The Unconscious ldeologue - A Postcolonial Perspective of Anthony Burgess: The Malayan Trilogy

LAJIMAN JANOORY*

Abstract:

This study examines, from a postcolonial perspective, the

issue ofthe unconscious colonialist ideology in texts written by Anthony Burgess in his 1972 book, "The Malayan Triiogy". The paper strives to reveal the underlying coloniai mentality ofan expatriate who professed to write on behalf of the natives. It shows that the effect of Orientalism,

the epistemology of looking at the others from a European perspective,

still has a debilitating effect on the psyche of a supposedly wellintentioned western writer.
Keywords: unconscious ideologue, post-colonialism, Orientalism

INTRODUCTION
'l'lre teaching of literature in English in the Malaysian school syllabus has ,'rrused a stir in the teaching profession. There are those who applauded it rs a step forward, taking into consideration the importance of English as llre international lingua franca. Students, they argued, need to have a
r

rrrcdium, to express their language creativity in a more suitable medium. l,lnglish as a subject taught in school does not really cater to this form of

,'xpression since it is more restricted towards language rules and lrroficiency. For the better students, the arena wirerc thcy can pour out I lreir creativity into words is in literature. S4ren litcraturc was first mooted

Lecturer, English Language Department, Faculty of Languages, UPSI

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as a sub-element in the English syllabus, the idea was to provide students with the skills for interpreting and understanding texts. Literature, more than any other subjects taught in school, reflects humanity and the environment with which it interacts. The bigger objective is to inculcate positive values into the student so that he or she may become a well-rounded person who not only excels in pursuing physical development but also achieves high marks in understanding his or her human values. Can literary theory be taught in school? This question will have to be answered by the teachers themselves. While literary theories, when they were first formulated, cater to the intelligentsia, they are still possible to be taught in school. Not all theories are difficult to comprehend, and some are even related closely to our lives. The issues presented may link to our experience which we may never have thought possible before. As a matter of fact, theories such as New Criticism, which focuses on the form of the text, irrespective of the historical or biographical elements and Reader Response Criticism which believes that the reader must be an active participant in the creation of meaning have actually been applied in analyzing literary texts in schools. The difference is that they are not labeled and taught as such by the teachers. Thus, the writer believes that it is high time that teachers familiarize themselves with literary theories with the intention of providing basic literary knowled"ge to students by means of the theories. l Some theories are better introduced in school so that students will have a first taste of them at the earlier level. Some teachers may find it possible to teach the theories although it is advisable that the theories be in a diluted form. What this means is that teachers should not introduce the theories as a topic per se but only provide students with hints on how to interpret a text differently if a particular theory is applied. This is particularly important since not all theories can be applied to any one text and vice versa. For example, reading Muhammad Hj Salleh's Si Tenggangb l{omecomzagis possible from a post-colonial perspective, but it may be difficult to dissect using Psychoanalytic Criticism. And similarly, applying a Reader Response approach to Shakespeare's Lifeb a Brief Candle should not pose as much a problem as when looking at it from a Marxism point of view. Of course, the argument is relative since understanding and ability to interpret texts differ from one individual to another. In the end it lies with the teacher as to which theory/theories he or she is comfortable with and how to introduce the theory/theories to the class. It would be prudent to remind teachers that the strategies that he or she uses may make or break the students' will to learn more about literary theories.

POSTCOLONIALISM AS A LITERARY THEORY

'l'his paper wishes to introduce the theory of post-colonialism in the
clrrssroom. So how can the teacher introduce postcolonial theory to the clirss? Would it not be too big an issue, or too ambitious an idea to teach

