Neverness and Resonance

Dear Reader,

Nostalgia is a word derived from the Greek for ‘return home’ (nostos) and ‘pain’ (algia), so it literally means an aching yearning for homecoming. It was considered a pathology, a disease.

In Singapore, our pathology could more accurately be described as ‘solastalgia’, which is the pain one experiences when their environment changes drastically in ways they have no control over. Every inch of Singapore changes, at a rate that outpaces our ability to adapt and to re-establish our bearings. For those who have been re-located by force out of their homes, they not only experience disorientation, but trauma. The tragedy for all of us is that we have no place in our external reality to anchor our memories. The dislocation from our environment leaves a toll on the psyche—both as individuals and as collectives. And because culture takes place in place, what does it mean when place is dislocated from community? And what will happen to culture, to identity?

While we may no longer have a place to anchor our memories, we still have books. And as recorded human history and the breadth of world literature has shown, books are the most durable containers of cultural memory and human value.

It was an immense delight to host an activation for the book Neverness, Fairoz Ahmad’s latest labour of love in the form of a novel. It is a coming-of-age story that takes place in late 1970s Kampong Engku Aman. On top of being a gripping story, the novel is demonstrably an efficient container of the cultural memory and value of a specific Malay village at a specific moment of Singapore history. This specificity, even featuring the music of the day (especially the songs of Sweet Charity), is important because it honours the lives of the people at Kampong Engku Aman while simultaneously leveraging on the paradox of storytelling: the more specific the description or narrative, the more universal the story becomes.

No trace remains of Kampong Engku Aman—I pass the site (now a mall and an open-air parking lot) twice a day on my commute to the bookshop—and this makes Fairoz Ahmad’s novel even more of a gift.

We have little control over change in Singapore. And the pace of change shows no evidence of flagging. But Singaporean solastalgia need not be a terminal illness. Music like that of Sweet Charity’s, and novels, like that of Fairoz Ahmad’s, are touchstones of cultural memory that we are privileged to have access to. So reader, heal thyself.

Ibrahim Tahir 

(Excerpted from a post on Wardah Books’ Bussorah Bookseller Diary)

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