About Tentang (pun intended)

This is a review on a book written in Malay that is dotted sparingly with English. I imagine that if the book is translated then it'd be an English book dotted sparingly with Malay. That's strange.

But, this shouldn't be shrugged off as an impossibility: many authors have had their works translated, right?

Moreover, this review would be in English. Haha. But hey, maybe using a different language would lead to a pool of audience that is different from the Malay reviews. (I hope).

As evidenced by this nonsensical introduction, I bet that you'd guess by now that my experience reviewing books are at the minimal level. Before this, I've attempted to review Travelog Haji: Mengubah Sempadan Iman by Prof Muhd Kamil Ibrahim. I even did 2 posts about it here and here before I surrendered here. So much for high hopes for self, eh? But reading those posts again made me question, are those actually reviews? Oh, well. That is besides the point, if they aren't then just consider this attempt as the first.

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Title: Tentang

Year: 2011

Author: Saharil Hasrin Sanin

Publisher: Sindiket Sol-Jah

So here goes:

Before anything, the first thing you'd notice is the cover. Maybe it's purposely chosen to grab attention but it can also mean that you can expect the text to be similar with the cover: strange, familiar but only could be contemplated in the mind as words would fail you.

I feel like that sometimes while working my way through the book. I have the habit of reading multiple books in one go and this book makes it easier because after a story I could just stop awhile and then restart where I left off. I was not left hanging, anticipating the next story because one thing you'd learn is that you should expect the unexpected.

Sometimes after finishing a story, I felt a strange aftertaste and I'd look around like I was caught red-handed spying on someone else's life. While reading, a movie would play based on the narrator's text. Or in another instance, you'd imagine a friend, or a stranger on a train telling you his story like its nobody's business. And you, the attentive listener, is just content to stay and listen.

Sometimes, after a story, I fell silent. I think many would identify with many elements played. The honesty of the human perception is evident here. Emotions like melancholy, exhilaration, anticipation, frustration, hope, helplessness and other colors of the heart are manipulated like an elaborate puppet show to illustrate a story or to drive home a point. How it affects me and you would be different.

Everybody says (including the author himself) that the stories possess multiple layers of meaning. I reckon it is like the movie Inception: a dream within a dream. Whether you identify which layer of dream you are in is irrelevant because what you recognize and identify would be real to you. Whatever manifest itself as having significance to you is what is important: all the other layers become immaterial. You are in your own reality. You now have an option to be content with what you understand or to dive deeper.

...Taking a lesson from the movie, I hope you don't fall into limbo ;)

So if you are thinking whether buying this book would be worth it, I'd suggest you read the numerous reviews of Tentang and its twin, Kentang that is filled with praise for the book and author.

To date there's no serious criticism of the book (and if any of you dare, you'd be buried by his legion of die hard fans). The only thing for me is that I am not really into some of the supershort stories because it left too much space bare. I like my books to be filled with words.

But that's about it. I don't particularly care about the typos (deliberate or otherwise) as I feel that's just keeping it real. I already know (from the experience of writing my thesis) that even after a hundred revisions by a hundred eyes: perfection is hard to attain.

So if you're considering a book to buy, pick a wildcard and choose this one :)