Asiatic: IIUM Journal of English Language and Literature
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Physician, Heal Thyself: Nurture and Corrosion in Lee Kok Liang's Flowers in the Sky
Full text linkIf Lee Kok Liang’s body of prose-writing may be seen not only as a plea for Malaysian inclusiveness but also as a quest for an artistic wholeness, the apprehension that Lee feels in attempting in his first novel to replicate a Eurocentric canonical model, and his rejection of these more traditional narrative patterns in “Return To Malaya†and “The Mutes in the Sun,†finds a guarded resolution in Flowers in the Sky. The novel, a finely wrought though at times discordant equilibrium between not only the superficial binaries of temporal and spiritual, tragic and comic, Occident and Orient, but between the polyglot and multidimensional existences of immigrant Malaysians, returns, with qualifications, a clearer narrative voice(s) to Lee’s fiction. Whereas the heteroglossia of “Return To Malaya†emerges through a series of loosely connected sketches and leads through its closing portrait to the terrifying silence of The Mutes,the multiple discourses in Flowers in the Sky are revealed in a balanced dialogue between eclectic cultural perspectives and philosophical standpoints. The interests of the dual protagonists, Venerable Hung and Mr. K (possibly a parodic reference to Kafka [Brewster 189]), though seemingly aesthetically polarised, intersect regularly in their shared diasporic loneliness and in their occupations. Both, as Harrex notes (36), are interdependent healers – Hung seeks to stem the corruption of the spirit through meditation and asceticism, K the corruption of the body through technology – and their characterisations are balanced by the comi-tragic sub-plots of Gopal’s clumsy pursuit of tantric bliss and the dying Ah Loi’s agnosticism. (Copied from article)
Suchart Sawatsi: Thailand’s First Man of Letters
Full text linkDespite a small output of fictional works, Suchart Sawatsi is, without doubt, the single most influential figure in the contemporary Thai literary world. For nearly four decades he has campaigned tirelessly, through magazine articles, newspaper columns, edited books, and public lectures and seminars, to create awareness among the Thai public of the country’s small but vibrant modern literary culture. The monthly literary magazine Lok Nangsu’ (Book World, 1977-83) and the quarterly short story magazine, Cho’ Karaket (Screwpine Bouquet, 1978-99) are particularly important legacies of his energy and vision; the former, because it introduced a generation of readers to unfamiliar writers from both Thailand and beyond, and the latter because it launched the careers of many of today’s better-known writers. His best known creative writing is a collection of short stories first published in 1972 under the title, Khwam Ngiap (Silence).Â
Episteme of Endurance: Anand’s Primal Motivations in Untouchable
Full text linkMulk Raj Anand’s Untouchable (1935) has commonly been examined in the light of the Hindu caste system in India, and the novel’s protagonist Bakha has customarily been treated as a victim of the upper class Hindus for his birth in an untouchable community. Written much earlier to the Second World War and India’s independence in 1947,Untouchable still remains popular with present readers due to the never abating caste politics in post-independence India. Hence, most critics gloss the sad plight of Bakha under a “politically correct†perspective to arouse sympathy for the lower caste community, generate a gruelling sense of guilt among the high caste Hindus, and solicit justice for the untouchables from the beneficiaries of the caste system. Intoxicated with empathy for the poor, these commentators blissfully overlook the implicit authorial intention in the novel. A re-reading of Untouchable in view of the post-war extremity theories indicates that Anand endeavours more to extricate the lower caste people from their inferiority complex with a bold projection of Bakha than to merely expose the pathetic nature of their predicament under the high caste Hindu dominance. This paper attempts to analyse Bakha’s primal potentials in the light of the protective manoeuvres later made by protagonists in several post-war European and American novels while facing similar inhuman circumstances. Thereby, the paper reassesses the character of Bakha through a close consideration of his instinctive responses for endurance in the context of survival strategies later employed by protagonists in the post-war fictions of extremity