"A Doctor In The House" - a good read.

22.3.2011.

I make my hasty pronouncement although I've only read five chapters, picked at random. I don't think I'll be wrong by the time I finish. 

Dekna couriered to me a copy of the new book by Mahathir Monday. No wonder she called a few times asking if a certain parcel had come from KL. I had no inkling it was this one, but it was a pleasant surprise, and I immediately called her and asked why she didn't make it perfect by inserting some money in the pages !.

I've been reading it whenever I can, since. It appears at this point to be not so much a personal autobiography as a journal of events that Mahathir went through from his childhood to his retirement as Malaysia's fourth, and, to me, most remarkable PMship. 

Already I have learned some interesting facts about the birth of Independent Malaya, and later Malaysia. I note that there have been adverse reactions, from Ku Li, of course from Anwar, and, although I didn't bother to read it, from my former friend, Aspan, in his blog. (I say former because he has stopped contacting me for many years now, and the last big wedding for his daughter or son he didn't bother to invite me.) 

These negative reactions are not surprising, in fact Mahathir had from the book launch said he expected a lot of them but is prepared to meet them head on. Mahathir writes in his own style, I suppose, and that doesn't take anything from this book. But I thought employing a professional writer could have made the memoirs more attractively conveyed. 

I'm leaving the two chapters on Anwar last,  as  the  last piece to enjoy at the end of a meal. 

I suggest everybody gets a copy. This may be one last piece of narrative of the nation's birth from a worm's eye view. Or a bird's. Depends on how you look at it. 

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