strch a theory to students? Would they be able to understand the lrrndamental aspects of the theory? The writer contends that it can be rlrine, provided the teacher has some grasps of the basic principles of the I heory itself. Thus this paper is intended to expose teachers to postcolonial l.heory as an alternative approach at interpreting a text in a literature lluss. It is hoped to enrich students' skiils at interpreting literary texts, rrs well as enriching their academic lives. In discussing the postcolonial issue we cannot escape from discussing lristory because the term colonialism itselfis closely related to history. 'l'his is especially true regarding colonization by the European powers over the rest of the world which started in the fifteenth century. Nations like Spain, France, Portugal, England and Netherlands scrambled out of t,heir home ports in merchant ships and mans-o-war, bearing the Bible in rrne hand and the sword in the other in their efforts at ciuilizing tlte sauages of'the world. Sometimes together, but most of the time in competition with each other, these colonizers chartered and conquered the world as if l,he land that they passed through were never populated. By the nineteenth r:ontury, Britain became the dominant power and reached its military zcnith by controlling a quarter of the land mass of this planet, and so gained the famous (infamous?) nickname 't/te land tahere t/te sun neuer .r'elsl However, by the twentieth century and after two great wars, they lost the will to empire, increasing resistance from subject countries made it unfeasible for Britain to maintain physical hegemony. The declining grip of the British in Malaya became the backdrop of Anthony Burgess's 'l/re Malayan Trilog1t, which will be analyzed further in this paper. As has been mentioned earlier, the retreat of the colonisers from the physical borders ofsubject nations, does not mean the end ofcolonisation. 'l'here are still many residual effects arrd derbris of the colonial powers left behind. Unless they are effectively remrived f'rom the formerly colonized t:ountries, these countries will never tirsto f'r'cedom in its truest sense. As Itadhillah and Ruzy (2001: 3) state'cokrnialism is far from dead; in fact, l,he hegemony legitimised through the estublishrnent of the European Union ()nsures the superiority and purity of thc whitc race'. In postcoionial literary theory, what is stressed is how the ideology of Lhe colonisers affects and influences the formerly colonised population in political, social, cultural and economic spheres. What is apparent is the lormer subjects still maintain all the systems and values, be they in rrdministration, education or cultural values of the former colonisers. The

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colonised are so trapped in this cultural cagc of'the west tl'rat tircy loolr down on their own cultures and regard them as inferior in comparisorr

with the'universal' Western culture. The colonialist ideology is the perception by the west that they ar.. superior and civilized while the East is inferior and savage. The west alscr regards the East as in need of salvation; thus, it is its duty to bring the 'light of civilization'to the non-western world. Another inherent ideoiogy of the west is the assumption that the East is synonymous with chaos, s<i it is only rational that the more civilized west should provide order ancl good governance to the chaotic regions. Edward said, in his orientalism, writes at length about the psyche of the white man and his views concerning the Other. Said (1998: 3) states:
orientalism.. . as the corporate institution for dealing with the orientdealing with it by making statements about it, a'thorizing views of it,

t:litsltt's "l !Vlrilt, t.hc n:rkccl power <lf'the guns is silenced, the more subtltr Literature and culture al'e now the latest domil ins I lrlrl I lrr, 1r0ns c<tntinue. opposing trenches. The stake is '.1' srr 1,if ihc West against the Other in thus to lose the wir r ,, r rch political independence as cultural self-identity; with so mut:h ,,, t,o be drawn back into the black hole of neo-colonialism. in irt stake, it is not surprising that there are some radical arguments literarv ( he resistance by the subaltlrn in the cultural, political andthe there are also the moderating voices that seek to scenes. Of course effective lrvbridise the two cultures so as to make a more meaningful and
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nrsistance. As Helen in this western epistemological thinking concerning the other. ..-postcolonialism,s agenda is more specifically & Joanne (1996: 3) state,

Apostcolonialdiscourseservestoexposethebinaryconstructsinherent

describing

it. by teaching it, settiing it, ruling

over

Orientalism as a Western styie of dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient.

it; in short,

political:todismantlethehegemonicboundariesandthedeterminants such as ihat create unequal relation olpower bated on binary oppositions

usandthem,firstworldandthirdworld,whiteandblack'coloniser
and colonised."

