Kam Raslan’s Talking Edge

(Reprinted from The Edge – Options pullout, 26 December 2016 issue)

Dear Kam,
Is it my imagination, but has the Big Bad Wolf sale finished?
Ms Read

I went to the Big Bad Wolf sale last week and it was great. For those of you who don’t know, the Big Bad Wolf is a huge sale of books that happens every year. These are books that nobody wanted to buy but they are very good quality and somebody from Malaysia (I don’t know who) rounds them all up and puts them on sale in an absolutely gigantic room for a week and at very affordable prices. At a Big Bad Wolf sale a few years ago, I found a horribly big stack of a book that I wrote. Books that didn’t get bought when they were in a bookshop are called “remaindered” and are usually pulped. This is a writer’s worst nightmare and there I was, looking at stacks of my book. It was very embarrassing. But in the same room, were books by Jamie Oliver and John le Carré, so I was in good company. I managed to persuade a few passing people to buy some copies and even offered to sign them. I think they felt sorry for me but, heck, if pity sells, then I’ll go with that.

As long as they don’t sell my books, then I love the Big Bad Wolf. It’s open for 24 hours every day for an entire week and there are always people there. It can be packed with all sorts of people looking for books at reasonable prices. I love going there because I love books and I love bookshops, and it’s great to see I share that interest with so many Malaysians. When I’m there, I can’t help but look at the crowd, and I see that every Malaysian demographic is represented. There are bestselling authors such as myself (well, I thought I was one until I saw a pile of my unsold books), families with young children, retirees, students and many others with shopping trolleys filled with books. It says something very heartening about Malaysia that something as huge as the Big Bad Wolf can be successful here.

Despite everything, despite the dumbing down of our politics and education system, Malaysians still want books for themselves and for their children. Maybe something as big as the Big Bad Wolf sale is held in other cities in Southeast Asia, but I would be surprised.

Dear Kam,
Recently, you wrote about The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. I hope you’re not going to do it again.
Mr Stoned

I wrote about The Beatles and the Stones a few weeks ago and I’m going to write about them again because you’re not my parent and you can’t tell me what to do.

Donald Trump used to play a Rolling Stones song at all his rallies during his presidential campaign. It was You Can’t Always Get What You Want and I thought it was a strange choice. It’s a very good song, but why play The Rolling Stones? It’s a very old song (1969) and although The Rolling Stones are rock legends, they are also rock dinosaurs. The song and even the band must be largely unknown to younger voters, but if you are going to play an old song, then why not something hopeful and uplifting? Instead, he played a song that is quite negative. It says that you can’t always get what you want, but sometimes you get what you need, which is hardly a great political message. Or maybe it is? During his presidential campaign it was easy to dismiss Trump as a moron, but now that he has actually won, it’s just as easy to think that everything he did was touched by genius. Actually, he is a moron, but there was also some genius at work.

I don’t think it’s possible to think of The Rolling Stones without thinking about The Beatles. Arriving on the world stage just before the Stones, The Beatles not only heralded the arrival of the baby boomers and their rock music but the groundbreaking music they recorded during their short career in the 1960s has shaped everything that has come since. The Rolling Stones are magnificent and have been hugely successful but, early in their career, they realised that they simply could not beat The Beatles because the Fab Four were always one step ahead of them, and, unlike many other bands, they didn’t want to just copy The Beatles. So, they consciously decided to become the anti-Beatles. If The Beatles sang She Loves You, the Stones sang Paint it Black. If The Beatles said all you need is love, then the Stones said you should have sympathy for the devil. When Paul McCartney was with a Maharishi in India singing about being Mother Nature’s son, Mick Jagger was singing about how he was raised by a toothless bearded hag (but it’s all right now, in fact, it’s a gas). The Beatles sang about the world we should live in, or might want to live in, a world where all you need is love and Lucy is in the sky with diamonds. The Rolling Stones sang about the real world that we do live in. It’s not an airy-fairy spiritual with sitar music and a deceased mother’s offering words of wisdom to let it be, instead it can be the terrifying world they described in Gimme Shelter or Street Fighting Man.

I’m probably giving too much credit to Trump’s intellectual process, but that’s why I think he chose The Rolling Stones. For all these years, we have been living in the world of The Beatles where most people agree that they are better than The Rolling Stones because the sound and imagery of The Beatles is more complex, satisfying and emotionally uplifting than the harder, darker Rolling Stones. But Trump’s triumph over the establishment (Clinton) has also been the triumph of The Rolling Stones over The Beatles. We now live in a world where The Beatles have to compete with the Stones, and not the other way around.

I love The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. The Rolling Stones are absolutely brilliant and You Can’t Always Get What You Want is one of their best songs, but I have the good sense to know that The Beatles are better. Because they just are. And I am confident that after a bizarre 2016, the world will retune itself back to The Beatles.

Reprinted with the kind permission of