Indonesian Literature

A Glossary of Literary Criticism

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Alazon:
A deceiving or self-deceived character in fiction, normally an object of ridicule in comedy or satire, but often the hero of a tragedy. In comedy he most frequently takes the form of a miles gloriosus or a pedant.

Anagogic:
Relating to literature as a total order of words.

Anatomy:
A form of prose fiction, traditionally known as the Menippean or Varronian satire and represented by Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, characterized by a great variety of subject-matter and a strong interest in ideas. In shorter forms it often has a cena or symposium setting and verse interludes.

Apocalyptic:
The thematic term corresponding to "myth" in fictional literature: metaphor as pure and potentially total identification, without regard to plausibility or ordinary experience.

Archetype:
A symbol, usually an image, which recurs often enough in literature to be recognizable as an element of one's literary experience as a whole.

Auto:
A form of drama in which the main subject is sacred or sacrosanct legend, such as miracle plays, solemn and processional in form but not strictly tragic. Name taken from Calderon's Autos sacramentales..

Confession:
Autobiography regarded as a form of prose fiction, or prose fiction cast in the form of autobiography.

Dianoia:
The meaning of a work of literature, which may be the total pattern of its symbols (literal meaning), its correlation with an external body of propositions or facts (descriptive meaning), its theme, or relation as a form of imagery to a potential commentary (formal meaning), its significance as a literary convention or genre (archetypal meaning), or its relation to total literary experience (anagogic meaning).

Displacement:
The adaptation of myth and metaphor to canons of morality or plausibility.

Eiron:
A self-deprecating or unobtrusively treated character in fiction, usually an agent of the happy ending in comedy and of the catastrophe in tragedy.

Encyclopaedic Form:
A genre presenting an anagogic form of symbolism, such as a sacred scripture, or its analogues in other modes. The term includes the Bible, Dante's Commedia, the great epics, and the works of Joyce and Proust.

Epos:
The literary genre in which the radical of presentation is the author or minstrel as oral reciter, with a listening audience in front of him.

Ethos:
The internal social context of a work of literature, comprising the characterization and setting of fictional literature and the relation of the author to his reader or audience in thematic literature.

Fiction:
Literature in which the radical of presentation is the printed or written word, such as novels and essays.

Fictional:
Relating to literature in which there are internal characters, apart from the author and his audience; opposed to thematic. (N.B. The use of this term is regrettably inconsistent with the preceding one, as noted on p. 248.)

High Mimetic:
A mode of literature in which, as in most epics and tragedies, the central characters are above our own level of power and authority, though within the order of nature and subject to social criticism.

Image:
A symbol in its aspect as a formal unit of art with a natural content.
Initiative:
A primary consideration governing the process of composition, such as the metre selected for a poem; taken from Coleridge.

Ironic:
A mode of literature in which the characters exhibit a power of action inferior to the one assumed to be normal in the reader or audience, or in which the poet's attitude is one of detached objectivity.

Irony:
The mythos (sense 2) of the literature concerned primarily with a "realistic" level of experience, usually taking the form of a parody or contrasting analogue to romance. Such irony may be tragic or comic in its main emphasis; when comic it is normally identical with the usual meaning of satire.

Lexis:
The verbal "texture" or rhetorical aspect of a work of literature, including the usual meanings of the terms "diction" and "imagery."

Low Mimetic:
A mode of literature in which the characters exhibit a power of action which is roughly on our own level, as in most comedy and realistic fiction.

Lyric:
A literary genre characterized by the assumed concealment of the audience from the poet and by the predominance of an associational rhythm distinguishable both from recurrent metre and from semantic or prose rhythm.

Masque:
A species of drama in which music and spectacle play an important role and in which the characters tend to be or become aspects of human personality rather than independent characters.

Melos:
The rhythm, movement, and sound of words; the aspect of literature which is analogous to music, and often shows some actual relation to it. From Aristotle's melopoiia.

Metaphor:
A relation between two symbols, which may be simple juxtaposition (literal metaphor), a rhetorical statement of likeness or similarity (descriptive metaphor), an analogy of proportion among four terms (formal metaphor), an identity of an individual with its class (concrete universal or archetypal metaphor), or statement of hypothetical identity (anagogic metaphor).

Mode:
A conventional power of action assumed about the chief characters in fictional literature, or the corresponding attitude assumed by the poet toward his audience in thematic literature. Such modes tend to succeed one another in a historical sequence.

Monad:
A symbol in its aspect as a center of one's total literary experience; related to Hopkins's term "inscape" and to Joyce's term "epiphany."

Motif:
A symbol in its aspect as a verbal unit in a work of literary art.

Myth:
A narrative in which some characters are superhuman beings who do things that "happen only in stories"; hence, a conventionalized or stylized narrative not fully adapted to plausibility or "realism."

Mythos
The narrative of a work of literature, considered as the grammar or order of words (literal narrative), plot or "argument" (descriptive narrative), secondary imitation of action (formal narrative), imitation of generic and recurrent action or ritual (archetypal narrative), or imitation of the total conceivable action of an omnipotent god or human society (anagogic narrative).
One of the four archetypal narratives, classified as comic, romantic, tragic, and ironic.

Naive:
Primitive or popular, in the sense given those terms of an ability to communicate in time and space more readily than other types of literature.

Opsis:
The spectacular or visible aspect of drama; the ideally visible or pictorial aspect of other literature.

Pharmakos:
The character in an ironic fiction who has the role of a scapegoat or arbitrarily chosen victim.

Phase:
One of the five contexts in which the narrative and meaning of a work of literature may be considered, classified as literal, descriptive, formal, archetypal, and anagogic.
One of six distinguishable stages of a mythos (sense 2).

Point of Epiphany:
An archetype presenting simultaneously an apocalyptic world and a cyclical order of nature, or sometimes the latter alone. Its usual symbols are ladders, mountains, lighthouses, islands, and towers.

Romance:
The mythos of literature concerned primarily with an idealized world.
A form of prose fiction practised by Scott, Hawthorne, William Morris, etc., distinguishable from the novel.

Romantic:
A fictional mode in which the chief characters live in a I world of marvels (naive romance), or in which the mood is elegiac or idyllic and hence less subject to social criticism than in the mimetic modes.
The general tendency to present myth and metaphor in an idealized human form, midway between undisplaced myth and "realism."

Sign:
A symbol in its aspect as a verbal representative of a natural object or concept.

Symbol:
Any unit of any work of literature which can be isolated for critical attention. In general usage restricted to the smaller units, such as words, phrases, images, etc.

Thematic:
Relating to works of literature in which no characters are involved except the author and his audience, as in most lyrics and essays, or to works of literature in which internal characters are subordinated to an argument maintained by the author, as in allegories and parables; opposed to fictional.

Rhyme,Theme, and Imagery Poetry

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Rhyme

Rhyme, likeness of the terminal sounds of words, frequently used in versification either at the end of a line of verse or within the line. Rhyme appeared only occasionally in classical Greek and Latin poetry; it was used more extensively later, in songs of the medieval Roman Catholic church. Rhyme was not established as a technique in English poetry until the 14th century. Since then not all styles of poetry have employed rhyme, but it has never fallen entirely into disuse. Rhyme functions as an element of rhythm, emphasizing poetic beat. There are three types of true rhymes: masculine rhymes, in which the final syllable of the word or line is stressed ("spring," "bring"); feminine rhymes, in which two consecutive syllables, the first of which is accented, are alike in sound ("certain," "curtain"); and triple rhymes, in which all three syllables of a word are identical ("flowery," "showery"). Words in which the vowel and the following consonants in a stressed syllable are identical in sound, even if spelled differently, are called perfect rhymes ("two" and "too," or "spring" and "bring"). In eye, or sight, rhyme the words look as if they rhyme, but do not: "move," "love." Slant, or oblique, rhyme uses words with an imperfect match of sounds. Within this category, consonance relies on the similarity of consonant sounds: "shift," "shaft"; assonance relies on the similarity of vowel sounds: "grow," "home." A pair of rhyming lines is called a couplet; three lines that rhyme are called a triplet. Traditional poetic forms have prescribed rhyming patterns; for example, sonnets usually follow the Italian rhyme scheme, abba abba cde cde, or the English rhyme scheme, abab cdcd efef gg. Blank verse is regular in meter but does not rhyme; free verse is irregular in meter and also does not rhyme.

Theme

Controlling Idea: The theme of a literary work. The controlling idea of a poem is the idea continuously developed throughout the poem by sets of key words that identify the poet's subject and his attitude or feeling about it. It may also be suggested by the title of a poem or by segment of the poem. It is rarely stated explicitly by the poet, but it can be stated by the reader and it can be stated in different ways. The controlling idea is an idea, not a moral; it is a major idea, not a minor supporting idea or detail; and it controls or dominates the poem as a whole.

The word theme is here used to name the particular subject matter of the poem in relationship to the reader's previous observation of the life about him and within him. Theme, then, here refers to those broad generalizations and high-order abstractions which each person develops in dealing with the common experiences of life. Each of us was born, and each of us will die. And, then no one of us can report his own birth of his own dearth, everyone had had some personal observation at first of second hand of the elemental and universal facts of life, Birth and Death. So, too, every mature person has had some experience of what we shall call of Heart of and Mind, of Friendship and of Love, of Youth and Of Nature and of Art, of Work and of Play, of War and of Justice, of Doubt and of Terror…; and most persons will add that they have had some experience of Faith and of God and is not complete list of universal experiences, but it will do to suggest the possible range of poetic themes.

Imagery

Most figures of speech cast up a picture in your mind. These pictures created or suggested by the poet are called 'images'. To participate fully in the world of poem, we must understand how the poet uses image to convey more than what is actually said or literally meant.

We speak of the pictures evoked in a poem as 'imagery'. Imagery refers to the "pictures" which we perceive with our mind's eyes, ears, nose, tongue, skin, and through which we experience the "duplicate world" created by poetic language. Imagery evokes the meaning and truth of human experiences not in abstract terms, as in philosophy, but in more perceptible and tangible forms. This is a device by which the poet makes his meaning strong, clear and sure. The poet uses sound words and words of color and touch in addition to figures of speech. As well, concrete details that appeal to the reader's senses are used to build up images.

Although most of the image-making words in any language appeal to sight (visual images), there are also images of touch (tactile), sound (auditory), taste (gustatory), and smell (olfactory). The last two terms in parentheses are mainly used by lovers of jargon. An image may also appeal to the reader's sense of motion: a verb like Pope's spring does so.

A good poet does not use imagery -- that is, images in general -- merely to decorate a poem. He does not ask Himself, "How can I dress up my subject so that it will seem fancier than it is?" Rather, he asks himself, "How can I make my subject appear to the reader exactly as it appears to me?" Imagery helps him solve his problem, for it enables him to present his subject as it is: as it looks, smells, tastes, feels and sounds. To the reader imagery is equally important: it provides his imagination with something palpable to seize upon.

TYPES OF IMAGES (according to the source of visual images)

1. SIMPLE DESCRIPTION - a large number of images which arise in a poem come from simple description of visible objects or actions.

2. DRAMATIC SITUATION
2.1 DRAMATIC MONOLOGUE - as soon as the reader becomes aware that the poem is a dramatic monologue, he visualizes a speaker with the result that the particularity of the situation is evident.
2.2 DIALOGUE - has the same effect as Dramatic Monologue.

3. STORY - like description, narration causes the reader or hearer to form images. When the reader realizes that he is being told a tale he visualizes from habit; he does not wish to miss the point of the story.

4. METONYMY - when a poet uses metonymy, he names one thing when he really
means another thing with which the first is closely connected. e.g. Seven little foreheads stared up at me from the first row. (where "foreheads" is used for "eyes" ).

5. SYNECDOCHE - when a poet uses synecdoche, he names a part of a thing when he means whole thing (or vice versa) or the genius for the species.

6. ONOMATOPOEIA - although imagery usually refers to visual images, there are also aural images. The use of words which sound like their meaning is called onomatopoeia. e.g. buzz, hiss, clang , splash, murmur, chatter, etc.

Philip Sidney said, "Imaging is itself the very height and life of poetry." It must be so, form the very nature of poetic vision, which always embodies itself in the form of symbols. The personality of the poet, which is the well-spring of his poetry will be a world created from all that he has known and felt and seen and heard and thought. His image-making poetic faculty and his imagination will blend together his memories and his immediate perceptions into a thousand of varieties of shapes and associations of living loveliness and power. However apparently direct and unadorned the poet makes his verses, he will employ images. However simple his statement he cannot make it abstract.