He argues that the whole process of accumulation of knowledge concerning the East (as well as the other) was never objective. It was never a process of mere understanding. At close scrutiny, all the observations, analyses and descriptions were found to be operating aro{g a singular ideological plane-that western culture was superior to that of the other. This was the main ideology that the western powers brought to the four corners of the world, along with the man-o-wars and the canons. As stated by Tyson (i999: 366) "...colonialist ideology was based on the coloniser's assumption of their own superiority, which they contrasted with the alleged inferiority of native peoples". At first glance it appeared blindingly true even to the captivated coionised. However, the main flaw of this epistemology was due to the western cultural yardstick, which equated the idea of civilization with technical superiority, which was used to compare between cultures. The yardstick could not be farther from the truth.
questions and resists the colonial and Eurocentric ideologies, which are inherent in the western mode of thinking and translated into any medium, be it social, political or cultural. This means placing the said ideologies in the proper place which is at the periphery vis-i-vis the iocar culture. It is of paramount importance that the local culture be placed in its rightful position to be able to gain recognition and regain the self-respect which has been suppressed for so long. In the postcolonial literary context, resistance brings the reader to a new dimension of warfare, although sometimes not much less violent.

From a political perspective, this expose is a continuation of political' economical of resistance against the hegemony of the Western It is about learning how to live in an-d represent and cultural structures' (Boehmer: 1995) the newly-liberated world in a profoundly different way. awav from or argues that it is necessary as part of an-effort at breaking The ..ritir.g away the umbilicll "o"d of the west and that of the other. historical' liberated should fbcus on reconstituting the position of their differences in their culturnl identity which had racial, or metaphysical
been d.amaged by the colonial experience' oiled by western colonisation of thsworld was clrivcrr-r by greed and physical colonisation capitalism as the ideological lubricant. Howtrvtrt, sitlctl justification rplU"a oppr.ssi.r.r, tlr.r. rtc.ded to be moral support wiihout not ,,nly to l,htr tlolorliscr's conscience but also to make it a valid "nd"u.ro.r1' Kurtz to sweeten to appease sentiments at home. 'l'hcrt' h:rtl l,o lX, rr conrad's

the form

Post colonial criticism, in general, is a method of writing which

of rationale behind such m.ttsl,r,trs rtt:tivities. Thus the excuse non-European ";;i" civilisingthe barbariansbecame thtr sLril-:rtr oI tLrrninatingthe the practices ltl{'t, trr ttt:h t,<l be desired. It is this moral lands' even though justification thaihas seeped into hisl0r'it'irl. trtrltural, as well as literarv ('o expose the real nature of discourses that needs to be clisn,,rrrllt'rl colonialism.
(1994:

states, resist'rttrr:t" t'vcn in the form of counteriir"o.rr.", is really u po*", which is strsi rr irt.d :lnd generated by the same resistance to work means and comes from the same st,rttr:ltrrt', enabling from within.

