Kam Raslan's right. In the preface for his new book, Confessions of an Old Boy: The Dato' Hamid Adventures he writes that we've known Dato' Hamid all our lives. Seeing as my own dad is an old boy of MCKK, the people I get to meet when he drags me to an Old Boy function and the people he tells me of, reflect the characters found in Kam's book. It really does feel like I've known Dato' Hamid all my life.

Dato' Hamid is a civil servant of the Tunku Abdul Rahman generation. He is the sort of person you rarely see nowadays, a fine example of the anachronistic Malay. This generation, groomed in the ways of the colonial British would be out of place not just in 21st century Malaysia, but in Britain too. And yet, Dato' Hamid, in all his snobbishness and patronising ways, is essentially a Malaysian. Without people like him, our country would probably never exist at all. At least not like we know it now.

I'm glad that Kam Raslan decided to capture this "Malaysian-ness" in the character of Dato' Hamid, because it is through his eyes that we are able to see Malaya as it was, Malaysia as it is and a Malaysia as it could be. Through his eyes, we see a bold satire of many Malaysian elements - royalty, civil service, idleness, corruption, idealism.

The novel itself is actually a collection of short stories and these stories cycle from short anecdotes to a murder mystery (very Agatha Christie) to a dialogue between old friends about what it means to be Malaysian. All of them are different in style from each other, but all of them are equally worth reading. I personally loved the one set in Switzerland where we learn how ruttish Dato' Hamid can be.

If there ever was a book that deserved to be called The Great Malaysian Novel, I think Kam Raslan's book deserves to at least be in the running. Confessions of an Old Boy is not only Malaysian, it is also a very great read. If you haven't picked it up already, you should. ( )

Being a friend to many MCKK old boys of my husband's generation and older, I feel that I've met Dato' Hamid many times over!

Dato' Hamid was born, we're told, somewhere between the 1920's and early 1930's, educated at Malay College (dubbed the Eton of the East and set up by the British to create a Malayan civil service) and then at university in the UK before returning home to take up a post in The Ministry. He's a charming old rascal - cultured, well travelled, hedonistic ... and also a little lazy and easily corruptible.

His son, "the Ayatollah" represents a certain type of "new Malay" that's only too familiar (goatee-bearded, fanatical, politically ambitious and smugly self-righteous) and is a character I would have liked to see very much more of in the book, particularly because he gives rise to some inspired moments of social commentary.

"I don't know where they came from and I don't know where they are taking us ..."

says Hamid, speaking I'm sure for many readers. (How many times have I been told that the country was a gentler, kinder, more tolerant place "back then"?)

Hamid finds that he has much more in common with The Grandson, a computer animator who makes good in Hollywood, despite his purple (and later green!) hair and the ring though his nose.

Confessions is a collection of stories, four of them short episodes, and three much more substantial pieces.

My favourite is "Ariff and Capitalism", set between Kuala Lumpur and London in 1972 in which Hamid gets drawn into a get-rich-quick scam with hilarious results.

I also thoroughly enjoyed the rambunctiousness of "Dato' in Love" which involves among other things the seduction of a Swiss milkmaid and the theft of a diamond.

In "The Beat Generation Hamid" reminisces about the time in the 1950's when he was dragged along by his friend Nik to work in Paris and Algiers a drummer with a band.

The longest story in the book is "Murder in Parit Chindai", which gives a Malaysian twist to the traditional Agatha Christie type murder in the library at a country house with a cast of eccentric characters, any one of whom could have done the grisly deed. It's a very clever piece, and I appreciated the fact that Kam brought in characters of other races (which happens too rarely in fiction by Malaysian authors). But I felt that Hamid and the others seemed like pawns being moved around the chessboard of the necessarily complex plot of the whodunit, rather than initiating action themselves. (It felt in this story as if Kam were pulling the strings rather than taking dictation which for me made it less effective than the other stories.)

"The Malayans" is set "Somewhere near Seremban - 2001" and is a conversation between a group of old friends, Malaysians of different races (a reminder that the ethnic divisions was not a feature of the landscape of the country in the past) following the death of one of their gang on the golf course. They mull over life, talk about their children and contemplate the principles and idealism on which the new country was founded at Independence and how it has lived up to them.

Would I recommend the book? Most definitely. It's hugely enjoyable, deeply relevant, and beautifully written. I read it with a huge smile on my face, often laughing out loud at the turn of a phrase.

I am left saying that I want more, much more of Dato' Hamid, his friends and family ... especially The Ayatollah! ( )