EDIT: I don't believe that there are spoilers without warning here, but to be fair to the author, I've highlighted the possible spoilers in white. Highlight those places using your mouse to see them.
“Wedding Speech” by Khaliza Khalid is the fourth title and the third novel published by FIXI NOVO, the English imprint of FIXI. The protagonist, Yusrizan, a bona fide player, is smitten by Kelly right from the start. However, he has difficulty coming to terms with it, and does everything wrong to prevent himself from getting the happy ending he thinks he deserves until the present day where he finally marries her and has to confess all his wrongdoings in his wedding speech.
Or so the story goes.
What I can say about this book is: Man! It is difficult! To. Finish!
The premise has potential. The execution, however, is a train wreck.
The story
I’ve summarized the story above without including any spoilers. Yusrizan is an unreliable narrator (it’s a well-used writing technique, by the way) who has fantasy and reality mixed up. The present is rooted around his wedding day, and the narration goes back and forth as he reminisces the past. Unfortunately, Khaliza flails and fails at writing a non-linear timeline, and should have stuck beginning the story with the wedding reception and reveal everything in chronological sequence as Yusrizan ticks off the six items he has to express in his wedding speech.
The language
Part of why the back-and-forth narration fails is because Khaliza has her tenses all jumbled up. The present-day scenes are written in the present tense, and the rest of the story is in the past tense. Fair enough. However, especially while in the present, the tenses get mangled and reading becomes a jarring experience. Is this a failure of editing? I don’t know. Maybe.
Technically, the author appears well-versed with writing in English, which is a definite plus. Unfortunately, she appears to be like the character Kelly, who uses big, complicated words to impress anyone who hears/reads the passages, words that in reality do not fit the context. It’s like she pressed ‘Shift+F7’ on Word, looks for the most complicated words to replace the ones she already has. Or she has a paperback thesaurus ready and does the same thing. I might fill in examples from the book, but finishing it the first time has been painful enough.
I’m a firm believer of using strong, concise verbs instead of adverbs, but bombastic words just to show off? I used to do that when I started writing, and I get irritated every time I read my earlier stories.
Oh. Wait. I remember some examples.
- I literally burst out of the room. Literally means in the literal sense. Did Yusrizal explode? No.
- “You’ll never guess my true nature, but I have the audacity to leave you breathless.” Out of context. Audacity means willingness to take bold risks, or impudence. What is she trying to say?
The story is told using first-person perspective. A repetitive usage of specific terms is expected. Think about it. We will almost always call at cat ‘cat’ instead of inter-exchanging ‘cat’ with ‘feline’, ‘mouser’, ‘tom’ or ‘tabby’. In this book: no such thing. Yusrizan is fixated with breasts; that much is clear. However, in one page, he uses ‘mounds’, ‘melons’, ‘globes’, ‘breasts’ and some other terms. I’m a guy, and I feel offended, both by the derogatory terms and the clunky handling of language. I’ve read that schoolteachers have this habit of making sure students use as many terms for an object as possible to show how extensive the students' vocabulary is. This book can be made an example of how wrong the schoolteachers are.
Speaking of terms, this book doesn’t shy away from vulgarities, both in actions and the choice of words. Yusrizal doesn’t shy from using multiple terms for breasts (see above), but he calls his dick ‘member’. Come on. No self-respecting guy calls his own dick that. A woman who writes from a man’s point of view does that.
And boy do I have words on the incongruity of points of views (see below).
The characters
Yusrizan is an anti-hero. He is a selfish creep, no questions asked. Pulling off a sympathetic anti-hero is tricky, and Khaliza also fails at this. Yusrizan doesn’t change a bit throughout the book. He even uses his own daughter to woo Kelly. He doesn’t care about his daughter at all. He openly talks about his hedonistic lifestyle in front of her, uses foul languages, and does other things a half-decent father shouldn’t. I still can’t get over the fact that he plants his daughter in Kelly’s path solely to win sympathy points without really caring about his daughter’s well-being. WHAT THE HELL.
He also cannot seem to differentiate lust from love. He acts like a dog in heat, then suddenly reminds readers that he’s only using Kelly for financial support. Then he says he loves her, and suddenly reminds readers that he’s only using Kelly for financial support. It’s like the author unravels the story, then goes, “Oh, I need to remind readers that Yus doesn’t really like Kelly. Let me add a sentence to make that clear.”
Oh. By the way. Yusrizan tries to echo Datuk Narcissus from “Kasino” by Saifullizan Tahir, another book by Fixi. Narcissus lives in sin, but prays on time. Yusrizan sleeps around and doesn’t pray, but he has a strict code against consuming alcohol and pork. The reason for the comparison is that Datuk Narcissus is a fully fleshed, believable person, whereas Yusrizan is a half-baked character.