How imagery comes to the poet, how it is carried alive into the heart by passion is too mysterious a process to analyze. It brings us back at once to the problem of creation in general. Under the influence of the creative ferment, the consciousness of the poet seizes association and poetry is the union of the mental and emotional excitement of the experience with imagery which leaps to meet it, and which must be already in the memory of the poet.

References
"Poetry," Microsoft® Encarta® 98 Encyclopedia. © 1993-1997 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Clare, M. T., S.C. (1960) A Book of Poetry. New York: Macmillan Co.
Del Tufo, J. P. (1965) What is Poetry?. Publication Office:Ateneo de Manila University.
Drew, E. H. (1933) Discovering Poetry. New York:W.W. Norton & Co., Inc.
Bautista, Cirilo F. (1985) DLSU Research Center: De La Salle University Manila
Seng, P.J. and Main, C.F. (1996) Poems: Wadsworth Handbook and Anthology. California: Wadsworth Publishing Company Inc.

Poetic meter

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Meter
by: Christine Abriza

In most poems, the lines are written according to patterns of rhythm. Poetic meter is the measure of a line of poetry. It is rhythm that can be measured in poems.
SCANSION

Scansion is the act of making a poem to show the metrical units of which it is composed. It means any attempt, by signs, to indicate the beat of a line of poetry and to mark off the division of feet. Here are the steps to take in scanning a poem, (1) Mark the syllables (Read the poem at this and each succeeding step.) (2) Mark the feet. (3) Mark the caesuras (noticeable pause in a line of poetry and it has a peculiar effect on the total beat of the line). (4) Expect to encounter variations, but do not consider them in naming the bad meter (5) Check your scansion to make sure that it reflects the poem rather than preconceived notion of your own.

The smallest of these metrical units is the 'syllable'. English syllables are two kinds: accented or stressed, and unaccented or unstressed. An "accented syllable" requires more wind and push behind it than an unaccented; it also maybe pitched slightly higher or held for a slightly longer time.

After the syllable, the next largest metrical unit is the 'foot', which is group of two or more syllables. The six common kinds of feet in English metrics have been names derived from Greek:

1. IAMBIC foot consists of unaccented syllable followed by an accented. It can be heard in such words as "because, hello, Elaine".

2. TROCHAIC foot consists of an accented syllable followed by an unaccented. These are trochaic words: answer, Tuesday, Albert.

3. DACTYLIC foot consists of an accented syllable followed by two unaccented syllables. You can hear the dactylic beat in these words: beautiful, silently, Saturday.

4. ANAPESTIC foot consists of two unaccented syllables followed by an accented syllable. These words are anapestic: cavalier, tambourine, Marianne.

5. SPONDAIC foot consists of two accented syllables.

6. PYRRHIC foot consists of two unaccented syllables.

The next largest metrical unit is the 'line'. A line is the regular succession of feet, and, though it is not necessarily a sentence, it customarily begins with a capital letter. The number of feet in a line of verse determines the measure or meter. Most poems are not built on a fixed meter, but rather on a combination of meters and variety of them. A line containing only one foot is called a "monometer"; one with two feet, a "dimeter" line; and so on through "trimeter", "tetrameter", "pentameter", "hexameter", "heptameter", and "octameter".

Granted that much more than meter is needed for a poem, does it follow that a poem must have a meter? A large number of poets, especially in the early years of the twentieth century, answered this negatively. Their poems, written in rhythmical language but not in traditional meters, are called 'free verse'. Nonmetrical poetry is called free because the poet has freed himself from conforming himself to the set of metrical patterns. Free verse must not be confused with "blank verse', which is the customary label for iambic pentameter without rhyme. Unlike the free verse, blank verse has a regular metrical pattern.

Meter has two functions. First, it makes poem pleasurable because it is intrinsically delightful. In addition to making a poem enjoyable, meter makes it more meaningful. It is a part of the total meaning -- a part that cannot always be described in words, but can always be felt and is always lost when a poem is paraphrased or when it is translated from one language to another.

References
Clare, M. T., S.C. (1960) A Book of Poetry. New York: Macmillan Co.
Del Tufo, J. P. (1965) What is Poetry?. Publication Office:Ateneo de Manila University.
Seng, P.J. and Main, C.F. (1996) Poems: Wadsworth Handbook and Anthology. California: Wadsworth Publishing Company Inc

cited from: http://litera1no4.tripod.com/meter_frame.html

The Balinese Earth

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Oka Rusmini Poem

The Balinese Earth

1

perhaps in your eyes there never was any map
of the ancestors of Balinese earth
or perhaps life has never taught you beauty
and the leaves so often picked by our ancestors
along the bank of Badung river
never told the tales of their genealogy

I remember
when as a child the river told me many stories
our ancestors sat close to the edge
with their legs stretched out into the water
letting their sarongs get soaked
as the water washed gladly over them

I often ran along the edge with my tricycle
the coconut trees teaching me the fable of a certain temple
you must learn the genealogy of earth ,they said,
for hundreds of offering have been prepared
by those who own this land

my fragrant Bali, the blood of the dancer turned into flames
that burn away the floral fertility of my land

children still play
along the shore, and an old woman waits for her grandchild
small fish, the aroma of earth
gives youth to her breath

2

Do you know the meaning of earth?
or perhaps you’ve never heard the question
the sky that protects you from the sun’s stretched bow
has made you forget the ancestral blood
that has often inundated your form

the sound of carriages that once woke up women for the market
has been packaged into fairy tales
far across the sea,the sky that you’ve begun to make your enemy
has no foam or coral that you might sculpt into a form of civilization

was it an idiot native of this land who occupied this simple plot of earth?
estrangement envelopes every world on which we might plant our feet
perhaps we still have a temple
at which you steal glances thinking
it too might be made an entertainment
where now can the ancestors of the sacred Sang Hyang dancer go
to make their confession of faith?

there is no ritual
the ancestors return home
the water at the edges of the Badung river refuses our touch
the old woman who often brought her grandchild here
has lost the river
how many genealogies of earth do you understand?
who can you trust to shoulder the burden of these mistakes?

if you longer have trees
or earth thet gives off the aroma of blossoming rice
to whom will you sing the song of your greatness?

people with no eyes, hearths or head
are only brave enough to proposition the beauty of your land
you dance on its body
tell me: which dance do you really understand?

3

so long as women entrust their prayers to the leaves
Temples shiver, their vomit soaking the statues
foreign hand in giving carvings
my Temples
have spoken to the rain
that never will give birth to their seed

hundreds of dances only understood by the gods have faded away
their shards killing off the blossom of rice

rituals no longer have voices of their own
and women who were often awakened by the sound of carriages
no longer know the beauty of the body of rice

smoke envelopes every earth on which I plant my steps

I see blood swiftly flowing
the wound of coral in the sea
the sky rent asunder
so what I cant’t even distinguish its colors

people of the coast across the sea
bury hundreds of additional corpses
is it a native of this land who weeps in the corners of the city
no longer able to connect her rituals with the scent of the earth that is hers

and just to smell the earth
the owners of the map, of the Badung river and the sea,
even the gods, must pay the price of the aroma of their own land

4

where is the earth that once dirtied my tinny feet
where the ceremony of my birth
complete with so many kinds of flowers and leaves of the forest
that cleansed me so that I came to posses this land?
where the ancestors
who so often sang the song of genealogy of the greatness of humanity?
where are the dancers
absorbed in devotion who borrowed night study
inspiration from the gods of dance?

history no longer has any greatness
for you no longer know the earth

as long as the leaves prepare death
how many plots of land will you set aside for the burial?

translated by Thomas M. Hunter

Tanah Bali

1

mungkin tanah Bali tak punya peta leluhur di matamu
atau hidup tak pernah mengajari keindahan
daun-daun yang sering dipetik para leluhur di pinggir kali Badung
tak pernah mendongengkan silsilah padamu

aku ingat
ketika kanak-kanak air kali itu bercerita banyak padaku
dan leluhur duduk dekat kali
menjulurkan kaki. kain mereka dibiarkan basah
air kali memandikannya dengan riang

aku sering berlari dengan sepeda roda tiga
mengitari kali. pohon kelapa mengajari dongeng sebuah Pura
katanya, aku harus tahu silsilah tanah
beratus tumbal telah diciptakan para pemilik tanah

Baliku harum. darah para penari telah jadi api
membakar kesuburan bunga-bunga tanahku

anak-anak tetap bermain
dekat tepi kali seorang perempuan menunggu cucunya
ikan-ikan kecil, bau tanah basah
memberi kemudaan bagi nafasnya

2

pahamkah kau arti jadi tanah?
pertanyaan ini mungkin tak pernah kaukenal
langit yang melindungimu dari busur matahari
membuatmu lupa pada darah leluhur yang sering menyiram bentukmu

suara delman yang membangunkan perempuan-perempuan pasar
terbungkus jadi dongeng
jauh di seberang, langit mulai kaumusuhi
tak ada karang dan buih bisa dipahat jadi peradaban

pribumi tololkah yang menempati sepetak tanah?
keterasingan membungkus setiap bumi yang dipijak
kita mungkin masih punya Pura
yang kau lirik juga jadi tempat permainan
kemana para leluhur penari Sang Hyang mementaskan keakuannya?

tak ada upacara memikat leluhur pulang
air di tepi kali Badung tak ingin disentuh
perempuan tua yang sering mengantar cucunya
kehilangan kali
berapa silsilah tanah kaupahami?
siapa yang kaupercaya menanggung kesalahan ini?

kalau kau punya pohon
atau tanah yang tak memiliki keharuman bunga padi
pada siapa kau akan bercerita tentang kebesaranmu?

orang-orang tanpa mata, hati, dan kepala
hanya berani meminang keindahan tanahmu
kau menari di atas tubuhnya
katakan padaku, tarian apa yang kau pahami?

3

selagi para perempuan menitipkan doa lewat bunga-bunga
Pura-Pura menggigil, muntahannya membasahi patung-patung
tangan-tangan asing ikut memberi pahatan
Pura-Puraku
telah bercerita pada hujan
yang tak akan melahirkan benihnya

beratus tarian yang hanya dipahami para dewa luntur
patahannya membunuh bunga-bunga padi

upacara tak lagi memiliki suara sendiri
para perempuan yang sering dibangunkan suara delman
tak lagi tahu keindahan tubuh padi

asap membungkus setiap tanah yang kupijak

kulihat darah mengalir deras
kulihat luka batu karang di lautan
kulihat langit pecah
bahkan tak bisa kubedakan warnanya

orang-orang dari pesisir menyeberang
menanam beratus bangkai baru
pribumikah yang menangis di sudut-sudut kota
tak lagi bisa merangkai upacara dengan bau tanah miliknya

bahkan untuk mencium tanah
para pemilik peta, pemilik kali Badung, pemilik laut
bahkan para dewa harus membayar bau tanah miliknya

4

mana tanahku yang sempat mengotori kaki kecilku
mana upacara kelahiranku
lengkap dengan beragam bunga dan daun hutan
yang membasuhku jadi pemilik tanah ini
mana para leluhur
yang sering mendongengkan silsilah kebesaran manusia
mana para penari
yang khusuk meminjam malam mempelajari taksu dewa tari

sejarah tak lagi memiliki kebesaran
karena tanah tak lagi kau kenali

selagi daun-daun mempersiapkan kematian
berapa petak tanah kau sisakan untuk penguburan ini?

Denpasar, 1994

Poetry Terminology

2008-12-01T11:09:00.002+07:00

Elements of Poetry

The following is a list of the elements of poetry. Take the time to reflect on how each element contributes to a poem's meaning, and then brainstorm ways in which you can use it to further illuminate your own piece's meaning.

POEM: a work of literature in verse that often, but not necessarily, employs meter, rhyme, or figurative language in an attempt to communicate an aesthetic experience or statement which cannot be fully paraphrased in prose.

Poetic Devices

Speaker- voice behind the poem establishing a point of view (can be a persona)

Situation- circumstances surrounding the poem

Diction- choice of words

Syntax- grammatical order of words

Imagery- verbal expression of a sensory detail (visual, auditory, tactile, gustatory, or olfactory)

Irony- contradiction of expectation (verbal, situational, or dramatic)

Symbolism- representation in which an object or action represents something beyond itself

Basic Terms

denotation: the dictionary meaning of a word

connotation: the implied or suggested meaning connected with a word

literal meaning: limited to the simplest, ordinary, most obvious meaning

figurative meaning: associative or connotative meaning; representational

meter: measured pattern of rhythmic accents in a line of verse

rhyme: correspondence of terminal sounds of words or of lines of verse

Figurative Language

apostrophe: a direct address of an inanimate object, abstract qualities, or a person not living or present.