Why is counter-discourse

fundirrllcnlrr I rrspcct of resistance? As Zawiah

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lrr Iitcrature, a postcolonial reading will seek to unravel the latent western."rit"l. writing about the East' It strives to analyse the superiority complex of the coronisers .nd to debunk the myth about and the stereotyping of the l0cal natives which had been constructed by the Western inteliectuals. It is this institutionalized perception that needs to be re-evatrut"a ur.J.Jinterpreted by the orientar so that a more baianced and imparti"r r"d;;""t can be presented especially for the iocai audience. A postcotor.iut'"*uarng also seeks to make a systematic analysis of the effects of coroniarism on the physical, as well as on the mind of ihe coronized. sin.* pnyri"ut *tor.rrutio., is now but a part of history, efforts must be concentrated ai unveiting the more subtre coronisation of the mind because this new form of imperialism is not onlv the extension of the ord coronial hydra but is also mo"" durrr"rorr.. This new form of colonization allows for domination without boundary, or what is popularly termed neocolonialism. Another area of interest for a postcoloniar reading would be in analyzing the hybridity ofthe curtures ofthe coloniser and that ofthe coronised. The fusion of these two curtures spanned ..r.h u long period of time that it would be impossible to set them apart. It is uncieniable that a set of cultures is never fixed' It is always--undergoing transformatio,r uiong with time ay{ hrlman development. what b*"o-J" a problem is when th? symbiosis of the local culture with the culture of the coloni.". bu"o*". a *uupo./ura when the point of argument for the colonizers is to reassert th; J""nl;;; superiority over the coronized on the one hand, urrd u ...r.* oiinf.eriority for the colonised over its own culture on the other. This paper wil strive to unraver the coloniarist mentality which was pervasive in the text ?he Ma/ayan ?ri/ogy fg"r*"..,-iOZZ;. tt l, mentalitv exists despite the serf-prlclamation by the writer that he wrote on behalfofthe cultures Another on;ecirve ortt iupu. i. to highlight the difference between Burgess, form 'ocal " of coiorriuf iaJorogy urra that of writers ,,r"h..1, Rudyard tiipiirrg, Somerset fUltrrlru_, o, sweetenham in describing tha'exotic'burt. Kipling and other western writers mentioned are clear in their ideologicai .r"*". f" f<r'ling, for example, the East will be East, and the west, west. It is a clear cut pronouncement of an ideology at work. He, at ,east, did ,oi*ut urry pretension about his ideoiogical position. " It is different witrr eu.gess. As for Burgess, he may have Leiieved thai h" doing a service to the people of the East that he represented "ru. when he first put-penio fupur, .rot realizing that the western epistemologicar experience that he inherited played a very important part in his subJonscious. so *rrut rr" p;r""i,r"a u. a service, at close scrrutiny, turned out to be a disservi"" d;i.; peopre whom he dedicated his work to.
txrlonial structures and ideorogies in texts by

UNRAVELLING THE MIND OF THE UNCONSCIOUS IDEOLOGUEINBURGESS'STHEMALAYANTRILOGV

'l'hewriterwilllookatthenovelT/teMalayanTrilogybyAnthonyBurgess (1g7z)inanattemptatunravelingtheinherentcolonialideoiogyofthe makes wdte; who professud to krro* the true face of the East. The trilogy a beer commercial), T/ze rrp three stories. Time ,For A Tiger (anallusion to fn irn-y h, The Blankez (a translation from a Malay proverb)' and Bedsthe colonial officials at last T/ze Eastwhich deals *ith th" life of one of the life of victor of the British rule in Malaya. The trilogy follows the end subsequent death' an Crabbe, his career, his disiliusionments, and his "tt"g*vofthedecadenceandeventualdeathoftheBritishEmpire.the text, I., iir-rairrg the problems of applying a postcolonial reading to it should be .rot"d thut the said ptiui"-r would be faced by an uninformed

of a reader. An uninfbrmed read,er iacks knowledge or the understanding knowledge as a guiding colonial ideological operation in a text. without such interpellated principle, the reader will become what Althusser refers to as an the notion of the subject ,"ua"r. Interpellation is a Marxist term. It is offered to being a captivated reader who passively swallows everything and Ideological State him ty the hegemonic power' It' hit etsay Ideology propose-s the idea Apparatuses, Atthttr.", (in Ashcroft et al', 1989: 170) within ideologies and that "...sub1ects are interpellated (called into being) under the power that this is inescapable: that is, lhat wc become conscious 'Ihis view impresses on of construction resident in imaginary stLl'rjection". 'reality'constructed for the reader that the subject is prcs0ntocl with a

himandend"orsedt,y"*i.ti''ginst,iLtrtitlnsthatgivelegitimacytothe

,reality,. He is shapei by th,, iilr,,rl,,gy lr.rn6trrded at him so consistently that ideologv' and so pervasively that his sct, ()l'lrolic{,s is'patterned into (,o lrc trrrsilv cr-introlled and managed' This is in order for the subjcr:1,s ideoiogy is The first problem in iiir,rrtil'vi.g t,his tcxt as a colonialist This notion implies due to the writer's pretensi0n ol',lroirrg ;r libcral writer. the middle that the writer wrote his text, Iry rrsst tnr ittg himself of being on stance regarding glound of ideological impartirr Iity. wil,Irr ILrt any ideological to give voice to the the west or the East. The tcxt wrts pt tt'ltttrt,trdly written expatriate writers natives, which had been clclritr<l lirr' srr lrlrtg bv many

