silversandbea

Books in the old unread pile: 9

I picked up Urban Odysseys: KL Stories, a collection of short stories, years and years ago (it was published in 2009), as an impulse buy supporting local publications. But I didn't read it then, because I was jealous of the writers who were published in it, as my own brief attempts to submit works to calls for local short stories didn't get any response.

I'm still a little jealous now, but I'm also aware than what I'd written back then was far from good enough for publication. I am also aware that I would now be able write something comparable to some of the works in this book -- not the better ones, I'm not skilled enough for that, but a middling entry, yeah, I could. But it's also true that in collating works for a collection there has to be a mix of different types of stories, so a writer needs to be able to fill a niche that doesn't even exist until everyone else has submitted their own, and there's the unseen challenge.

Anyway this book is a collection of short stories, some fully fictional, some perhaps partially fictional, with KL as its central character. Some of the stories fail at sticking on theme, some are not interesting, some are obnoxious, but there's a decent chunk that are neat and fun, and some got me feeling really emotional, and I'll take those good ones!

It does not surprise me that the first story is a ghost story (lol) but I would've preferred the order of stories to be shuffled, because I did not enjoy that the book opens with two stories back-to-back that feature graphic violence against women. But after that there's a mix of snapshots of mat rempit boys, old folk who knew KL before it got studded with skyscrapers, children and students, a homeless man, an immigrant worker (yes! Though I think it's telling that in all the other stories, writers would describe the people of the city by the races and style, including tourists, but not mention immigrant workers at all), women braving busy streets, complicated familial relationships, and so on. I did get an out-of-body experience when a character said, "Sorry no cure" -- a phrase I have not heard in literal YEARS, and maybe is still used by schoolkids all over, though not where I can hear.

I think it's interesting that the good stories tended to lean towards a melancholy nostalgia for what KL used to be over what it has become, but what that's really about is a struggle to hold on to a specific cultural identity and feeling that that identity was clearer in the past. (It wasn't; people were nostalgic then, too.) It does read to me as a kind of doomerism in that there's nowhere to go but down and that there's no point in looking beyond the commercialism and economic prosperity for a different kind of cultural identity. Remembering history is hella important, and it's good to record these memories for those who were not there, but too much nostalgia for "better days" and you'll miss out on the present. It's why the stories I liked best are those that have plot or forward momentum instead of navel-gazing.

Unfortunately the editing could've been better, as there were occasionally grammatical errors or plot errors (like Character A's name is used in a description that is meant for Character B). It's also unfortunate that, based on the authors' names (which don't tell the full story, but I have to work with something) it appears there was only one Malay author among the nineteen featured in the book. Maybe Malay authors prefer to write in Malay and they couldn't get enough for an English-language collection, but as 70% of the population, it does leave a curious blank spot in capturing local voices.