Example: "Beware, O Asparagus, you've stalked my last meal."

hyperbole: exaggeration for emphasis (the opposite of understatement)

Example: "I'm so hungry I could eat a horse."

metaphor: comparison between essentially unlike things without using words OR application of a name or description to something to which it is not literally applicable

Example: "[Love] is an ever fixed mark, / that looks on tempests and is never shaken."

metonymy: a closely related term substituted for an object or idea

Example: "We have always remained loyal to the crown."

oxymoron: a combination of two words that appear to contradict each other

Example: bittersweet

paradox: a situation or phrase that appears to be contradictory but which contains a truth worth considering

Example: "In order to preserve peace, we must prepare for war."

personification: the endowment of inanimate objects or abstract concepts with animate or living qualities

Example: "Time let me play / and be golden in the mercy of his means"

pun: play on words OR a humorous use of a single word or sound with two or more implied meanings; quibble

Example: "They're called lessons . . . because they lessen from day to day."

simile: comparison between two essentially unlike things using words such as "like," as," or "as though"

Example: "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun"

Poetic Devices

irony: a contradiction of expectation between what is said and what is meant (verbal irony) or what is expected in a particular circumstance or behavior (situational), or when a character speaks in ignorance of a situation known to the audience or other characters (situational)

Example: "Time held me green and dying / Though I sang in my chains like the sea"

imagery: word or sequence of words representing a sensory experience (visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile, and gustatory)

Example: "bells knelling classes to a close" (auditory)

symbol: an object or action that stands for something beyond itself

Example: white = innocence, purity, hope

alliteration: the repetition of consonant sounds, particularly at the beginning of words

Example: ". . . like a wanderer white"

assonance: the repetition of similar vowel sounds

Example: "I rose and told him of my woe"

elision: the omission of an unstressed vowel or syllable to preserve the meter of a line of poetry

Example: "Th' expense of spirit in a waste of shame"

onomatopoeia: the use of words to imitate the sounds they describe

Example: "crack" or "whir"

allusion: a reference to the person, event, or work outside the poem or literary piece

Example: "Shining, it was Adam and maiden"

Form

open: poetic form free from regularity and consistency in elements such as rhyme, line length, and metrical form

closed: poetic form subject to a fixed structure and pattern

stanza: unit of a poem often repeated in the same form throughout a poem; a unit of poetic lines ("verse paragraph")

blank verse: unrhymed iambic pentameter

free verse: lines with no prescribed pattern or structure

couplet: a pair of lines, usually rhymed

heroic couplet: a pair of rhymed lines is iambic pentameter (tradition of the heroic epic form)

quatrain: four-line stanza or grouping of four lines of verse

sonnet: fourteen line poem in iambic pentameter with a prescribed rhyme scheme; its subject is traditionally that of love

English (Shakespearean) Sonnet: A sonnet probably made popular by Shakespeare with the following rhyme scheme: abab cdcd efef gg

Italian (Petrarchan) Sonnet: A form of sonnet made popular by Petrarch with the following rhyme scheme: abbaabba cdecde OR cdcdcd

Its first octave generally presents a thought, picture, or emotion, while its final sestet presents an explanation, comment, or summary.

Meter

stress: greater amount of force used to pronounce one syllable over another

pause: (caesura) a pause for a beat in the rhythm of the verse (often indicated by a line break or a mark of punctuation)

rising meter: meter containing metrical feet that move from unstressed to stressed syllables

iambic (iamb): a metrical foot containing two syllables--the first is unstressed, while the second is stressed

anapestic (anapest): a metrical foot containing three syllables--the first two are unstressed, while the last is stressed

falling meter: meter containing metrical feet that move from stressed to unstressed syllables

trochaic (trochee): a metrical foot containing two syllables--the first is stressed, while the second is unstressed

dactylic (dactyl): a metrical foot containing three syllables--the first is stressed, while the last two are unstressed

spondee: an untraditional metrical foot in which two consecutive syllables are stressed

iambic pentameter: a traditional form of rising meter consisting of lines containing five iambic feet (and, thus, ten syllables)

cited from: http://www.nevnet.etzion.k12.il/english/poetry/terminology.htm

Nenden Lilis Poems

2008-11-26T11:40:00.003+07:00

From the Lost Centuries

On midnight, you soaked wet in rain
After that long journey
“Please go home!” the wind moans inside your heart

You stood like a statue in front of the house
That you abandoned
A house with no more dwellers
In quietness, the sound of a house-lizard is bursted out
In the dark, you hear the sound of water
Dropped through the leaky roof

“Come in!” a magical voice sounded
emerged from the lost centuries

your feet trembled, took a step toward inner floors
the cold moist walls
spreading unpleasant odor
with the rest of the lights within your eyes
you observed the loneliness inside the room
“this house is empty, definitely empty!”

and then you wept.

1995

translated by Nikmah Sarjono

Dari Abad-abad yang Hilang

tengah malam kau kuyup dalam hujan
setelah perjalanan jauh itu
"pulanglah!" angin merintih di hatimu

kau mematung di ambang rumah yang kautinggalkan
dan lama tak berpenghuni
dalam sunyi, pecah suara cecak
dalam gelap, kaudengar tetes air
jatuh dari seng yang bolong

"masuklah!" sebuah suara terasa gaib
datang dari abad-abad yang hilang

kakimu gemetar menginjak lantai dalam
dinding-dinding dingin dan sembab
merupai juga bau lembab

dengan sisa cahaya dalam matamu
kau menyimak sepi dalam ruangan
"rumah ini memang kosong, memang kosong!"

dan kau menangis

1995

Poem of a House

This house becomes narrower
Inside it we both got buried
Not be able to help each other

This room smelled mengkudu
While fingernails still be blue

Face becomes haggard
Chest becomes thinner
Mouth becomes pale
Persistently coughing
For a long time has forgotten how to sing

The owner of this house came
Not to visit
But to evict

2001- 2002

translated by Nikmah Sarjono

Sajak Rumah

rumah ini semakin sempit
di dalamnya kita sama-sama terpuruk
dan tak bisa saling menolong

ruang bau mengkudu
sedang kuku tetap membiru

wajah kian tirus
dada kian tipis
mulut lesi
selalu terbatuk
sekian lama lupa bersenandung

si tua pemilik rumah datang
tidak untuk menjenguk
tapi mengusir

2001-2002

House of Memory

A homeless person could never go home anywhere
Except to memories beneath the guava tree
To old mother and father who sit speechlessly in a
Dusty room

She still feels she belonged to that dull cupboard
Although its key hole is stuck, its door can not
Be closed, its mirror reflects tapering shadows

Traces of soil on a hoe and a shirt full of mud
Hanged in the kitchen is also like
The rest of her heart
Although something is difficult to grow
Like the apple tree in the backyard
Its leaves withered, got eaten by caterpillars
Or the pomegranate tree, its fruits cracked
Before they got ripe

But a homeless person still wants to stay
Although she doesn’t know, are there still yearnings,
Is someone still waiting?

She just knew
Life is actually being alone

2002
translated by Nikmah Sarjono

Rumah Kenangan

seorang tanpa rumah tak bisa pulang kemana-mana
kecuali pada kenangan di pohon jambu klutuk
pada ibu-bapak renta yang terpekur di kamar berdebu

lemari kusam itu masih dirasa miliknya
meski lubang kuncinya macet, pintunya tak bisa
menutup, cerminnya memantulkan bayangan lonjong

bekas tanah di cangkul dan baju berlumpur
yang menggantung di bilik dapur juga
seperti sisa hatinya
meski selalu ada yang terasa sulit tumbuh
seperti pohon apel di kebun belakang
daunnya rangkas dimakan ulat
atau pohon delima, buahnya belah sebelum masak

tapi seorang tanpa rumah masih ingin tinggal
meski tak tahu, masih adakah yang rindu,
masihkah ada yang menunggu?

ia hanya tahua
hidup sesungguhnya sendiri

2002

How to write a literature essay - William Blake series 4

2008-11-24T11:35:00.001+07:00

One of William Blake's most famous and most interpreted poems is of course "The Tyger". I have heard that even the Pope, Pope John Paul II, had interpreted and written his literary analysis and his literature analysis of the poem. Here in this literature resource that I am writing today, I have written about William Blake's "The Tyger", and asking about the underlying religious and Christian references. Remember that in any written work or any written analysis, always refer to the essay question. You must try your very best to answer the essay question.

Always remember to write out the essay question in your introduction and frame the question in such a way as to make you able to answer it properly. Then do remember whenever you write your written paper or your essay - answer the essay question in your own words, then write out what you will be talking about in the course of this essay. Note that when you become very good or even become an expert at writing, for Literature, English, Knowledge and Inquiry, General Paper and other subjects, then you can play around and look around to do something new and innovative. Other than that it is not advisable.

Here is the written literary analysis of "The Tyger" by William Blake.

William Blake’s The Tyger: What Was Blake Thinking about God and Creation?

The Tyger

“The Tyger” begins with the speaker asking a tiger what kind of divine being could have created it: “What immortal hand or eye/ Could frame thy fearful symmetry?” There is an air of questioning throughout the poem. Each subsequent stanza contains further questions, all of which refine this first fundamental question. From what part of the universe could the tiger’s fiery eyes have come; who would have dared to handle that; what sort of physical presence, what kind of craftsmanship, would have been required to “twist the sinews” of the tiger's heart? The speaker wonders how, once that heart “began to beat” its creator would have had the courage to continue. With the image of a blacksmith, the speaker thinks of the “anvil” and “furnace” that creation would have required and the blacksmith who yielded it. And when the tiger was completed, the speaker wonders how its creator would have felt. This is the summary of “The Tyger”, but the analytical question is: what is the underlying and deeper meaning in relation to creation and to God? Perhaps there is no real simple and obvious answer to: “What was Blake thinking about God and creation?” This analysis delves into the deeper meaning of the poem, its literary beauty, and aims to determine what Blake might have wanted to say about creation, God, and ultimately, Christianity.

Firstly, the poem comprises six quatrains in rhymed couplets, where the meter is rhythmic and regular, and its repetitive hammering rhythm is suggestive of the blacksmith hammering away and creating the tiger that is the poem’s central image. The alliteration of the hard consonant sounds also capture attention, as the “Tyger, Tyger”, “burning bright” and hard “d” sounds throughout the poem focus the readers on the substantive matter of the poetry, which suggests a hard and harsh underlying interpretation of the truth about creation. The simplicity and neatness of the poem’s regular form perfectly suit its uniform structure, in which all the questions contribute to the articulation of a single central idea.

The opening question develops the drama of the exciting poem, and each subsequent stanza elaborates: Blake builds on the conventional idea that nature, like art, must in some way contain a reflection of its creator. The tiger is naturally beautiful yet simultaneously horrific in its violence and inclinations. What kind of a God or Creator, then, could or would design such a “contradictory” beast? In more general terms, what does the undeniable existence of evil and violence in the world tell us about the nature of God, and what does it mean when a living creature can at once contain both beauty and horror? This is perhaps the key to understanding the poem fully: that it is an exploration of the age-old and common philosophical “problem of evil”. The tiger initially appears as an exciting and sensuous image, but as the poem progresses it takes on a symbolic character, embodying the spiritual and moral problem which the poem explores: beautiful yet destructive, the tiger becomes the symbol for an investigation into the presence of evil in the world. Since the tiger exists both in “physical” and “moral” terms, the speaker’s questions about its origins must also encompass both those physical and moral dimensions. The poem’s questions repeatedly ask what sort of physical creative being could create that “fearful symmetry” of a tiger; assumedly only a very strong, powerful being could be capable of such a beautiful yet terrible creation.

There appears superficially to be a key theme of fire in the poem. “The Tyger” is “burning bright” - a first and obvious reference to fire that is a constant recurring theme in the poem. “Burnt the fire of thine eyes?” reflects the image of fire once again. Perhaps that can be regarded as an interesting reference to Heaven and Hell and continuing the doubts raised regarding the creation of such a beast from the question posed in the first stanza. More than simple speculation, the fire is indeed needed for the poem in order to suggest a forging of the tiger, with all its concomitant imagery.