suchasMaughamandSwcettltlllltltt.'|.lrtrs'bygivingvoicetobothsides' the West as we]l as the East, l}rrrgr's:l llr.rll'ossed to be a self-proclaimed between liberal writer. In The Enemy Irr'l'lrc lll:rrrlitrt, in a conversation between the colonised Hardman and Hj ZainalAfiairr, l.6r' rlivitli'g line something new and coloniser is blurred. In fact, t,hcy wt't't' r'jclcn ils equals, inexpatriatewritingsaboutthecoIotrist'tl. Irrt,erestingly,bothwereequally Hi zatnal J"gurr"rut"s and bJth were eqr.rirlly lrylror:rites. At one time, be Grace. " You aUlain interjectecl Hardman's rclirsrrl t.r, lrc rrirlled 'hould

believed thev were' If Maugham i"";;;; easy to disregard the voice of the native, and orwerl found iihard to -urntuin the idears of a white man in an Eastern rand, Burgess had no q.rui-. about depicting the white as degenerates' A'his main heroes *".u *u.rti.,g in their Adam was an alcoholic; victor c.uuu" "h;;;"r.. Nabby *u. u hypocrite and Rupert Hardman a selfish, immorar white lacking i.r ."ti-""rpect. To Burgess, this was the real picture of the sorry state of affair of British adminlstrators

ttr//t'rl ltt/,dr l sav'(7g72: 2'J7').7n this insta'ce, Burgcss giving voice to the natives, but ',t oniy was using an authoritative voice over ther coloniser, something that a writer like f4augha- *o.,iJrr"rrlf,ao. tr. discourses he reiterated the same,riu* -ur.n ort"ying to represent the East in a better light. Howeu"l, the end, it .otorriul ideology that had been ensconced for so long in ]r, inteilectual" his experience t im. In the trilogy' Burgess portrayed the British and "t.ly"*t as what he the rocars

lo lrvoirl tl-rc Kipling phenomenon of the stated whit,c man's btrtrlorr irr ivilizing the non-Western world. However, this avoidance dges not rrcr 1r ril Ir inr lrom being an ideologist. Referring to the same issue, Zawiah ( 1 1)1):l l:|0) states lhat'this is not to say t/zat colonialist uriter li/te Bu4gi',;.: tt/'( euen ctu)are of l/ze m-yriad mysterious uaJ/s in ut/zic/t t/zeir inheritr'r| ,ttlrtttia/ ideology gets intricatelt laouen into t/te fabric of t/zeir taorh' Ha wrote in ?/te Guardianof IO October 1964 (quoted in Zawiah, 1994: 131) that'I tuent to Mafuya as an education officer in I954 and uas so enc/zanted rut't/z t/ze country and angry tail/z Somerset Maug/tam for uriting a// t/tat
:

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about planters' toiues t/zat

began utritittg tn1, Malayan Trilogy'.

