BOOK REVIEW Kee Thuan Chye's latest book, ‘The Elections Bullshit', is an anthology of his columns and opinion-editorials about Malaysia's 13th general election that was held on May 5 this year.
A prolific writer, Kee clearly has no shortage of material to fill a whole book of this kind. The book spans a broad swathe, from the run-up in the months prior to the election - when people were still guessing the date - to the post-election period, when Malaysians across the country joined ‘Black 505' rallies to protest the results of GE13.
The book's greatest strength is also its greatest weakness: it captures, at each moment's respective point in time, a series of individual moments leading up to GE13, through the immediate aftermath.
As he indicates in the preface, Kee's hope in publishing this book is to document the story of GE13, as he saw it. This perfectly summarises what is both the book's greatest strength and greatest weakness.
The format of the book is simple, Kee pens a brief preface setting the stage for a particular piece, followed by that piece itself, reproduced verbatim as it was originally published at the time. Rinse and repeat, a few dozen times.
The Malaysian market is awash with books like these - compendiums and anthologies of opinion pieces, bundled in book form for ease of distribution in a simple format.
I should know: with occasional Malaysiakini opinion writer Nathaniel Tan, I've helped put together similar anthologies for Kinibooks, the book publishing arm of Malaysiakini.
What distinguishes ‘The Elections Bullshit' is that unlike many others in its genre, it is unabashedly the voice of one man, calling the events of GE13 as he sees them. This book is not an unfocused bundling of some columnist's reminiscences or ramblings, nor is it a collation of several different voices telling discordant stories.
Unfortunately, this thematic and stylistic unity is also what lends the book some of its more glaring problems - namely, the repetitive nature of Kee's frustrations and remonstrations.
It is one thing to read a column lambasting some BN politician or lacklustre civil servant for a senseless pronouncement of theirs. It is quite another thing to read a dozen such columns, in quick succession. After a while, they all start to blend together.
The format of a typical piece is rather predictable: an establishment figure makes some nonsensical utterance. Kee tears this comment to shreds - and then uses it as a jumping off point to talk about what he'd like to see from our government instead, urge the reader to support Pakatan Rakyat, or both.
In each case, Kee's remarks are on point and I think it hard for a reasonable person to significantly disagree with his criticisms of the "bullshit" being spewed.
However, more interesting than the pieces themselves are the prefatory comments Kee places before each. Whether placing the piece in its proper context, or adding additional analysis, I actually found reading these more valuable than perusing the raw pieces themselves.
Lack of reflection is biggest weakness
This, I think, points to the book's biggest weakness - its lack of reflection and more cohesive storytelling. Kee's opening mini-pieces that segue into the main articles themselves are more engaging, precisely because they offer the kind of reflection that's absent from the disconnected, disjoint individual opinion pieces that forever remain in stasis, dated as of their publication.
I would have loved to see a more active editorial hand that combined or otherwise pared down the individual pieces that make up this book, and used them in turn to build a holistic analysis.
After all, what is the advantage of publishing a bunch of opinion pieces from early 2013 in an anthology near the end of 2013?
The primary advantage is that you have the benefit of time: a chance to see how things pan out compared to what you were expecting, a chance to reflect on how disjoint events and incidents connect to form a coherent story. None of these were available to Kee when he initially penned his pieces - but surely he has a different take now, with the benefit of hindsight.
We do get glimpses of Kee's take, given his hindsight, in his introductions to the respective pieces. But in spite of his valiant efforts, the book's flow is often interrupted by the rude transition between unedited pieces that too often repeat stylistic, if not substantive points, that we have already seen time and time again in prior pieces, and will encounter, in near-identical form, time and time again later in the book.
While there is surely a benefit to re-experiencing GE13 as the series of discrete events that it felt like to observers on the ground at the time, I think ‘The Elections Bullshit' would have been much more effective in conveying Kee's story of GE13 if it had actually properly told the story as Kee saw it, instead of stringing a plethora of opinion pieces together and trying to put all these pieces of the puzzle together.
As things stand, ‘The Elections Bullshit' feels like it is focusing too much on the trees, instead of the forest.
If you want to relive GE13 as it happened through the eyes of a critical observer, Kee's ‘The Elections Bullshit' is your book. You'll recall the numerous dramas that enlivened the entire affair - from Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak's "Are you ready for PSY?" moment in Penang, through the ‘Black 505' rallies in the GE13 aftermath - start to finish.
The only thing you'll miss is the analysis that puts the puzzle pieces of these individual events together, so you can see the big picture.
You may miss the forest for the trees. But as far as a memoir of GE13 goes, you could do a whole lot worse than to pick up a copy of Kee Thuan Chye's ‘The Elections Bullshit'.
