The legendary Malaysian dancer Ramli Ibrahim was kind enough to share his views after reading my book. I am touched he took the time to write the review
‘Stories Between Us’ by Bissme S
Published by Fixi Novo
A review by Ramli Ibrahim (WhatsApp)
Some years ago when the young journalist Bissme S sent me a copy of his early attempt at writing short stories, I told him that his manner of storytelling reminded me of that of Spanish film & screen director, Pedro Almodovar.
Having read Bissme’s recently published book of short stories, ‘Stories Between Us’, I am still convinced this to be so. As with Almodovar, Bissme’s short stories have the same rapturous melodramatic tales and obsessions, as well as dark humour that is often sexual with witty reference to popular culture.
The Sheherazade-esque raison d’etre of writing the 18 short stories itself is a fantastical opening that would pique a reader’s curiosity.
The writer put himself as the archetypal ‘slave’ of The Queen of Fire, the veritable Mistress of the Realm. He is compelled to tell a story each day to please Her, or else…
The stories unfold, one for each day, each one more fantastical than the previous; each allowing the writer to weave his imagination where the sacred and the profane, the good and the bad, the sublime and the carnal are mixed and stirred into a heady concoction of phantasmagorical melodrama.
These short, queer and often irreverent stories, sometimes irresistibly blasphemous, are not for the faint-hearted.
Bissme’s style is terse and witty with effective repetition of catchphrases. And his stories are full of clever innuendos. Things suddenly happen and like the Japanese classic Roshomon, only explained rather perfunctorily, later. From the very first ‘how it began’, one learns to accept the veracity of whatever reason given!
Like Almodovar, the plots are outrageously unpredictable, implausible and what more, impious; there is never a dull moment. One suspects the ‘Queen of Fire’ herself might be persuaded to be an avatar of one of the characters in this series of 18 short stories. After all, the unicorn locket that she wears eventually becomes the metaphor for the prescient presiding sphinx who may or may not know the answers to the riddles that thread through the garland of these 18 short stories.
Like Sheherazade, She (the Queen of Fire) cannot help but be compelled to hear the next story till the end, only to postpone the slave’s execution.
Stories Between Us’ are ready storyboards of images for a film director, hopefully as savvy as Almodovar, to conceive them into a compelling film.
But I doubt it will ever pass the stodgy restrictions of our Censorship Board.
PS: I am posing a picture of me with Ramli Ibrahim, holding the book