,.ii",il;rl*flnd

of

writing thatrvo.la _uru

r{.ph;;;M;;;hu_

in their ",i.,gu

who while or"""""."! rhu ,ru*" Allah' d ra i n e d /z rc b ee r s ra nd i ng' (rg7 2 : 287); theynua rro ."rrle oI. justice when practicing the axing of pe"o p\",to tinrr-an /zonest liuing\1972:22g), tustful as picrured in the amoro,,.;;.;oi,;he Abang In ,/ze -44a/ayctn ?n/og/, the characters are not mere individuals. They are significantly ."ul".tur*";;;;. characterisation is, in fact. a powerful tool of representation U".urru it is of a work of fiction. conversely, i;-;;" the _ort."rru_il#; *,;:; also be a powerfur toor of misrepresentation. Even if it ir as such by the writer, this tool wilj be the general perception"oi.rurr"a of the readers, especiaiiy the armchair travelers at home who want to try to understand o1h", through the description of the localcharacl"...-i;;., ".rttr."s a bad painting of a character does not merely represent himserf but utrn t i. society. since he wrote this trilogy at the dusk ofthe British ri"ruJ", it is only appropriate that he represents the white characters as dcgenerates, a symborism ofthe end of the colonial era' This represent.tio^ wilr be understood by the readers at home' However' the oictu re of r h" n,rt i u*. t'ur he portrayed may again, be construed as real by the samc innocent readers. Burgess attempte. to po'tr.ly rri^.urr as an unbiased writer by representing the races in what hc tirought bheir best and worse traits. He profess dogmaric vierws nor ;;";" trving to make a crear cut 1i1. ":t definition of power betwee' the coronised arra .oto.rr.*.. ti i, it i. i_ug" which Burgess constructccl .round hil;i as an impartiar writer that may become a problem to a postcoroniar reader. In .horl l; t u" -urrug"a

However, Burgess's picture of the locals was not very flattering either. This was especia'vtr,y?9. t1" uuruyl*no were portrayed as hypocrites as represented by Hj ZainatAbidin,

illt;ilT:',Tff1*

Suffice it to say, that by assuming the truth of Burgess's words, he was rnore of an unconscious ideologue, more of a Conradian phenomenon, who whrle criticizing the actions of the ciuilizingwhites in congo, was still of tlre view that the blacks were actually savages. To Burgess'..'pu/'e /rttt/t is not relis/zed r.tt t/ze East'(p 391) or'?/tis utas Eas| Logtc tt)os cl l,f/estern importatiott tah.ic/t.../zad a small mar/tef' (1972: 82). If not t:onsciously written as such. these statements were a testimony of a lluropean ideologist writer. Another method of writing which Burgess used which camouflaged his ideology was pliesenting the protagonists as antiheroes, the sort of characters not exactly hated but was not dearly loved either. Abrams (1999) defines antihero as't/ze c/tief person in a modertt rtouel or pla.y tu/tose c/taracter is u,,idely discrepant from t/zat u/tich tut: ctssociate uit/t t/te traditionalprotagonist or /tero of a serrlous lito'ary utot'/t'(1,999:7I). However, more importantly, and very relevant to this novcl is the definition Lhat't/ze anti/tero is especiallr con.spicuotls t'tt rltrrntrr/ir' /ragedy, in u.,/zic/t t/te protagonisl had usuallv becn, of'htgh t',s/rr/t', tli.gn1(y, and cottrage' (1ggg: 11). Hence, NabbyAdam, (lrabbc lrrrl I lrrr.tlrnrin were representative
of

thetragedyofthenobility(thc llritish l,)rripirc) t,hatthroughhishamartia (degeneration) crashes frottr ltowct l,o tlisirrLcgration. Burgess was simply narrating the downfall itr it t:orrrit:rtl tttrtttner. Massie (2002: 1) is

notfarfromthetruthwhenhrrwril't's llt;tl'1/'/t'iplirtgandl{aggarduere
poet and propagandist of Entltit'r'. /irrt']i',';.* rt'tt,s the amused ch.ronic/er of its end'. That the protagonists wcr('tlt'st'ttt't rt lt's was beyond doubt. They were the other side of the idea of }lrit islr rrls:r: rrr lvcnture, courage, intellectual superiority and whatever tags th: rl t'or rlr I lrc la lx,rled as the ideal of a civilized man. In characterizing the prrtt,rtgotrisls rts sttch, Burgess was exposing the vulnerability and weakncsst's ol'lltt't:olonial power. But we as a postcolonial reader should not glolrl, i,0o sool).'lhis strategy of using the protagonists as antiheroes actrrlrlly lrnrvirlt's a clouble meaning, the first too obvious to miss, and thc set:orttl loo srrlrl.lc to believe. It is a doublebladed sword that cuts both ways. ( loirrs lrrrcl< through the history of the