The “forging” of the tiger suggests a physical, laborious and deliberate kind of creation; it emphasizes the awesome physical build and nature of the tiger, and therefore precludes the idea that such a creation could have been accidentally or haphazardly produced. Clearly Blake was not a fond supporter of evolutionary theory, as his idea smacks somewhat of creationism and intelligent design. The forging of the creature comes with the imagery of fire, with its own simultaneous connotations of creation in fire, purification with fire, and destruction due to fire. The speaker stands in awe of the tiger as a physical and aesthetic achievement, as he also recoils in possible horror from the moral implications of such a creation; the poem addresses the moral question of who could make such a creature. In the third stanza, one observes the parallelism of “shoulder” and “art” as well as the fact that it is not just the body but also the “heart”, metaphorical and literal, of the tiger that is being forged, suggesting that the creator was indeed responsible for the tiger’s vicious and terrible nature. The repeated word “dare” to replace the “could” of the first stanza introduces an important element of aspiration, willingness and wilfulness into the creative act.

Using another perspective, an alternative view may be suggested. “What the hand, dare seize the fire” suggests perhaps a shift in the poem from a wilful God who created an awesome yet fear-inducing creature – the shift to the courage of creation is another possible interpretation. In other words, God is courageous to create the tiger. The creation metaphor completes its passage because all the elements of creation in the forge have been contemplated: the “furnace”, the tools, the hammer, the chain and the “anvil” all reflect and augment the physical strength and courage of the smith. In the line “Dare its deadly terrors clasp”, the word “dare” reappears and perhaps the idea of a courageous, rather than simply a capable, Creator is developed. Perhaps there is further depth than simply the creation of evil by God as Creator. Indeed, the poem reaches the heart of the most troubling issue that racks theologians and philosophers alike. How can a benevolent God allow, for example, the death of an innocent child through famine or malnutrition or war? Clearly the idea of the “problem of evil” is central to the poem, no matter the interpretation of the lines. The change in the poem from simply a capable creator to a brave creator possibly suggests that Blake saw a necessity for balance in the world.

In addition, the reference to the lamb in the second-last stanza reminds the reader that both the tiger and the lamb have been created by the very same God, and raises questions about the implications of this “fact”. “The Tyger” consists entirely of unanswered questions, unlike “The Lamb”, where the answers are clear and rather dogmatic-sounding, and the speaker leaves us here to stare at the complexity of creation, the magnitude of God's power, and the inscrutability of His will. This poem involves an acknowledgment of what is unexplainable in the universe, presenting evil as something that cannot be denied. The open awe of “The Tyger” contrasts with the easy confidence and facile answers in “The Lamb”, of a child’s innocent faith in a benevolent and omnipotent Creator. In conclusion, there can be no easy answers. It is easy to say that Blake was thinking of the “problem of evil” and about the apparent contradiction of a God who could create both beauty and terrifying horror in one creature, but beyond that this poem is far more complex philosophically, beyond words in its recognition of contradictions.

Bibliography

Blake, William, David Erdman and Harold Bloom. The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake. California: University of California Press 1982.

How to write a literature essay - William Blake series 3

2008-11-22T11:22:00.001+07:00

Here is my third post on the English Language Resources Online blog for William Blake poetry specifically, in my series on Blake. In my earlier posts, I compared and contrasted poems for Blake (in a compare and contrast essay) and I also wrote about religious images and references in Blake's poetry.

This is another William Blake literary analysis sample essay for your learning, education and information. You can get a better understanding of the poem as well as a better understanding of how to write a good literature essay, if you follow the blue instructions within the essay and ask yourself questions about how to improve your writing and your literary style consistently. Have a good look at the essay here below and remember to bear the essay title in mind as you read the essay. Also, a very important essay writing tip to bear in mind here is that: every time you write an essay for an examination or a test or an essay deadline, be sure to bear the question always in mind and focus on answering the question.

William Blake’s A Cradle Song: Is This Poem Truly a Cradle Song?

The question is: is William Blake's poem "A Cradle Song" really just about a cradle? You can see here in this essay that the question is asking for you to dispute and/ or prove that the above statement is true.

William Blake’s poem, “A Cradle Song”, is delightfully ambiguous and multifaceted. On first glance, one might be immediately tempted to simplistically and superficially say that this is just a poem about a little baby going to sleep, or that this poem is simply as the title banally suggests, a song sung merely for a baby to sleep. However, on deeper analysis, the question is: is this poem truly just a cradle song? This question suggests that this song is not what it appears to be, in the sense that it is not just merely a song to send little babies to sleep, but that it is a philosophical stance of what is wrong with the world, and that sleep brings some sort of respite, escapism perhaps, as represented by a sleeping baby in an apostrophe, and that the title masks the true underlying poignancy of the poem. Yes, on the one hand, the song is ostensibly merely about a speaker singing a little baby to sleep; on the other hand, the reality is that this poem is about a philosophy of life, and has a take on sleeping and its relationship with escapism and happiness. This analysis will look at the second possibility in greater depth than the first.

After telling your readers what the poem is about and what you are going to tell them, then do tell the readers in the course of the body of the essay what you promised them in the introduction of the essay.

The poem opens with the sibilance and alliteration of “sleep, sleep, beauty bright”, where the word “bright” seems rather ironic given that night is supposed to be dark, and conjures up a conflicting image. Perhaps Blake intended that the baby is the one both beautiful and bright, which he later intends to contrast with the harsh reality of the world. Yet the positive aspects of sleep are definitely highlighted as the alliteration of “beauty bright” accentuates a certain beauty of sleep, and a beauty of night. “Dreaming in the joys of night” suggests clearly a baby sleeping happily and joyfully in the night, with sweet dreams. Yet, at the same time, there is a sinister “little sorrows sit and weep”, where there are some sad happenings personified to be crying. Perhaps, this can be seen easily as the child not feeling any sorrow when it is asleep, but at the same time, it could simultaneously mean that sleep can also be the residence of those sorrows. There is therefore an ambivalent ambiguity here. This does not set the tone for the rest of the poem, but the atmosphere is immediately seen to be not really just a cradle song, but a song with some melancholy underlying it, conveying a deeper message.

The speaker beholds the baby and addresses it with tender care: “Sweet babe, in thy face/ Soft desires I can trace” clearly shows tenderness and love, just like any parent would do while singing a lullaby to a loved baby, where the title “Cradle Song” is actually justified, as the speaker sings to the baby lovingly. “Secret joys and secret smiles/ Little pretty infant wiles” have many meanings, but the repetition of the word “secret” and the words “little pretty… wiles” suggest that the baby is dreaming of things that secretly make it happy. The word “wiles” is interesting, as it can mean both charm and tricks, where on the one hand, there is a feeling where the baby is charmed by all sorts of beautiful things, perhaps, and on the other hand, the little baby might be imagining all sorts of cunning tricks that he would love to do. Nonetheless there is definitely a positive image here that contrasts starkly with the earlier stanza.

The speaker sees that “Smiles as of the morning steal/ O'er thy cheek” and this could immediately conjure up the image of a smiling baby in its delightful sleep, or the word “steal” could suggest something more sinister. There is a sense that the little baby has stolen some respite from the sad and harsh world in its sleep, where the extended meaning is perhaps that the world is a harsh place and only in sleep is there true respite, even for a little baby. The phrase “thy little heart doth rest” does imply that the poem is a cradle song and is intended for a little baby, but at the same time, there is a sense of resting from the cares of the world, as suggested by the word “heart”. Hence, the literary evidence seems to be piling up in favour of this poem being more than just a mere song.

Therefore, the meaning of the last stanza actually becomes clear: “O the cunning wiles that creep/ In thy little heart asleep!” is an interesting exclamation where the speaker sees the subconscious happiness of the little baby sleeping coming through as the baby sleeps. This clearly means that sleeping is preferable to being awake, because of the happiness and pleasure that somehow fills the baby as it peacefully slumbers. The final two lines corroborate this idea strongly: “When thy little heart doth wake/ Then the dreadful light shall break”. The waking of the little baby brings about some bad thing, because the word “dreadful” is a negative word with negative connotations, and the word “break” is negative as well, suggesting something discontinued abruptly or destroyed, where on the one hand, the coming of the light is the superficial meaning, and on the other, the light of daybreak is not something to celebrate and be happy about, but an abrupt return to sad reality. Hence, the meaning of the poem, built slowly, line by line, suggests that this is indeed a cradle song sung to babies, as perhaps a form of lullaby, but the deeper underlying meaning is that real happiness and pleasure comes from sleeping where there are no worldly cares, for once daybreak comes, reality comes back.

Reiterate the question and the answer. In the terminology of my English Language Resources Online blog, you ask the Knowledge Based Problem and then answer it via the Thesis. You can go back here to the earlier article on how to write an excellent essay via structure to refresh your memory if you like. Here you summarise and then conclude, and hence that is why this is called the conclusion of the essay.
Is this poem just a cradle song? No, it is far more than merely that – it is a cradle song that actually speaks of the inherent sadness and melancholy in the wider world that can only be avoided and escaped from by the beautiful happiness that comes from night. It is a sombre and darkly philosophical topic for a cradle song.

As usual, either you have a bibliography in your essay and writing (writing a major paper, writing for A levels and writing for university), or you do not have a bibliography in your essay and writing because it is not required ( as in during an examination, informal work, non cited work, etc).

Bibliography

Blake, William, David Erdman and Harold Bloom. The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake. California: University of California Press 1982.

How to write a literature essay - William Blake series 2

2008-11-20T11:01:00.002+07:00

Here is the second post on the William Blake series in my English Language Resources Online blog. This English Language Resources blog can also help you in your revision if you are doing Literature at "O" or "A" levels or even if you merely have an interest in either writing good literature essays or poetry. Note that the blog is not just about William Blake, and in the sidebar on the right you can see the other poets and other topics relating to general knowledge, literature, history, the history of ideas, and philosophy as well.

In the other earlier post on Blake, I compared and contrasted two poems in my essay. There are many types of essays for literature, and the comparison essay is a major type of essay that you need to know about. In this essay here, I analyse instead images and religious references, as these two are key elements in understanding Blake's literature. Remember to ask questions about the essay and think about how you can improve on my writing.

William Blake’s The Lamb: Religious References and Imagery

"The Lamb" from "Songs of Innocence" is a very symbolic poem. This paper discusses the religious references and imagery that permeate the entire poem and give it its key meaning and essence, because, while apparently a simple Christian poem that is easy to understand and simple in meaning, “The Lamb” has deeper philosophical issues embedded into its structure and symbolism. One can look at the symbols, the structure, the questioning that the little child-speaker uses in the poem, and the answer that he offers for the very difficult and philosophical question and answer of life’s origins.

Firstly, what are the obvious symbols in the poem? The “little lamb” in the poem can superficially and obviously symbolize innocence, childhood, serenity, Jesus, or even a sacrifice, and these are images and devices that are associated exclusively with Christianity. A lamb is a gentle and meek creature that is submissive, and in many ways a lamb is very much like a child. In this poem, the lamb being spoken to can be interpreted literally as a real lamb that the child-speaker is addressing, and simultaneously also be taken to be the symbol of Jesus, because the traditional image of Jesus as a lamb underscores the Christian values of gentleness, meekness, and peace. These are also the very same characteristics from which the child-speaker approaches the ideas of nature and of God, as can be seen in the words “tender”, “rejoice” and the alliterative “meek” and “mild”. These words suggest that both the child and the lamb are gentle, and bring forth the imagery of Jesus and Christianity. In addition, the image of the child, the speaker himself, is also associated with Jesus: in the biblical Gospels, Jesus displays a special care and concern for children, and the Bible's depiction of Jesus in his infancy shows him as vulnerable. Hence, once again, there is an interrelationship between the child-speaker and the lamb, as both of them are very similar, according to Christian belief.

