half-real worlds of paper and ink

Saya rasa ini novel Bahasa Melayu pertama yang saya baca sejak sekolah menengah.

(Eh, mungkin tidak. Rasanya ada terbaca -- dan "ter" di sini memang bermaksud tak disengajakan -- sebuah novel cinta remaja berjudul Cinta Marissa (saya cuba Google tapi tak jumpa; mungkin saya salah ingat tajuknya) yang saya terjumpa di rumah nenek saya sewaktu pulang ke kampung. Mungkin kepunyaan sepupu saya. Segala klise kisah cinta remaja ada dalam buku tu -- lari dari rumah, cinta tiga segi, cinta tak berbalas, diperkosa kemudiannya insaf (hish, yang terakhir inilah trope yang paling menyakitkan hati saya) -- tapi sekali dah mula membaca, teruskan juga sampai habis. Lagi pun dah tak ada buku lain masa tu; yang dibawa dari rumah semua dah habis dibaca.)

Ini juga kali pertama saya cuba menulis dalam Bahasa Melayu di sini. Rasanya macam tidak berapa berjaya -- bunyinya kekok, kan?

Berbalik kepada novel ini: 1515 oleh Faisal Tehrani. ( ulasan pendek )



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Here is where I lose all coherency to write in Malay. I lack the words, and whatever I say will sound harsher than I mean it, especially with that somewhat formal tone I was employing. (No, I do not sound like that when I speak.)

Quick notes for English-only readers, since the book's summary on Goodreads is in Malay apparently there's no summary there at all: the book presents an alternate history of Malacca, where in 1511 it isn't conquered by the Portuguese. It's told in a non-linear fashion, going back and forth from the past to the present where a young girl called Nyemah Mulya who had lived in Malacca around 1511 asks for help from a modern day historian to help her prevent Malacca's fall. Slightly mind-bending, I guess, and breaks as many rules of causality as The Terminator did. That's not necessarily a bad thing, though.

I checked the Institut Terjemahan Negara Malaysia's (Malaysian National Institute of Translation) website; it doesn't seem like there's a translated version of the book.

( other problems I have with the book )