CONFESSION time: I am a big admirer of literary figures. Writers. I don’t know when or how my admiration for authors started considering I didn’t read much as a kid aside from a few Hardy Boys novels

I was more into the comics of Lat (I had pretty much all of his 1980s collection), Lau Fu Chi (courtesy of the barber my Dad used to frequent), and of course, Garfield (I studiously cut out and collected the comic strips from The Star).

I never graduated to Marvel or DC comics and the like – I discovered movies and music.

Maybe I admired the fact that authors create such vast worlds, characters, and events out of a blank page and words – something I was incapable of doing and did not tried to do.

The romantic notion of someone toiling away with a pen and paper or typewriter by an open window for the entire day was also enticing. This image is evidently influenced by movies I watched about writers.

In my daytime vocation as an academic, books and readings are big part of the job – albeit dense academic writing and texts which I surprisingly enjoy reading (I’m not a fan of fiction) – and my love of history (which I discovered after finishing high school) meant that dog-eared pages will always follow me around.

So, after my two serendipitous encounters with Malaysian Film and Malaysian Song, I thought of another old friend I hadn’t caught up in a while: Malaysian Book.

Malaysian Book was first introduced to me while I was in college in the mid-90s when one of my lecturers made the late Rehman Rashid’s A Malaysian Journey a key text in our English class. The book is an important piece of Malaysian writing that changed not only my outlook about Malaysia but also influenced me as an artist to whose works identity and nationhood became a recurring motif.

Malaysian Book instilled in me a love for the overlooked and (purposely?) sidelined local narratives and histories which made me question the status quo – an important ingredient of good rock n roll.

So, I owe Malaysian Book a lot. After several WhatsApps to common friends, I managed to get his number and gave him a call – he dislikes SMSs or texting – for a quick chat.

Azmyl Yunor (AY): Apa khabar, boss?

Malaysian Book (MB): Khabar baik. OK lah, macam tu lah, haha. You apa khabar?

AY: I’m good boss, still kicking against the pricks!

MB: Alhamdulillah, that’s great. Good to know.

AY: How have you been keeping up with the times – you know, the politics, social media, the pandemic?

MB: In terms of the pandemic, I’ve managed to survive unscathed fortunately. I guess people were stuck at home so those who loved reading just continued reading and maybe some picked up the hobby. We books age well, we get scars and whatnot, but we still persist. It’s the younger books you should be worried about. They are electronic and just don’t receive the same tangible love my generation received.

AY: That’s very true, books have never grown out of favour or fashion. In fact, in the circulation of knowledge and stories, books are still a big part of the ecosystem.

MB: Yes, it’s not easy to be birthed as a book – aside from the author, you have the series of editors, publishers, copy editors, proofreaders etc. who shape, mould and guide you into existence. That validity is priceless. With the internet and social media, things are more, how do you put it, ephemeral – nothing lasts, attention spans are shorter, good writing is neglected. It’s all just noise to me, so I retreat back to the comforts of my shelf with friends.

AY: You’ve never been offered as an e-book?

MB: Yarabi, no lah, please. Even if they want to do it for me for free, I wouldn’t accept. I’d rather have a silverfish eat through me than have me on some flat piece of technology lacking warmth. I want to remain biodegradable because I come from the earth and I shall return to it too.

AY: What do you think of the recent popularity of Malaysian novels, especially with the rise of independent publishing houses in the past decade or so?

MB: It’s good to know kids now are still reading and writing the same way those who wrote me did – of course, with a different gusto from my generation. These kids also hunt for older books like myself and have a strong appreciation of history. But I haven’t come across a good local book that really left an impression on me since one of the late Salleh Ben Joned’s offspring. His and Rehman Rashid’s passing are the saddest recent events for me. Their offspring are still a joyous bunch to lepak with, such strong independent spirits and fire in their bellies. These younger kids now are more into fiction but a majority of them, from what I observe, don’t really like reading. It’s those pesky smartphones, they are machines of mass distraction!

AY: Have any of them visited you in the past years?

MB: Some but not many do. I’m an old book, so I’m always being “hunted” and in demand but I’m not moving away from my shelf, I like it here. I have my other book friends here, some dating way back to the 1960s. Unless of course, our owner decides to auction us off or worse chuck us away in a second hand book store or bazaar!

AY: I doubt he will, you are his personal favourite, mine too. I just flipped through you the other day, that’s why I called.

MB: Well, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks but you can always appreciate my old tricks in a new light, right? I think that’s what the joy of reading – a physical book – is all about. You can pick one up, randomly flip to a page, and still be immersed. Modern media and storytelling owe it to literature – writing is still the basis of everything, you can’t run away from that.

AY: Anyways, it was good catching up with you, boss. We gotta meet up soon. I miss the yarns from you, it always brightens up my day. 

MB: I’m sure you can find a piece of me online if you do that Google thing, haha.

AY: It’s not the same boss, it’s not the same.

MB: Rightly so. You take care now, keep flipping those pages!

AY: Thank you, boss, catch you soon! – April 8, 2022.

* Azmyl Yunor is a touring underground recording artiste, and an academic in media and cultural studies. He has published articles on pop culture, subcultures and Malaysian cultural politics. He adheres to the three-chords-and-the-truth school of songwriting, and Woody Guthrie’s maxim “All you can write is what you see”. He is @azmyl on Twitter.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.