Secondly, how does the structure of the poem contribute to its religious appearance and form? "The Lamb" has two stanzas, each with five rhymed couplets, giving the poem a sense of connectedness, eloquence and fluidity, like a kind of gentle prayer or some chanting. Thus the poet creates a child-like tone through a very song-like form and structure; repetition in the first and last couplet of each stanza makes these lines into a refrain, and helps to give the poem its song-like quality. “Little lamb, who made thee?/ Does thou know who made thee” and “Little lamb, I'll tell thee;/ Little lamb, I'll tell thee” make the poem sound like a song, because of the consistent and lyrical repetition of the phrases. At the same time, the flowing “l’s” and soft vowel sounds contribute to this effect, and further suggest the gentle bleating of a lamb or the soft-spoken character of a little child's chanting or singing. Through the use of apostrophe, where the speaker addresses the lamb which is present and central to the story but not literally within the poem, but instead outside of it, Blake actually attributes human qualities to a lamb, the lamb being the listener and the child being the speaker. Perhaps the lamb can also be considered human, like another little child, even. Once again, throughout the entire poem the lamb and the child are interchangeable, the child is a lamb, yet the lamb is a child. Yet at the same time, “I a child, and thou a lamb/ We are called by His name” suggests clearly that there is a distinction between the child and the lamb, and that the child is cognisant of the fact that he is distinct from the lamb, despite having the same Creator. Hence there is some ambiguity and ambivalence, which characterise William Blake’s poetry. In any case, the poem is thus clearly a child's song, in the form of a question and answer, where the first stanza is where the child asks the lamb about its origins, and the second stanza is where the child tells the lamb the answer, according to his innocent Christian beliefs.

What, then, does the questioning do? The poem actually begins with the immediate and direct question, "Little Lamb, who made thee?" The speaker, a child, asks the lamb about its origins: how it came into being, how it attained its own manner of feeding, its "clothing" made of wool, and its "tender voice", basically rhetorically asking how the lamb got all its beautiful qualities. The child's question is simultaneously both naive and deeply, philosophically profound. The question "who made thee" is a simple one, and yet the child is asking the deep and timeless questions that all human beings have about their own origins and creation. At the same time, the poem's apostrophic form contributes in a sense to an effect of naiveté, since the situation of a child talking to an animal is a believable one, and conjures up very innocent images. What this does is it gives the poem an innocent view in the first stanza, and sets up the answer for the second stanza.

Finally, what are the implications of the answer, and the religious, theological imagery of the answer that the child gives? In the second stanza, the child-speaker attempts an answer to his own question: the lamb was made by one who "calls himself a Lamb," one who resembles in his gentleness both the child and the lamb – in other words, Jesus. It immediately shows the whole connectedness of all things: the creator, the lamb, Jesus, through the use of the extended metaphor. The three lines “He became a little child/ I a child, and thou a lamb,/ We are called by His name” connects the three, child, Jesus and lamb, because it suggests that Jesus was born as a little child, just like the speaker, and the fact that both child and lamb are called by His name links them all together. The child-speaker tells the lamb, which could even come across as a rapt, attentive little child, how Jesus was just like a lamb, using symbolic language, comparing Jesus to a child. This creates a connection once again, as a child is like a lamb, and Jesus is like a child. Yet, at the same time, by answering his own question, the child converts his important question into a rhetorical one, thus counteracting the initial spontaneity of the poem. The child's answer, however, reveals his confidence in his simple Christian faith and his innocent acceptance of its teachings. One the one hand, this can be interpreted as Blake’s interpretation of Christianity; on the other, it is equally valid that this is only how little children perceive Christianity, and that Christianity may be something else altogether.

In conclusion, the symbols, the structure, the questioning and the answer given all contribute to a unified sense of the poem, where “The Lamb” is a Christian poem that is completely self-contained and portrays conventional Christian images and values as beautiful and innocent, answering a little child’s actually very difficult and very philosophical question of where we come from. It is not simple at all, for the richness and varied interpretations of the child, the lamb and Jesus, reflect conventional Christianity while at the same time showing a little child’s weltanschauung of Jesus, very philosophical indeed.

Note that for O level literature or any written examination, your essay does not need a bibliography; but if you are doing A levels or higher level literature or essay writing in particular, you will need a citations section/ works cited section/ bibliography for each and every one of your written essays.

Bibliography

Blake, William, David Erdman and Harold Bloom. The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake. California: University of California Press 1982.

All the essays on this English Language Resources Online blog are written by or edited or collected and vetted by Shawn Seah and are NOT for sale and NOT for distribution. They are for educational and reference purposes only.

How to write a literature essay - William Blake series 1

2008-11-18T10:55:00.002+07:00

Before I begin, I would like to reiterate that this is NOT an essay selling website, and these essays that I write here on this blog are NOT for distribution. These articles and essays and samples here on my English Language Resources Online blog are for your own personal education and personal viewing only and are not for distribution or sales. So that it is clear and on the record, I do not sell any of my essays here on this site, and I do not distribute literature essays. I am here to provide educational resources and share my ideas and works for your education and not for anyone to cheat on examinations or to cheat for assignments. You may use my literature essays for your own personal learning. Learn English and learn Literature here on this blog - all the resources and literature essays are here for you.

The next few posts here on this English language resources online blog will be about William Blake and how to write literature essays with William Blake as a focus. Many literature essays around the world deal with Blake because he is famous and popular anyways. Romanticism, literary analysis, comparisons of various romantic poems and the like will be all part of the course.

As an aside, Knowledge and Inquiry students in Singapore taking KI as a subject may not necessarily need a knowledge of literature, but knowing about it and how to write an essay will be invaluable skills in the repertoire. Learning how to write a literature essay will be just as useful as learning how to write essays in general. All these materials and ideas on how to write good essays are available on my blog, with its resources on essays and sample essays.

In any case, here is a sample literature essay on William Blake. I have broken it up into parts to show that these are for your education.

William Blake’s The Human Abstract:
Comparison and Contrast: A Critique of “The Divine Image”?

This is how you write an introduction, and introduce the theme(s) and the question and the answer:

“The Human Abstract” offers an alternative analysis of the virtues of Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love that constituted God and Man in "The Divine Image”, and can be thus considered a companion poem. The speaker argues that Pity could not exist without poverty, and that Mercy would be unnecessary if everyone were happy, and that Peace derives from fear, which gives rise to “selfish loves”. Cruelty personified plants and waters a tree in “the human Brain”, and utilising and expanding on this gardening or tree metaphor, the roots of the tree are “Humility”, the leaves are “Mystery”, and the fruit is “Deceit”, thus suggesting that negative human characteristics actually stem from originally valuable, noble virtues. On the other hand, it could be said that Blake’s “The Divine Image” of “Songs of Innocence” attributes the virtues of Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love to the human form while giving God the glory for the creation of humans in His own image. This suggests that the biblical reference of God making man in his image is true, reflected in the last two lines of the poem, "Where Mercy, Love, and Pity dwell/ There God is dwelling too". This analysis will compare and contrast the two poems “The Divine Image” and “The Human Abstract”, and show that this poem is indeed a critique of its companion.

Make your points clear and add literary terms. What else can you see about this paragraph in this essay?

Firstly, the lines of “The Human Abstract” have none of the uplifting and sweet-sounding quality typical of Blake’s poetry; the poem’s didactic, pedagogical tone and serious subject matter occasion the harsh, severe rhythm he employs. By way of contrast, the opening lines of “The Divine Image” are like a hymn or prayer, reflected in the word “pray” and “virtues”, words associated with prayer. The lines “To Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love/ All pray in their distress” introduces the cast of Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love in terms of a prayer, which are virtues that are personified and imbued with lifelike qualities and characteristics. By returning “their thankfulness” in prayer to these four anthropomorphic characters, it is acknowledged that these virtues are important in human existence.

Doing the same as for the previous paragraph, ask yourself questions about the paragraph in this essay and how it relates to the essay theme.

Secondly, in general “The Human Abstract” preaches that the traditional Christian virtues of mercy and pity presuppose and depend on a world of poverty and human suffering. Furthermore, these virtues represent a kind of passive, useless, resigned sympathy or resignation that suggests no obligation to alleviate or ameliorate that suffering or to create a more just and fair world. The speaker in “The Human Abstract” therefore refuses to think of them as ideals, suggesting and reasoning logically that in an ideal world of universal happiness and genuine love there would be no need of these qualities. This seemingly cynical approach is quite unlike “The Divine Image” where “Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love/ Is God our Father dear” can be seen immediately as four ideal virtues belonging to God the Almighty Father. It is suggested that these qualities are from God and thus that makes the world a good, just and fair world. The phrase “and Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love/ Is man, His child and care” also suggests that God loves mankind and has these virtues to protect His children and to care for them, and does not have the negative worldview or weltanschauung present in “The Human Abstract”.

Doing the same as for the previous paragraph, ask yourself questions about the paragraph in this essay and how it relates to the essay theme.

Furthermore, “The Human Abstract” is a methodical critique of the key and important virtues that were so praised in “The Divine Image”. Proceeding through Pity, Mercy, and Peace, the poem then arrives at the phrase “selfish loves”, where the word “selfish” conjures up negativism. These clearly differ from Love as an innocent abstraction, and the poem thus explores the growth, at once insidious and simultaneously organic, of a system of values based on stagnation, repression, hypocrisy and fear. This is rather unlike “The Divine Image” which suggests a rather more positive tone with respect to Pity, Mercy and Peace. “For Mercy has a human heart/ Pity, a human face” has a tone that suggests that man is so similar to God, and carries a positive connotation. “And Love, the human form divine/ And Peace the human dress” further show that there is little similarity with fear, hypocrisy, repression or stagnation, as love and peace are divine and provide protection in the form of dressing. “Where Mercy, Love, and Pity dwell/ There God is dwelling too” from a Christian perspective means that God dwells in the heart of men, whenever one can see the virtues of Mercy, Love and Pity. Furthermore, the line “and all must love the human form/ In heathen, Turk, or Jew” can be taken to mean that all heathens, Turks or Jews, meaning all pagans, Muslims or Hebrews, are just as human and have human virtues like everyone else. Clearly there is a more negative atmosphere and negative connotations in “The Human Abstract” vis-à-vis the more positive “The Divine Image”.

Doing the same as for the previous paragraph, ask yourself questions about the paragraph in this essay and how it relates to the essay theme.

The description and extended metaphor of the tree in the second part of “The Human Abstract” shows how intellectualized and apparently academic values like Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love become a breeding-ground for “Cruelty”. The speaker depicts Cruelty as a conniving and knowing anthropomorphic person; in planting a tree, he also lays a snare. This personification allows the poem to express further ideas: Cruelty’s tree flourishes on fear and weeping; “Humility” is its root, where the real meaning of humility has been soundly distorted, “Mystery” its foliage; but this growth is not natural or even desired. Rather, the tree is associated with “Deceit”, and its branches harbour the “raven”, an important and common symbol of death. By the end of “The Human Abstract” we realize that the tree’s description is a glimpse into the human mind, and is probably about man’s mental experience, with all the negative items of mystery, deceit and death. Thus the poem comments on the way abstract reasoning and understanding of virtues undermine a more natural system of values. The result is a grotesque resemblance to the organic, real type of values, which brings forth a tree that lies “sequestered” secretly in the “human Brain”. Perhaps it means that all these virtues and ideals actually only exist within the human brain and that Cruelty is inevitably the end result, suggesting a more negative and metaphysical, philosophical ending to the poem. These elements are all missing from “The Divine Image”.

Summarise and conclude the essay!

In summary, “The Human Abstract” differs in tone and atmosphere from its companion poem; this poem preaches that traditional Christian virtues of mercy and pity presuppose a world of poverty and suffering and that these virtues represent a kind of useless resigned sympathy that suggests no obligation to ameliorate suffering, whereas in “The Divine Image”, Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love can be seen as ideal virtues belonging to the Almighty God. In addition, “The Human Abstract” is a critique of the important virtues that were so praised in “The Divine Image”. Analysing Pity, Mercy, and Peace, these clearly differ from Love as an innocent abstraction, and the poem explores the growth, insidious and organic, of a system of values based on fear, hypocrisy, repression, and stagnation. This is unlike “The Divine Image” which suggests a more positive tone with respect to Pity, Mercy and Peace. The extended metaphor of the tree in “The Human Abstract” ultimately shows how intellectualized academic values like Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love become the breeding-ground for “Cruelty”, depicting Cruelty as a conniving anthropomorphic entity; he lays a trap; his tree flourishes on fear; “Humility” is its root, “Mystery” its foliage; this growth is unnatural. Rather, the tree is associated with “Deceit”, and its branches harbour a symbol of death. The tree metaphor is a glimpse into the human mind, where the poem comments on the way abstract reasoning and understanding of such virtues undermines a more natural system of values. In the final analysis, this poem is indeed a critique and re-evaluation of “The Divine Image”. Blake’s poetry is far deeper and philosophical than a mere cursory, peripatetic reading suggests.