A prolific writer, Kee clearly has no shortage of material to fill a whole book of this kind. The book spans a broad swathe, from the run-up in the months prior to the election - when people were still guessing the date - to the post-election period, when Malaysians across the country joined ‘Black 505' rallies to protest the results of GE13.
The book's greatest strength is also its greatest weakness: it captures, at each moment's respective point in time, a series of individual moments leading up to GE13, through the immediate aftermath.As he indicates in the preface, Kee's hope in publishing this book is to document the story of GE13, as he saw it. This perfectly summarises what is both the book's greatest strength and greatest weakness.
The format of the book is simple, Kee pens a brief preface setting the stage for a particular piece, followed by that piece itself, reproduced verbatim as it was originally published at the time. Rinse and repeat, a few dozen times.
The Malaysian market is awash with books like these - compendiums and anthologies of opinion pieces, bundled in book form for ease of distribution in a simple format.
I should know: with occasional Malaysiakini opinion writer Nathaniel Tan, I've helped put together similar anthologies for Kinibooks, the book publishing arm of Malaysiakini.
What distinguishes ‘The Elections Bullshit' is that unlike many others in its genre, it is unabashedly the voice of one man, calling the events of GE13 as he sees them. This book is not an unfocused bundling of some columnist's reminiscences or ramblings, nor is it a collation of several different voices telling discordant stories.
Unfortunately, this thematic and stylistic unity is also what lends the book some of its more glaring problems - namely, the repetitive nature of Kee's frustrations and remonstrations.
It is one thing to read a column lambasting some BN politician or lacklustre civil servant for a senseless pronouncement of theirs. It is quite another thing to read a dozen such columns, in quick succession. After a while, they all start to blend together.
The format of a typical piece is rather predictable: an establishment figure makes some nonsensical utterance. Kee tears this comment to shreds - and then uses it as a jumping off point to talk about what he'd like to see from our government instead, urge the reader to support Pakatan Rakyat, or both.
In each case, Kee's remarks are on point and I think it hard for a reasonable person to significantly disagree with his criticisms of the "bullshit" being spewed.
However, more interesting than the pieces themselves are the prefatory comments Kee places before each. Whether placing the piece in its proper context, or adding additional analysis, I actually found reading these more valuable than perusing the raw pieces themselves.
Lack of reflection is biggest weakness
This, I think, points to the book's biggest weakness - its lack of reflection and more cohesive storytelling. Kee's opening mini-pieces that segue into the main articles themselves are more engaging, precisely because they offer the kind of reflection that's absent from the disconnected, disjoint individual opinion pieces that forever remain in stasis, dated as of their publication.
I would have loved to see a more active editorial hand that combined or otherwise pared down the individual pieces that make up this book, and used them in turn to build a holistic analysis.
After all, what is the advantage of publishing a bunch of opinion pieces from early 2013 in an anthology near the end of 2013?
The primary advantage is that you have the benefit of time: a chance to see how things pan out compared to what you were expecting, a chance to reflect on how disjoint events and incidents connect to form a coherent story. None of these were available to Kee when he initially penned his pieces - but surely he has a different take now, with the benefit of hindsight.
We do get glimpses of Kee's take, given his hindsight, in his introductions to the respective pieces. But in spite of his valiant efforts, the book's flow is often interrupted by the rude transition between unedited pieces that too often repeat stylistic, if not substantive points, that we have already seen time and time again in prior pieces, and will encounter, in near-identical form, time and time again later in the book. While there is surely a benefit to re-experiencing GE13 as the series of discrete events that it felt like to observers on the ground at the time, I think ‘The Elections Bullshit' would have been much more effective in conveying Kee's story of GE13 if it had actually properly told the story as Kee saw it, instead of stringing a plethora of opinion pieces together and trying to put all these pieces of the puzzle together.
As things stand, ‘The Elections Bullshit' feels like it is focusing too much on the trees, instead of the forest.
If you want to relive GE13 as it happened through the eyes of a critical observer, Kee's ‘The Elections Bullshit' is your book. You'll recall the numerous dramas that enlivened the entire affair - from Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak's "Are you ready for PSY?" moment in Penang, through the ‘Black 505' rallies in the GE13 aftermath - start to finish.
The only thing you'll miss is the analysis that puts the puzzle pieces of these individual events together, so you can see the big picture.
You may miss the forest for the trees. But as far as a memoir of GE13 goes, you could do a whole lot worse than to pick up a copy of Kee Thuan Chye's ‘The Elections Bullshit'.
JOHN LEE is a Malaysian professional and occasional writer currently based in the US. His personal website is here. ‘The Elections Bullshit' is available in all major bookstores nationwide.
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