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llriLish in Malaya in this trilogy, we were given glirnpses <iI Llr. ftrrmer characteristics of the g/ortousBfitishEmpire, in opposition to the natives and the land.
'rt utas a land tt,/tic/z /zad been tardv m uielding to
t/te

Mala.yit dr.rring the 50's. The knowledge can be found in tnltrv llisl'olrcrrl lr69ks and journals. But what Burgess added was his fantasv o1 l,lto t lt'l : r ilr; of the historical or cultural truth. Of course, to a New Historicist, h islor',v

Britis/z'(p 2I2).

r/ze

hincllypressure

of

is never the truth. However, since this discourse is writtern I'rottt

:t

'Abang...impotient to l/te gent/e restrains of ttteslern latt,s'(p 2IB). ' 'T/ze Britis/z /tad hardly disttrbed the t/meless pattern', (p il+). '?he Britis/z had broug/tt rule and justice,(p 190). power, always maintained rationar and humane approaches in its poricy towards the conquered natives. The words 'gentle' and,hindli. and the phrases 'hardly disrurbed', anrJ.'rule and justice'here also connote the idea of maturity, patience, persistence, moderate, accommodative, cunning considering other harsher options which were within his means to enfbrce ' the same domination over the natives. To Burgess, the British w as,pouerful

Summarily, Burgess implied that the Empire, at the zenith of its

and so on to assert the superiority of the white man's human values,

in this text. This idea implies that atihough the west was degenerating, the natives had never risen from the ditch ofdegeneration. In fact, Burgess implicitly stated that alr those vices mentioled earlier were the innate traits of the natives, and that being degenerate was their way of life. After all,"?/te state /rad no /zisrory. rt h;d not c/tanged in many centuries. (p 214), brushing away the centuries of the history of the dynasties and sultanates of the MalayArchipelago in a mere two-sentence statement. By comparing with Edward Said's discourse, orientalism,we will find that Burgess was still unable to shake himself off the colonial ideology which he tried to clisclaim. Burgess was still repeating the same
antihero
echoes from the cave of

but mi/d'(p 428). comparing the characteristics of the British at the heigh\ of its power and before Malaya's independence, we are presented with two different pictures. what Burgess implied was that at the height of the Empire, the British were characteristicaliy superior; but at their lowest moments, the colonisers had become like the natives. And how were the characteristics of the natives presented? Their Abang of the present was still as despotic as the Abangs of the past. They were still resistant to progress, and from the descriptions of the locals in this trilogy, the locals *"." prone to vices than virtues. so now we go to the second implication -or" idea of the of

unconscious Western ideologue. The next problem ofapplying a postcoloniai reading to this trilogy is Burgess's method of mixing truth with fiction. It is actnowledged that Burgess was aware of the general historicar circumstances surrtunding

intellectual darkness of the west reglrding the East. only it is more subtle, most probably due to Burgess;s being an

