Malaya 2057: A thousand moons have passed
THE very title of this book might intrigue East Malaysians as it is set in a future world in which the country is now back to Malaya and not Malaysia.
Malaysiakini associate editor Martin Vengadesan is also an author and musician and in this new science fiction novel, he takes a look at what the world might be like in 2057.
It’s quite dark and disturbing really. Because this future that he imagines sees a world that is decimated by deadly disease and environmental disasters. In this fictional world, the environmental changes reach a point where it is not physically practical for Borneo and Malaya to be governed together.
The bad news is that the post-apocalyptic regime is a slightly shadowy dictatorship called the Preordained State. While technology has advanced, the new world is all about survival, and the government has seemingly a very tight grip on power.
Indeed, it is not recognisable and seems to an amalgamation of a presidential regime with emergency powers as well as some mind-control pseudospiritual teaching.
The world itself is as one would imagine a post-disaster world to be. Toxic gases and protected outposts, vanished coastlines and cities in ruins, reclaimed by either the jungle or the sea.
I must say that while the ideas are interesting, parts of the book can be difficult to follow in the sense that the timeframe and the narrator are changing quite often, without much indication of where it is jumping to.
There are at least three separate narratives going on, one of which focuses on an important leader in the state called Solis and another seems to come from scattered thoughts within the mind of a dying and senile old man.
There are flashbacks to what it was like being a young Indian boy in the 1970s and 1980s, and you are also treated to reflections on drugs and dreams, sex and love, gods and ghosts.
The author jumps around so much that it’s as if he is trying to confuse you a little and provoke you into thinking a lot.
For example, in one chapter the old man muses about death, god and immortality.
He questions why there is so much suffering in the world if the creator is benevolent, allknowing and all-powerful. He examines creation myths and why we need to believe in justice in the afterlife. It’s not a normal topic or style in a Malaysian book.
It also gets very political at times, and here it seems to hark to all the dystopian clichés in which individual freedoms have been curbed by a ruthless regime.
If you read between the lines the author seems to be saying if you ignore and suppress basic reforms, we will head ever faster into a vortex of repression and terror.
At the same time, there are flashbacks to long distant kingdoms from an earlier primitive yet prosperous era.
There’s also a chapter clearly inspired by absurdist plays and writings of Samuel Beckett. But Waiting For Godot it’s not. There are times when the writer is very funny, but you will have to be able to look beyond the oppression to notice it.
And then there is also a slip into surrealism and hippie-era imagery while at other times it becomes very personal, like the author (or someone he knows) is trying to share parts of his life that people would not normally write about.
There were times when I was tempted to put the book aside because it seemed too confusing after a great start. But I am happy that I stuck with it if only to see what ending the author wanted for his characters.
While this story and writing style has flaws, it’s also one of the most challenging books I’ve read in a while.
The book can be ordered here: https://silverfishbooks. com/products/malaya-2057-athousand-moons-have-passed.