All good essays have this at the end - either works cited or a bibliography or both, in the case of some essays.

Bibliography

Blake, William, David Erdman and Harold Bloom. The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake. California: University of California Press 1982.

cited from:

http://englishlanguageresourcesonline.blogspot.com/2008/05/how-to-write-literature-essay-william.html

The Elements of Poetry

2008-11-15T10:47:00.002+07:00

The Elements of Poetry

By George Santayana

IF poetry in its higher reaches is more philosophical than history, because it presents the memorable types of men and things apart from unmeaning circumstances, so in its primary substance and texture poetry is more philosophical than prose because it is nearer to our immediate experience. Poetry breaks up the trite conceptions designated by current words into the sensuous qualities out of which those conceptions were originally put together. We name what we conceive and believe in, not what we see; things, not images; souls, not voices and silhouettes. This naming, with the whole education of the senses which it accompanies, subserves the uses of life; in order to thread our way through the labyrinth of objects which assault us, we must make a great selection in our sensuous experience; half of what we see and hear we must pass over as insignificant, while we piece out the other half with such an ideal complement as is necessary to turn it into a fixed and well-ordered conception of the world. This labor of perception and understanding, this spelling of the material meaning of experience, is enshrined in our workaday language and ideas; ideas which are literally poetic in the sense that they are “made” (for every conception in an adult mind is a fiction), but which are at the same time prosaic because they are made economically, by abstraction, and for use.

When the child of poetic genius, who has learned this intellectual and utilitarian language in the cradle, goes afield and gathers for himself the aspects of nature, he begins to encumber his mind with the many living impressions which the intellect rejected, and which the language of the intellect can hardly convey; he labors with his nameless burden of perception, and wastes himself in aimless impulses of emotion and reverie, until finally the method of some art offers a vent to his inspiration, or to such part of it as can survive the test of time and the discipline of expression.

The poet retains by nature the innocence of the eye, or recovers it easily; he disintegrates the fictions of common perception into their sensuous elements, gathers these together again into chance groups as the accidents of his environment or the affinities of his temperament may conjoin them; and this wealth of sensation and this freedom of fancy, which make an extraordinary ferment in his ignorant heart, presently bubble over into some kind of utterance.

The fullness and sensuousness of such effusions bring them nearer to our actual perceptions than common discourse could come; yet they may easily seem remote, overloaded, and obscure to those accustomed to think entirely in symbols, and never to be interrupted in the algebraic rapidity of their thinking by a moment’s pause and examination of heart, nor ever to plunge for a moment into that torrent of sensation and imagery over which the bridge of prosaic associations habitually carries us safe and dry to some conventional act. How slight that bridge commonly is, how much an affair of trestle and wire, we can hardly conceive until we have trained ourselves to an extreme sharpness of introspection. But psychologists have discovered, what laymen generally will confess, that we hurry by the procession of our mental images as we do by the traffic of the street, intent on business, gladly forgetting the noise and movement of the scene, and looking only for the corner we would turn or the door we would enter. Yet in our alertest moment the depths of the soul are still dreaming; the real world stands drawn in bare outline against a background of chaos and unrest. Our logical thoughts dominate experience only as the parallels and meridians make a checkerboard of the sea. They guide our voyage without controlling the waves, which toss forever in spite of our ability to ride over them to our chosen ends. Sanity is a madness put to good uses; waking life is a dream controlled.

Out of the neglected riches of this dream the poet fetches his wares. He dips into the chaos tat underlies the rational shell of the world and brings up some superfluous image, some emotion dropped by the way, and reattaches it to the present object; he reinstates things unnecessary, he emphasizes things ignored, he paints in again into the landscape the tints which the intellect has allowed to fade from it. If he seems sometimes to obscure a fact, it is only because he is restoring an experience. The first element which the intellect rejects in forming its ideas of things is the emotion which accompanies the perception; and this emotion is the first thing the poet restores. He stops at the image, because he stops to enjoy. He wanders into the bypaths of association because the bypaths are delightful. The love of beauty which made him give measure and cadence to his words, the love of harmony which made him rhyme them, reappear in his imagination and make him select there also the material that is itself beautiful, or capable of assuming beautiful forms. The link that binds together the ideas, sometimes so wide apart, which his wit assimilates, is most often the link of emotion; they have in common some element of beauty or of horror.

cited from: http://www.bartleby.com/237/23.html

-----

George Santayana was born in Madrid in 1863, of Spanish parentage. He graduated from Harvard in 1886, and taught philosophy there, 1889–1911. He lives now, I think, in England. I must be frank: except his poems, I only know his work in that enthralling volume, Little Essays Drawn from the Writings of George Santayana, edited by L. Pearsall Smith. Much of it is too esoteric for my grasp, but Mr. Smith’s redaction brings the fascination of Santayana’s philosophy within the compass of what Tennyson called “a second-rate sensitive mind”; and, if mine is a criterion, such will find it of the highest stimulus. This discourse on poetry seems to me one of the most pregnant utterances on the subject. It is not perfectly appreciated by merely one reading; but even if you have to become a poet to enjoy it fully, that will do yourself least harm.

Agus R. Sarjono Poet

2008-11-12T09:38:00.001+07:00

Fake Poem

Goodmorning sir, goodmorning madame said the students
with a fake greeting. They studied
fake history from fake textbooks. Having finished their studies
they were dumbfounded at the mass of fake marks.
Since their school grades weren’t good enough
they went to their teachers houses to present them
with envelopes full of comments and fake respect.
With fake smiles and making fake rejections
their teachers finally accepted the envelopes with the fake promise
to change the fake marks for new fake marks. Many schooldays
later they became fake economists, fake lawyers,
fake farmers, fake engineers.
Some of them became fake teachers, scientists
or artists. They plunged eagerly
into the middle of fake development
with fake economy as fake leaders. They witnessed the hectic
fake trade with fake export and fake import
which provided various goods of fake quality.
And fake banks full enthusiasm offered fake bonuses
and fake gifts, but at the same time with fake permits
and fake letters secretly asked for loans
from the national bank, run by fake high officials.
The public did business with fake money
supported by fake foreign exchange.
Therefore the foreign currencies, stimulated by fake rates
caused everybody to panic and end in a crisis
which made the fake government
crash into a fake fate. And fake people
cried out their fake joy and discussed
fake ideas during fake seminars and talk shows
welcomed loudly the start of a democracy
fluttering
and fake.

1998

translation by Linde Voûte

Sajak Palsu

Selamat pagi pak, selamat pagi bu, ucap anak sekolah
dengan sapaan palsu. Lalu merekapun belajar
sejarah palsu dari buku-buku palsu. Di akhir sekolah
mereka terperangah melihat hamparan nilai mereka
yang palsu. Karena tak cukup nilai,
maka berdatanganlah mereka ke rumah-rumah
bapak dan ibu guru untuk menyerahkan amplop
berisi perhatian dan rasa hormat palsu.
Sambil tersipu palsu dan membuat tolakan
tolakan palsu, akhirnya pak guru dan bu guru
terima juga amplop itu sambil berjanji palsu
untuk mengubah nilai-nilai palsu dengan
nilai-nilai palsu yang baru. Masa sekolah
demi masa sekolah berlalu, merekapun lahir
sebagai ekonom-ekonom palsu, ahli hukum palsu,
ahli pertanian palsu, insinyur palsu.
Sebagian menjadi guru, ilmuwan
atau seniman palsu. Dengan gairah tinggi
mereka menghambur ke tengah pembangunan
palsu dengan ekonomi palsu sebagai panglima
palsu. Mereka saksikan ramainya
perniagaan palsu dengan ekspor
dan impor palsu yang mengirim dan mendatangkan
berbagai barang kelontong kualitas palsu.
Dan bank-bank palsu dengan giat
menawarkan bonus dan hadiah-hadiah palsu
tapi diam-diam meminjam juga pinjaman
dengan ijin dan surat palsu kepada bank negeri
yang dijaga pejabat-pejabat palsu. Masyarakatpun berniaga
dengan uang palsu yang dijamin
devisa palsu. Maka uang-uang asing
menggertak dengan kurs palsu
sehingga semua blingsatan dan terperosok krisis
yang meruntuhkan pemerintahan palsu
ke dalam nasib buruk palsu. Lalu orang-orang palsu
meneriakkan kegembiraan palsu dan mendebatkan
gagasan-gagasan palsu di tengah seminar
dan dialog-dialog palsu menyambut tibanya
demokrasi palsu yang berkibar-kibar
begitu nyaring
dan palsu.

1998

The Elements of Fiction

2008-11-04T10:38:00.002+07:00

Plot, Setting, Character, Conflict, Symbol, and Point of View are the main elements which fiction writers use to develop a story and its Theme.

Because literature is an art and not a science, it is impossible to specifically quantify any of these elements within any story or to guarantee that each will be present in any given story. Setting might be the most important element in one and almost nonexistent in another.

Just as a Crime Scene Investigator cannot approach a crime scene looking for a specific clue (e. g., shell casings), you as a reader cannot approach a story deciding to look for a specific element, such as Symbol. To assume could blind you to important elements. Both the CSI team and you must examine the entire “area” carefully to determine what is present and how it is important.

With that understanding, let’s examine the elements.

PLOT

Literature teachers sometimes give the impression that plot is not important, that anyone interested in plot is an immature reader.

Of course plot is important. It was what got us interested in reading in the first place. It was the carrot on the string that pulled us through a story as we wanted to see what would happen next.

That said, let me emphasize that plot is rarely the most important element of a good story. As much as I’ve always loved surprise endings, if the only thing a film or a story has is a great twist ending, it doesn’t have anything on a second look.

And it’s worth noting that recent fiction and film have deemphasized plot, frequently stressing character or conflict for example. In film, for example, think David Lynch or Pulp Fiction.

SETTING

Stories actually have two types of setting: Physical and Chronological.

The physical setting is of course where the story takes place. The “where” can be very general—a small farming community, for example—or very specific—a two story white frame house at 739 Hill Street in Scott City, Missouri.

Likewise, the chronological setting, the “when,” can be equally general or specific.

The author’s choices are important. Shirley Jackson gives virtually no clues as to where or when her story “The Lottery” is set. Examination suggests that she wants the story to be universal, not limited by time or place. The first two stories you will read each establish a fairly specific physical setting; consider what each setting brings to each story.

CHARACTER

What type of individuals are the main characters? Brave, cowardly, bored, obnoxious? If you tell me that the protagonist (main character) is brave, you should be able to tell where in the story you got that perception.

In literature, as in real life, we can evaluate character three ways: what the individual says, what the individual does, and what others say about him or her.

CONFLICT

Two types of conflict are possible: External and Internal.

External conflict could be man against nature (people in a small lifeboat on a rough ocean) or man against man.

While internal conflict might not seem as exciting as external, remember that real life has far more internal than external conflict.

Film and fiction emphasize external conflict not simply because “it’s more interesting” but also because it’s easier to write. In a film script, you merely have to write “A five minute car chase follows” and you’ve filled five minutes. How long would it take to write five minutes worth of dialogue?

SYMBOL

Don’t get bent out of shape about symbols. Simply put, a symbol is something which means something else. Frequently it’s a tangible physical thing which symbolizes something intangible. The Seven/Eleven stores understood that a few years ago when they were selling roses with a sign saying, “A Rose Means ‘I Love You.’”

The basic point of a story or a poem rarely depends solely on understanding a symbol. However important or interesting they might be, symbols are usually “frosting,” things which add interest or depth.

It’s normal for you to be skeptical about symbols. If I tell you that the tree in a certain story symbolizes the Garden of Eden, you may ask “Is that really there or did you make it up?” or “How do you know what the author meant?”

Literature teachers may indeed “over-interpret” at times, find symbols that really aren’t there. But if you don’t occasionally chase white rabbits that aren’t there, you’ll rarely find the ones that are there.

In the film 2001, a computer named HAL is controlling a flight to Jupiter. When the human crew decides to abort the mission, HAL—programmed to guarantee the success of the mission—“logically” begins to kill off the humans. Science fiction’s oldest theme: man develops a technology which he not only cannot control, it controls him.

Consider HAL’s name. Add one letter to each of the letters in his name. Change the H to I, the A to B, and the L to M. When you realize how close HAL is to IBM, the first response is disbelief. But clearly the closeness of the names is either an absolute accident or an intentional choice. As much as we are startled by the latter, we probably agree that the odds against the former—it being an accident—are astronomical.