historical and cultural truths are concerned. Thus, what Burgcss wils cloing was reverting to the method of exoticism. The novel had becomc il rr cxotic writing of sorts. This means that he failed to avoid the Westorrr gaze ofthe d.escription ofthe local picture. Concerning exoticism ofthrr East, Gallini (1996) writes that "Perhaps toithin t/ze glass cabinet t/tt' ruorld, witlt a// its countries, taas set on stage. And tae remained outsirle, contemplating it t/zroug/t t/te glasl' (p 213). The readers at home werc always eager for stories of the unknown, something special which they thought might add to their armchair experience of the mysterious East. who else could provide them with 'authentic' materials if not old-hand colonialists like Burgess, who had been there six years traversing the land and living among the natives. The subject oflslam is special for Burgess, and he took extra effort at explaining the religion and its adherents, but alas for the wrong reasons. Burgess was always cynical about the religion and its hypocriticalfollowers. After all, to him 'Islam is mainly custom, mainly obseruance. ?h'ere are uery little doctrines in il (p 262). From this starting ideological point, Burgess went on to describe Tuan Haji Mohammad Nasir who went to Mecca witb.'sauings /zelped by judicious bels on tipped h'orses(p 18) and about polygamy which was practiced to such extent that'diuorcee prostitutes uere t/t'ic/t on the euening streets'(p 213). Burgess's political Malaya was no better. Malaya, or Dahaga (Thirsty) as he claimed it to be, was an orwellian society where big brother was always watching the people and the 'proles' (p 304). 'SI ABANG I,tE\.L NDANG AWAI{ (p 303) was a direct translation of Big Brother Is Watching You of Oru.,e//lc Nittctc(tt, ffig'/tt.y Four. He even went on to describe |/te installation of t/zr:Abtrrt,g.rtto,; far more magnificent t/tan t/te Sultanb coronation' (p 213). Burgcss ovt:n committed himself to historical voyeurism when he describetd th() rlirmes of the Abang's ancestors as included 'AI Is/tander t/te (]n:u/. At'islctt/e, Mansor S/ta/t, Auerroes, DAlbuquerque, Abu Ba/tar atul 01/tt'ns'(p 213), names which were derived from the four corners of the worlcl, which provide a quixotic picture of the
whole affair. Regarding the Maltry culture, Burgess wrote about how Fenella ,uas still scared of tahing a balh, /bt'a ,spirit o/sincere inquiry senl serious Ma/a1, yout/ts to the bal/zroont tuirtr/)to to find out if ut/tite uomen dffired materially from broutn ones '(I97 2: 27 r,-t) , In all these instances, postcolon ilr I rcading becomes problematic if the

llostcolonial perspective, there are discrepancies and irregularitiels wlttrt t'

reader is not equipped with thc r0lcvant knowledge regarding the

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dcscriptions of the local culture. Thus, a postcolonial reader o1'a cliflbrent cultural, historical or religious background will find it hard to analyse this text from a local perspective, for it requires in-depth experiences with the relevant cultures which were described in this trilogy, experiences even a seasoned colonialist like Burgess failed to capture.

CONCLUSION
a tex! a postcolonial reader must always be aware of the obvious as well as the unseen traps, especially in a text as problematic as ?/te Malayan Trilogy. He or she is not only seeking to find the colonial ideological

In reading

constructs which will be apparent in texts written by authors the like of

Kipling or Maugham, but also of the ambiguous constructs from

unconscious ideologists such as Anthony Burgess. Thus, a postcolonial reader has to be intellectually prepared to analyse and dissect these kinds of writings from the western writers and expose what they really are because what is seen is not always what it seems.

REFERENCES

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Abrams, M. H., 1999. A Glossary of Literary ?erms. New york: Harcourt Brace College Publishers. Ashcroft, Bill; Griffith, Gareth and riffin, Helen, 1989. T/te empire utrites bac/e. London: Routledge. Boehmer, El]eke, 1995. colonial andpostcolonia/ /iterature-migrant metap/zors. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Burgess, Anthony, 7972. T/ze ll[alayan ?rihgy. Middlesex: pengr.rin Books. Fadhillah Merican & Ruzy Suiiza Hashim (ed)., 2001. Notiuc tc.rts and conterts. Essays utit/zpost-colonialperspectiues. Siri Penerbitan Ircstchrifts, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia.

Ga]lini, clara, 1996. T/ze Posr- colonial Queslzbas. N.w y.r'k: It.utledge. Helen,GilbertandJoanne,Tompkins, 19g6.Post-rr,tlottftr/rlnrnto-t/teorl,,,practice and po lit ics. London: Routledge MassieAllan. Available from http:4lruweb.r.rrriv-rrrrgt,r:s.I'r/EXTRANET/ AnthonvBURGE SS/NL3malay.htm Said, Edward, 1978. Orientalism. London: ll.rrl,l.tlgt,& I(t,g;r. l)aul Ltd. Tyson, Lois, 1999. Critical t/zeory today A tr,sru,/).i'rtt//y,,,,,rzzzlr,. Ncw york: Garland
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Young, Robert, J., 2001. Postcolottitt/t,grtt

Itt //i.;/rtt'itttI In/roduction.

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