Bored with my pre-natal selection for post-natal reading, I had placed another order of books with MPHOnline, this time restricting myself to 3 ‘Malaysiana’ books in English, and one Malay novel.
I started with this one, and boy was I glad I made this choice. I had initially expected the book to be filled with short anecdotes and recollections, a la Dina Zaman's 'I Am Muslim' (which was excellent, BTW!) but was surprised to find that it only contained 7 stories. For someone who was born in the 1920's or 1930's, you'd expect a lot more confessions from the Old Boy. Sadly none of the adventures took place in the 'Eton of the East'.
Dato' Hamid is such an engaging and endearing character that I really wanted to read more of his adventures, and especially wanted to know where and how exactly he met The Wife. There were at least two accounts of how he had to 'leave behind the love of my life' only to meet another woman whom he 'knew then I was going to marry.' Neither of whom, of course, ended up as his partner in holy matrimony. By the time I got to the fifth entry titled 'Ariff and Capitalism', which was about 75 pages long, it was already long past midnight, hence I am going to rate the book 'Unputdownable'.
He is a man of many contradictions. Maybe that is just a Malayan characteristic. A true Anglophile, he revels in the decadence readily served up by London and Europe, yet wishes to be nothing more than 'a humble civil servant' in his homeland. And there is the 'Whodunit', which, although built on a cliched premise, still manages to entertain with a twist at the end.
By the end of the book, you'll be wanting more of Dato' Hamid, his family, his cohorts and even his beloved boss at the Ministry (I keep wondering which Tun he is alluding to). Here's hoping there's a sequel or prequel!
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