If there is one word to describe this book, unapologetic would be it.
Nazi Goreng by Marco Ferrarese is about a young Malay man, Asrul, who goes through a traumatic experience in the hands of a group of Indian thugs, and is then taken under the wings of one charismatic Malik, who is several years older than Asrul. I don't normally emphasize on race, but race is everything in this book. Everything. You see, Malik is a Malay supremacist skinhead who sees other races as impure, corrupt, a cancer that gnaws on the sovereignty of Malaysia. Much like White supremacist skinheads in the US or UK.
I kid you not.
This duo then escapes backwater Alor Star for better opportunities in Penang, and get involved with drug traffickers. Much like White supremacist skinheads from Lima, Ohio, who get involved with Mexican drug cartels. Why do I keep comparing the protagonists with White skinheads? Because, essentially, if you transplant these Malaysian characters and settings into an American one, you'll get the makings of an American novel/movie.
So is the book inherently Malaysian, you ask? I've been implied to take into consideration an author's Whiteness in writing a Malaysian book. In truth, I don't really care who the writer is; to me, the writing is everything. I got irked when author Marc DeFaoite kept using "Kay El" regardless the narrator is Bangladeshi, Indonesian, Nepalese, Malay, Indian, or whatever nationality that is not Western. In this book, Mr Ferrarese injects Italian sensibilities in a protagonist that has never been out of Alor Star. He compares characters and objects with Venus, Cyclops and Jesus. The main character, Asrul, is a practicing Muslim, by the way, though 'practicing' is a strong word for what he does.
But oh. My. God. Mr Ferrarese is one hell of a compelling writer. I finished the book in less than a day. The opening chapters are beautifully written, with exquisite imagery and characterization. Despite what I will say in the following paragraphs, reading this book makes me feel that the culture of skinhead Malay supremacists is pervasive throughout peninsular Malaysia, and that they represent an actual cancer that gnaws at the fragile equilibrium that is Malaysia. Reading this book makes me believe that the threat is real, and racism in Malaysia has deeper roots than I'm willing to admit. And that, to me, makes for a successful novel.
Nazi Goreng, in the introductory chapters, holds so much promise, so much potential. It has the makings of something great. Killer opener? Check. Excellent writing that feels real? Check. High concept? Skinhead racists plus Iranian cartels plus trigger-happy Africans plus multiple locations in Malaysia (and one in Taipei). Check. Page-turning thriller with danger at every corner? Check. Stakes that grow bigger and bigger? Check. A likeable protagonist? Check.
So what went wrong?
When Asrul and Malik get involved with the Iranian drug lord and aspire to do more than just trafficking drug at the Malaysian/Thai border, Asrul's life careens out of control. Unfortunately, so does the book. It's like the author introduces too many action/thriller elements and doesn't know what to do with them. Good news is, he tries to tie these elements together at the end of the novel. Bad news is, he loses interest in the main characters and is more invested in the stolen money instead. More on the ending later.
In the middle of the book, the author breaks off from the main characters and writes a few chapters on a group of four immigrants, Ngoc, Nyan, Cam and Than. I know, right? Not only are the names too close and confusing, introducing new named characters that are not essential in the middle of a book is not a good idea. Sure, Mr Ferrarese is smart enough to use these characters later in the book to move it, but if his intention to spend two chapters on their backgrounds and wants and needs to humanize them, to build sympathy toward marginalized immigrants, I say he's not done enough. In the end, these chapters and characters become mere fluff to thicken the novel, fluff that distracts a reader's attention, risking losing that attention altogether. Even if the author did not employ these characters' perspectives, did not even name them, he could still use them later on to move the story as he needed. This bit of fluff has earned the author some negative marking.
So Mr Ferrerese throws in Iranian drug lords, African rival cartels, sleazy bartenders, one hot Chinese national drug mule, and one not-so-hot Indonesian maid, with high-speed chase and machine guns, kapows and ratatatats that lead to torture and murder, all in the name of stolen money with a grand total of…drumroll please…
RM40,000.
That's USD 12,182.12, according to Google.
Even a terrace house in the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur costs over a million ringgit. Heck, give me forty-thousand ringgits and half a day at Pavilion, and I'll ask if you have another forty-thousand to spare at the end of three hours. Maybe two, depending on which stores I visit first.
The first job Asrul and Malik secure, transporting drugs in a car tire without them realizing it, earns them RM8,000. Have them do five jobs, they'll get the same amount of money. So all these murder and mayhem in the name of RM 40,000…. What I'm saying is that the stakes are not high enough. Not nearly enough. Too low, in fact. If it were USD 40,000 (which Google converts to RM 131,340.03), then it would have been something at least. Still not high enough, but much higher than what the author uses.
Also, Malik keeps mentioning he has connections in high places. At first Asrul thinks it's his connections with police officers who believe in Kuasa Melayu (Malay Power) as much as Malik does, but that's not it. When Malik does reveal who he actually is…OH COME ON! THAT'S IT?! Speaking of, I would have appreciated more insight on what makes Malik tick. He's a sociopath, that's clear, but why is he such an angry racist in the first place? With Asrul, it's pretty clear. Take a traumatic experience and a highly impressionable young man in his late teens, you get Asrul. Malik, however…. I think it's a lost opportunity with him. Would have made for a mighty interesting story.
Now. Coming to the ending.
I fell asleep at the supposed climax.
Like I mentioned before, when the ending comes, it's no longer about Asrul and Malik's journey, but about the missing money. It doesn't really matter what becomes of them; the protagonists are relegated into secondary characters. Worse, the greatest sin of all, the author ends the novel with exposition after exposition. It's like reading Naruto, where you're getting to the climatic fight (for that chapter in Naruto's life), and then you see the inevitable black background and you're forced to read ANOTHER back story. For an action thriller novel, writing a climax using exposition is not only anti-climactic, it's buzzkill. It's robbing a reader of a much-needed release. It causes blue balls.
Blue balls are NEVER good.
I don't think the author's entirely at fault here. It was pretty clear that he lost control of the story when Asrul lost control of his life. Mr Ferrarese did not self-publish this book, so an editor is involved. An invested editor takes the rein when the author loses control. Or supposed to, anyway. I wasn't lying when I said the beginning is brilliant and the writing is engaging. They are. Mr Ferrarese has the mark of a good writer. What he needed for Nazi Goreng was a team of good editors, editors who, without compromising his stylistic and artistic integrity, guide the story back to its intended path, to smoothen out kinks like Italian mythology in Malay characters, derogatory descriptions of a Muslim praying (he uses "kisses the floor" throughout the book to describe praying), to correct his consistently wrong usage of colons, all that jazz. And he needed a good proofreader (or two) to spot and correct the horrendous amount of typos, missed spaces, wrong punctuations.
In essence, Mr Ferrarese was sold short with Nazi Goreng, and what could have been a brilliant novel is merely a book of good writing, unrealized potentials, and a non-existent climax. What we have here is a book that causes blue balls.
When I started reading the book, despite what my friend said, I wanted to give it a 4.5 to 5 star rating. When the story went out of control, I wanted to give the book a 3.5 star rating, rounded up. With the ending taken into consideration, I'll only give it 3.5 stars, rounded down.
The author holds so much promise, and the book so much potential. It's unfortunate, really. I hope, if Mr Ferrarese writes another novel, he is fortunate enough to invest in invested editors.
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