POINT OF VIEW

Point of View is the “narrative point of view,” how the story is told—more specifically, who tells it.

There are two distinctly different types of point of view and each of those two types has two variations.

In the First Person point of view, the story is told by a character within the story, a character using the first person pronoun, I.

If the narrator is the main character, the point of view is first person protagonist. Mark Twain lets Huck Finn narrate his own story in this point of view.

If the narrator is a secondary character, the point of view is first person observer. Arthur Conan Doyle lets Sherlock Holmes’ friend Dr. Watson tell the Sherlock Holmes story. Doyle frequently gets credit for telling detective stories this way, but Edgar Allan Poe perfected the technique half a century earlier.

In the Third Person point of view, the story is not told by a character but by an “invisible author,” using the third person pronoun (he, she, or it) to tell the story. Instead of Huck Finn speaking directly to us, “My name’s Huckleberry Finn” and telling us “I killed a pig and spread the blood around so people would think I’d been killed”, the third person narrator would say: He killed a pig and spread the blood…..

If the third person narrator gives us the thoughts of characters (He wondered where he’d lost his baseball glove), then he is a third person omniscient (all knowing) narrator.

If the third person narrator only gives us information which could be recorded by a camera and microphone (no thoughts), then he is a third person dramatic narrator.

In summary, then, here are the types of point of view:

First Person Narrator

Protagonist

Observer

Third Person Narrator

Omniscient

Dramatic

Different points of view can emphasize different things. A first person protagonist narrator would give us access to the thoughts of the main character. If the author doesn’t want us to have that access, he could use the first person observer, for example, or the third person dramatic.

THEME

Theme isn’t so much an element of fiction as much as the result of the entire story. The theme is the main idea the writer of the poem or story wants the reader to understand and remember.

You may have used the word “Moral” in discussing theme; but it’s not a good synonym because “moral” implies a positive meaning or idea. And not all themes are positive.

One word—love, for example—may be a topic; but it cannot be a theme.

A theme is a statement about a topic.

For example: “The theme of the story is that love is the most important thing in the world.” That’s a cliché, of course, but it is a theme.

Not all stories or poems (or films) have an overriding “universal” theme.

cited from: http://cstl-cla.semo.edu/hhecht/The%20Elements%20of%20Fiction.htm

Afrizal Malna (2)

2008-11-01T09:31:00.001+07:00

Our Inheritance

Speak again my goat, my knife, my field, my stove, my house, my umbrella, my saw, my fishpond, my glass tile, my bucket, my gas lighter. Speak again my mirror, my adze, my eating table, my writing eguipment, my drinking glass, my family photo album, my chickens, my rice barn, my rice knife.

Speak again voices of my ancestors, my crowbar, my goat my books, my eating dish, my waer pomp, my hammer, my hoe, my pantry, my bird cage, my bycicle, my flowers, my water gutter, my bed. Speak again my water buffalo, my flashlight, my relatives and neighbors, my scissors, my rice knife.

Speak again my guest's chair, my work, my tobacco, my rice pounder, my blanket, my warm clothing, my cookinh pan, my hat. Speak again my cats... knife.

1987

translation by Marianne Koenig

Warisan Kita

Bicara lagi kambingku, pisauku, ladangku, komporku, rumahku, payungku, gergajiku, empang ikanku, genting kacaku, emberku, geretan gasku. Bicara lagi cerminku, kampakku, meja makanku, alat-alat tulisku, gelas minumku, album foto keluargaku, ayam-ayamku, lumbung berasku, ani-aniku.

Bicara lagi suara nenek-moyangku, linggisku, kambingku, kitab-kitabku, piring makanku, pompa airku, paluku, paculku, gudangku, sangkar burungku, sepedaku, bunga-bungaku, talang airku, ranjang tidurku. Bicara lagi kerbauku, lampu senterku, para kerabat-tetanggaku, guntingku, pahatku, lemariku, gerobakku,

sandal jepitku, penyerut kayuku, ani-aniku.

Bicara lagi kursi tamuku, penggorenganku, tembakauku, penumbuk padiku, selimutku, baju dinginku, panci masakku, topiku. Bicara lagi kucing-kucingku... pisau

1989

A Man at Fort Rotterdam

I met with that man, the bodily remains of a colony, upstairs in an old building, Fort Rotterdam. He was like the pounding of the breakers on Losari beach, making my pillow sweat in the night. The occan air made a hole in the door, then told of soldiers specters marching in information at night, a woman's screams from inside an old well, and a biscuit an a plate instantly consumed in a swarm of red ants. Fort Rotterdam is my hair standing on end, full of homeless souls, between the old buildings where children take English classes. I didn't invite the man to cat fried rice, lined up along Loxari beach. To know him, I must imagine a man staking his body to the walls of Fort Somba Opu, against the Kompenis cannon attacks besieging it from the sea air delivering endless fine salt upon my lips. That tale makes rocks rain down on his sentences, hard the tendons in the hand encloing the night.

Midday, war with the Kompeni resumes, with lessons, Heavy Metal on the public transport. American films on TV, the regional spending budget...

Ram, my friend, I left a man in that old building upstairs, gushing forth to your mother's bed.

1994

translation by Linda Owens

Seorang Lelaki di Benteng Fort Rotterdam

Saya temui lelaki itu, sisa-sisa tubuh sebuah koloni di bangunan tua lantai atas, Benteng Fort Rotterdam. Ia seperti hempasan ombak Pantai Losari, membuat bantal tidur saya berkeringat di malam hari. Udara laut membuat sebuah lubang di pintu, lalu bercerita tentang hantu-hantu tentara berbaris, jeritan perempuan dari sumur tua, dan biskuit di piring seketika habis oleh kerubungan semut merah.

Benteng Fort Rotterdam jadi bulu kudukku yang berdiri, di antara bangunan tua tempat anak-anak kursus bahasa Inggris. Mereka tak mengenalnya: seorang lelaki memancang tubuhnya pada tembok-tembok Benteng Somba Opu, dari serangan meriam Kompeni yang mengepungnya dari laut. Saya merasa sendiri dengan sepatu buatan Jerman di kaki saya, bersama udara laut yang tak henti mengirim garam halus di bibir saya. Kisah itu membuat batu berjatuhan pada kalimat-kalimatnya. Keras. Urat di tangan menutup malam.

Siang hari, peperangan dengan Kompeni berlangsung kembali, dengan kursus-kursus bahasa Inggris, musik-musik metal dalam kendaraan-kendaraan umum, film- film Amerika di TV, anggaran belanja daerah....

Ram, sahabatku, aku tinggalkan seorang lelaki di lantai atas bangunan tua itu. Mengucur hingga tempat tidur ibumu.

1994

Chronologically Indonesian Literature

2008-10-24T10:14:00.003+07:00

Chronologically Indonesian literature divided into several periods:

Pujangga Lama: the "Literates of Olden Times" (traditional literature)
Sastra Melayu Lama: "Older Malay Literature"
Angkatan Balai Pustaka: the "Generation of the [Colonial] Office for Popular Literature" (from 1908)
Pujangga Baru: the "New Literates" (from 1933)
Angkatan '45: the "Generation of 1945"
Angkatan 50-an: the "Generation of the 1950s"
Angkatan 66-70-an: the "Generation of 1966 into the 1970s"
Dasawarsa 80-an: the "Decade of the 1980s"
Angkatan Reformasi: the post-Suharto "Reformation Period".

There is considerable overlapping between these periods, and the usual designation according to "generations" (angkatan) should not allow us to lose sight of the fact that these are movements rather than chronological periods. For instance, older Malay literature was being written until well into the twentieth century. Likewise, the Pujangga Baru Generation was active even after the Generation of 1950 had entered the literary scene.

Traditional literature: Pujangga Lama

Early Indonesian literature originates in Malay literature, and the influence of these roots was felt until well into the twentieth century. The literature produced by the Pujangga lama (literally "the old poets") was mainly written before the 20th century, but after the coming of Islam. Before that time, however, there must have existed a lively oral tradition.

Genres

In written poetry and prose, a number of traditional forms dominate, mainly:

syair (traditional narrative poetry)
pantun (quatrains made up of two seemingly disconnected couplets)
gurindam (brief aphorisms)
hikayat (stories, fairy-tales, animal fables, chronicles)
babad (histories or chronicles).

1870—1942: Sastra Melayu Lama

The literature of this period was produced from the year 1870 until 1942. The works from this period were predominantly popular among the people in Sumatra (i.e. the regions of Langkat, Tapanuli, Padang, etc.), the Chinese and the Indo-Europeans. The first works were dominated by syair, hikayat and translations of western novels.

Angkatan Balai Pustaka

Until the twentieth century, ethnic and linguistic diversity was dominant in the vast archipelago, and as a result, no national literature existed. Literature in Malay rubbed shoulders with works in other languages of the region, from Batak in the West through Sundanes, Javanese, Balinese, to Moluccan in the East. It is true that Malay was used as the lingua franca of the colony, and indeed, far beyond its borders, but it could not be regarded as a national language.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, however, changes became visible. National consciousness emerged among educated Indonesians especially. At the same time, the Dutch colonisers temporarily veered to a point of view which allowed for the education and unification of the Indonesian peoples to self-reliance and maturity, as it was perceived. Indonesian independence, however, was not contemplated by the Dutch. A third factor was the emergence of newspapers, which at the beginning of the century began to appear in Chinese and subsequently in Malay.

Education, means of communication, national awareness: all these factors favoured the emergence of a comprehensive Indonesian literature. The Dutch, however, wished to channel all these forces, nipping any political subversiveness in the bud while at the same time instructing and educating Indonesians, in a way the government saw fit. For those reasons, an official Bureau (or: Commission) for Popular Literature was instituted under the name Balai Pustaka, which became some sort of government-supervised publisher. Besides preventing criticism of the colonial government, Balai Pustaka blocked all work that might be conducive to any sort of religious controversy, and anything "pornographic" was avoided: even a novel featuring divorce had to be published elsewhere.
At the same time, school libraries were founded and were supplied by the new publisher. Works in Dutch as well as translations of world literature were brought out, but a burgeoning indigenous literature was also stimulated. From 1920 to 1950 Balai Pustaka published many works in high Malay (as opposed to everyday "street Malay"), but also in Javanese and Sundanese, and occasionally also in Balinese, Batak or Madurese.

Interlude: the '20s Generation

Meanwhile, not all publications in the languages of Indonesia appeared under the Balai Pustaka imprint. As mentioned, this publisher was a government-supervised concern, and it operated in the context of political and linguistic developments. Notable among these developments were an increasing consciousness of nationality, and the emergence of Indonesian as the embodiment of a national language.

It was, however, still a language in development. Indonesian had never been a national language, and to most Indonesians it, or its ancestral Malay, had never been their mother tongue. For all this, in addition to the publications of Balai Pustaka and its magazine Panji Pustaka, various other magazines featured work by Indonesian writers as well, although there was not as yet one particular indigenous magazine devoted exclusively to the emerging literature. However, a notable source was Jong Sumatra, a magazine founded in 1918 as the platform of Jong Sumatranen Bond, the Association of Young Sumatran intellectuals.

Pujangga Baru

As a result of all this, dominant factors in the literary landscape of the 1930s were the following:
National consciousness among young Indonesian intellectuals was well-developed.
These intellectuals had formed various groups: there existed, then, a certain degree of organization.
The need for a national language was felt, as was the need for literary expression in that language.
While a platform for such expression existed in Balai Pustaka, this platform was considered unsatisfactory in that it was government-controlled, and therefore at odds with the urge for nationalist development. The intervention of Dutch language officials was felt to be censorship, and the editorial policy was regarded as an unwarranted harnessing of the emerging language. (Thus, certain words were invariably replaced by more "respectable" synonyms, which seemed to curtail language development as well as freedom of expression.

At the same time, young intellectuals felt that their classic Malay literature had congealed into set turns of phrase, clichéd descriptions and conventional plots. While literature cannot but operate between the polarities of convention and renewal, classic conventions were now felt to be over-constrictive, and their Western-style schooling had made them conscious of the possibilities for renewal.

Angkatan '45

The works of authors during this period are dominated by the thoghts of independence and political manner. The works created by angkatan '45 are mostly more realistic, compared to the works of pujangga baru, which are more romantic - idealistic.

