book by its cover: I really like the cover. The shadow puppets are excellent cultural markers.Rating: 2/5 meows
Pun: Some parts Iskandar creepy. Happy Halloween!