Kelly is also another unbelievable character. She’s all into Yusrizal one moment, and jumps off to concentrate on reading her thesaurus the next. She wants her sister to see that she’s serious about Yusrizal, but when Karr (the sister) physically abuses Yusrizal, she pretends both of them don’t exist. I think the author wants to portray the unreliability of Yusrizal’s narration and memory, but as foreshadowing goes, this one fails miserably.
Karr…well, I almost felt sorry for her, not because of her character, but because of how offensive the author is in portraying her. The terms ‘gorilla’ and ‘mammal’ and ‘hulk’ are used to describe her, and she is mollified by extra Cornetto cones. She has double degrees, one of them being forensics science, but she flies home to Johor Bahru just to wedge herself between the two ‘alleged’ lovebirds. She is merely a plot device that should have been more elegantly executed to create a link between fantasy and reality. As I said, I almost felt sorry for her.
Oh. Get this. Kelly’s full name is revealed at the end of the book. It’s Khaliza. She has written a novel about her relationship with Yusrizal, which has sparked Yusrizal’s unreliable narration in the first place. Khaliza. As in the author’s name. Fiction reflecting reality reflecting fiction? Whatever it is, an author using her own name for a protagonist is a bit too much, don’t you think?
The settings
What settings? The book takes place in Johor Bahru and San Francisco, among other places. However, the descriptions of JB is cursory at best, and there is almost no description of other places. There is no sensory employment in the book, really. “Son Complex” by Kris Williamson may have its own set of flaws, but at least Kris uses his settings well. He also knows how to employ all the senses, including touch, hearing, smell and sight.
The storytelling
I don’t know if the author sought advice from men on how to portray a believable male protagonist. She should have. Even if she did, she should have. I’m not saying that women cannot write stories from a male’s perspective; no, far from it. More often than not, it’s an educational experience. My friend Breanna writes using male perspectives. She constantly asks her husband, her brother and me about the congruency of her characters, and her research shows. Ursula K Le Guin’s “A Wizard of Earthsea”? Well-rounded male protagonist. John Green’s “The Fault in Our Stars”? BRILLIANT storytelling from a girl’s perspective.
In short, the author should have done a better research on the male psyche. What she has achieved is a stereotypical jackass who’s fixated on breasts.
There are sections where Yusrizan tells the story with intimate knowledge when he’s not there to witness the scenes in the first place. Remember that the story is told in first-person perspective. Yes. I get that the author wants to use this as a plot device, as foreshadow, but come on. Basic rules of narration. Come on.
Toward the end, the story unravels between Yusrizan’s daughter’s point of view and Kelly’s. The daughter’s name: Khaira. He also has a son, whose name is Khairy. Kelly’s sister: Karr. The author: Khaliza Khalid. Yes, yes, it’s a Malay thing to name their children using the same alphabets or alliterations, but in a story?
Back to my point. The scenes toward the ending. Yusrizan is out of the picture, but the story is told in intimate third-person perspectives. I don’t care about plot devices. For a story told exclusively in first-person perspective (Yusrizan’s), suddenly jumping to third-person for the sake of moving the story forward is amateurish, almost as bad as a deus ex machina ending.
Also, the book is told almost exclusively in exposition/narrative summary. Including the dialogs. WHY?! The author has plenty of chances to make the characters real and relatable, but she maintained an unbridgeable distance by not employing immediate scenes. Where are the dialogs?
As for the ending…how do I review the book without spoiling the ending?
Oh, well. Spoiler warning.
I don’t know if you’ve watched “Repo Men”. Not many people appreciate the ending, but to me, it’s one of the better-executed trick endings. The foreshadowing is good, and the execution is brilliant. “Wedding Planner” has an ending akin to “Repo Men”, but the execution is so clumsy that I felt reading the book was a huge waste of my time. To be honest, I only finished reading because I wanted to write a fair, informed review. Another reviewer said this book has a typical FIXI ending. I say this book has a typical Malaysian storytelling ending. The author cares more about appearing smart, thus creating a trick and/or hanging ending, rather than fulfilling a promise made to readers to navigate the story in a satisfying manner.
Still. Man! What a waste of time!
Final words
FIXI—and its English imprint FIXI NOVO—has been upfront about publishing pulp fiction. Not books like what Tash Aw and Tan Twan Eng write, but cheap, accessible fiction for all. This is awesome, but let’s face it. “Wedding Planner” is nowhere near ready to be published. Forget the typos. Editing (or lack thereof) is a much more pressing issue. From the awkward timeline transitions, to the flat, unbelievable characterization, to the storytelling loopholes, to the trick ending that could’ve been handled better.
I will still buy books from FIXI NOVO in hopes of discovering local gems, but unless she improves, I’m not likely to read another story from Khaliza Khalid.
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