I picked up Oktober after not having read a book in Malay for a very long time — probably close to two decades. That made the experience slightly strange from the beginning.
The Malay sometimes felt unnatural to me, almost as if I were reading a translation rather than something originally written in the language. But I honestly can’t say how much of that was the book and how much was me. After so many years of barely reading Malay fiction, my own sense of what sounds natural on the page may simply have become rusty.
What I do remember clearly is that the story itself hooked me very quickly.
Oktober loses his mother before he turns fifteen and is sent to live with his aunt, uncle and cousins. Before her death, his mother leaves behind a series of letters for him. He cannot simply read them all at once. Each one gives him something he has to do before he can move on to the next, and gradually those tasks begin revealing things about his own past and family.
That structure worked extremely well for me because the book never seemed to sit still. There was always another task, another clue or another piece of information waiting to be uncovered. I kept wanting to know what the next letter would reveal.
There is quite a lot going on around Oktober as well, particularly within the family he has been sent to live with, so the mystery surrounding the letters never feels like the only thing carrying the story. The different problems keep overlapping and pushing it forward.
Looking back, that is probably why I gave it five stars despite my reservations about the Malay. I may have occasionally questioned the language, but I was never bored.
For a book that also happened to be my return to reading Malay fiction after many years, Oktober turned out to be a very entertaining choice.
Rating: ★★★★★