Angkatan '50

<
div class="fullpost" align="justify">Angkatan 50 was characterized by the Kisah magazine, established by H.B. Jassin. This generation of Indonesian literature was dominated by collections of short stories and poetry. This generation was also characterized by the emergence of socialist and communist thought among its authors. Most of these authors were members of an organization called Lembaga Kebudajaan Rakjat (Lekra). The end of this literary generation came when political upheaval connected with the 30 September Movement erupted.

Nh. Dini

2008-10-21T09:47:00.002+07:00

Several weeks ago I attended a sort-of promotion book of ARGENTEUIL by one senior writer in Indonesia, NH Dini at RUMAH SENI Semarang located at Kampung Jambe number 280. NH Dini herself as the main speaker, with Adhyanggono from Unika Soegijapranata as the moderator. NH Dini called ARGENTEUIL her autobiography which she wrote in the form of novel.

The first thing attracted my attention was when Dini said she has made herself accustomed to writing anything daily since she was very young in one special book she labeled ‘a red book’—because the cover of the book is red. The way she wrote in the red book was not like writing in diary—at least my way in writing diary --because she often used kinds of symbols recognized by herself only. From this ‘red book’ she improved her notes into many novels.

I asked whether she continued writing in her ‘red book’ after getting married. The background of my question was in the patriarchal culture—at least what I learned when I was a teenager from articles I read in magazines/books/newspapers—people believed that after getting married man and woman became one, each was the soul mate for the other. Therefore, women were not supposed to ‘confide in’ anybody else—including in their dead diary, the reflection of their own self—but to their husbands (I call ‘living diary’) that could be considered as the substitute of the dead diary. Husband and wife were supposed to be open to each other, no secrets between them. Dini said she continued writing in her diary—still using her secret symbols. Her husband let her do that and she was not ‘beaten’ by the so-called culture that I illustrated previously so that she didn’t teach her husband how to read the symbols. In other words it can be said that Dini kept doing her hobby and her husband let her have secrets. One moral lesson I was supposed to learn when I was in teenager—it was not sinful to keep something secretly from your husband—so that I wouldn’t have been beaten by the culture. Consequently, I would have had one most loyal friend, my ‘dead’ diary, when I was ‘buried’ under my sorrow because I couldn’t tell a human being. As a result, I wouldn’t have needed to be so depressed.

This is one thing I admire from NH Dini: as a Javanese woman who was born in the patriarchal Javanese culture, she already had a very progressive way of thinking. I believe this had happened before she moved to western countries to follow her husband where of course she was somewhat westernized.

The second thing I noted down from the discussion was when Dini said her two novels—PADA SEBUAH KAPAL and LA BARKA—were forbidden to be in the library of some schools in Jakarta in 1970s. The reason was because the two novels illustrated many inappropriate scenes. Surprisingly when she went to Indonesia to visit her mother in that decade, she was invited by Pondok Pabelan to give a talk about her writing career, and she found the two novels in the library there. She was questioning if some public schools in Jakarta—usually considered more receptive to anything since it was the metropolis city—forbade the students to read the novels, why Pabelan, the Islamic school, provided the novels in the library. It means Pabelan let the students read them.

When Dini asked one teacher there, the teacher explained, “We tell the students that these ‘inappropriate scenes’ are a part of western culture. We as eastern people are not to imitate what they are doing.”

This reminded me of what Ayu Utami said about her novel SAMAN. Ayu wanted to offer a new way of thinking to view women’s bodies. Women must listen to their own bodies, and not just listen to what patriarchal society demands from women. I also remember what Dewi Lestari said when she promoted FILOSOFI KOPI in Semarang around two years ago. When someone asked her converting to Buddhist, Dee explained “For someone who is going to sink in a wide sea, she/he will consider islands she/he sees the same. In Indonesia, the government (un)fortunately only gives six choices: Islam, Christian, Catholic, Hindu, Buddhism, and Confucianism. Luckily, the ‘island’ closest to where Dee was about to sink was Buddhism.” In her SUPERNOVA series, Dee illustrated her spiritual experience, to share with her readers. I could draw one similar conclusion between Ayu and Dee; that was to give a new paradigm.

This inspired me to ask Dini about her motivation to write her novels, especially the two novels I mentioned above. To my surprise (or disappointment), she said, “I didn’t have such a motivation when writing the two novels. I just wrote my experience.”

“What kind of moral lesson did you expect to convey to your readers?” I continued asking.

“Well, I just wanted people to know that this kind of experience happened, especially in an intermarriage involving one Indonesian and a westerner.”

Furthermore, when someone asked her why she wrote, Dini gave four reasons:

First, she realized that she had a talent in writing, so she improved that gift.

Second, her mother knowing that she had a talent in writing asked her to write books. It means Dini wanted to make her mother happy.

Third, she could earn her own money by doing her hobby.

Fourth, she got satisfaction when knowing that other people enjoyed reading her books.

And I was not supposed to expect ‘deeper’ and more critical reasons just like the contemporary writers.

PT56 12.40 060408
cited from: http://afemaleguest.blog.co.uk/

Afrizal Malna (1)

2008-10-18T10:24:00.003+07:00

Asia Reads

The sun has freed itself of its adornment, yet we still face the same sky, the same land. Asia. After the gods have gone been fossilized in TV antennae, after times of destruction, which hearken back old tales from another world, words smell of gasoline. And we express ourselves trough a different set of clothes. Asia. Ships open markets, replacing dragons and oxen with petroleum. To take us where telephones are ringging.

There we crawl, in a contest of power. Silence takes over the roads at night. Asia. And then we bring in new adornments, new flags, different loves, to find that days exceed time; reading what may not to be read, writing what may not written.

The land glistens, catching the scent of man, saving us from all times. Asia. We understand once more the roar of the sea, the place to which the ancestors sent birds, created words. Asia is to be discovered, like night seeking alost plot of land; the place language is born.

Asia.

1985

translated byi John H. McGlynn

Asia Membaca

Matahari telah berlepasan dari dekor-dekornya. Dan kami masih hadapi langit yang sama, tanah yang sama. Asia. Setelah dewa-dewa pergi jadi batu dalam pesawat-pesawat TV; setelah waktu-waktu menghancurkan; dan cerita lama memanggil lagi dari negeri lain, setiap kata berbau bensin di stu. Kami terurai lagi lewat baju-baju baru. Asia. Kapal-kapal membuka pasar, mengganti naga sapi dengan minyak bumi.

Asia. Kami masuki dekor-dekor berbagai kekuatan, bendera-bendera baru, seks dan cinta yang lain lagi. Kota-kota dalam baju warna-warni. Mengantar pembiusan jadi jalan di malam hari. Asia.... Tempat membaca yang tak boleh dibaca, tempat menulis yang tak boleh ditulis.

Tanah berkaca-kaca, Asia, mencium bau manusia, Asia, menyimpan kami dari segala zaman, Asia. Tempat leluhur mencipta kata. Asia hanya ditemui, seperti mencari segumpal tanah yang hilang: Tempat bahasa dilahirkan.

Asia

1985

An English Lesson About the Weight of The Body

Pardon, how much is your body's weight? Just a moment, my head is cubic of sand. My hands are 60 cm. Excuse me, how many hours is your body's weight? My lips are thick. For sure, my feet are brown like the goverment building. How is your body's weight, Please. my name is Ahmad, you fool! No! My head is one cubic os sand. There is a gutter. Tears at the wash basin. Rain in a bucket, wait. Why are your hands hard? Like the power. You have culture, do you? Your face is red. Do you like tomato juice? Pardon. Who is your body's weight? My feet are there, you fool! Please... Please. Accompany my body. Not like that. A sack of sand for what? Sorry... where is your body's weight?. Pardon, don't hold my nose. Where's your beloved? Carrots and beans are already cooked. Excuse me, is that water already boiled? The cat's hair in your eye is funny, isn't it? Beautiful. Just wear that batik shirt. It will make my girlfriend suspisious. Don't forget, my name is Ahmad. Ugh, how can you do without soap? Ah, how come his ears are like that? Pardon, you ever saw your body's weight? Want to make an essay, do you? about Culture? A political and economic analysis, yes. Your hand will hurt, of course.

1995

translation by Marianne Koenig

Pelajaran Bahasa Inggris Tentang Berat Badan

Maaf, berapa berat badanmu? Sebentar saja, kepalaku satu kubik pasir. Tanganku 60 cm. Permisi, berapa jam berat badanmu? bibirku tebal. Tentu, kakiku coklat, seperti bangunan pemerintah. Berat badanmu bagaimana, please. Namaku Ahmad, tolol! No, kepalaku satu kubik pasir. Ada saluran got. Irisan daging di wastafel. Tunggu. Kenapa tanganmu keras? Seperti kekuasaan. Kamu punya kebudayaan, ya? Wajahmu merah. Anda suka juice tomat? Maaf. Berat badanmu siapa? Kakiku ada di situ, tolol! Please... please. temani badanku. Jangan begitu. Satu karung pasir untuk apa? Sorry... di mana berat badanmu? Maaf, jangan pegang

hidungku. Kekasihmu mana? Wortel dan buncis sudah direbus. Permisi, sudah mendidihkah air itu? Bulu kucing di matamu lucu, ya. Beautiful. Pakai saja baju batik itu. Nanti pacarku curiga. Jangan lupa, namaku Ahmad! Idiiiih, masa tidak pakai sabun. Aaaaaaa, kok kupingnya seperti itu? Maaf, pernah melihat berat badanku? Mau membuat esei, ya? Tentang kebudayaan? Analisa politik dan ekonomi, ya. Sakit, dong, tanganmu.

1995

God of Small Things

2008-10-14T14:40:00.002+07:00

"God of Small Things"

Stories are being told, because among people there is always an unquenchable thirst for more and more human experience.

It may be the bed time story that you would have heard as a child, or a story that your teacher told during moral science class, or as a good morning thought, or a cover story in a magazine, or a gossip story about a film star, or a story about some incident that happened to somebody, or watching a story being enacted in silver screen or small screen, the fact remains undeniable that we all are drawn towards some kind of human experience apart from our own lives in the form of a story.

This sort of experience is something that every story promises, but only a few satisfy. One among of few such stories is, ‘The God Of Small Things’ . I was lucky that I came across this book and I love it not for the story, but the way the story was been told.

It was this book that made me fall in love with words. A proof of how a small sentence made with the right words can have a unique meaning that resonate weird feelings, beyond other forms of expression.

Reading this book was like following someone’s train of thoughts, going forward and backwards, like going inside someone’s mind, like living someone’s memories and like seeing things in the same someone’s point of view, while comparing this with that.

Arundati Roy’s masterpiece has a slight biography like touch. She is surely a very gifted writer. Her style of writing is unique. But what she writes is like a vomit of words. Yeah! Vomit; though not disgusting. For it follows absolutely no rules of story telling. On the contrary it is filled with unexpected similes and sudden short funny sentences.

It was one of sincerest book I have ever read. Judging by the style, I was sure that it was the unedited first attempt. For, though the book is wonderful, it is also an unorganized sequence of words. And I was right. She did say that in an interview.

This book had originated from sudden flow of ideas that came in to Ms. Roy’s head from nowhere, that she felt the sudden passionate urge to regurgitate it all on paper through ink. Just that! Unedited.

Someone who considers books only as a source of entertainment and want to read only for passing time may not be able to appreciate this book’s unique splendor.

Such people may find the words pointless and the story going no where. They might even wonder how this book won the Booker prize. (I wasn’t surprised to find a couple of negative reviews on this book.)

But for me, this book is a treasure, for it satisfies my need to read a story that would, in some sense, matter. It is this book that I take up before cuddling in my bed everyday. As I read it and re-read it, I find myself falling more and more in love, with the words and the emotion behind it.

To describe it using Ms. Roy’s words, I should say that this book was ‘sick sweet’. No wonder the book won rare honors to Ms. Roy. Moreover it is a source of inspiration for people like me whose life ambition is to write a book.

Hope, someday I will write a book, and win a Booker prize for it :)

*Suzanna Arundhati Roy[1] (born November 24, 1961) is an Indian novelist, writer and activist. She won the Booker Prize in 1997 for her first novel, The God of Small Things, and, in 2002, the Lannan Cultural Freedom Prize.

http://www.mouthshut.com/review/God_Of_Small_Things___The_-_Arundhati_Roy-87102-1.html

Art Awaiting the Saviour

2008-10-10T14:38:00.001+07:00

Art Awaiting the Saviour

by: Dr.Ali Shariati
Translated by Ms. Homa Fardjadi

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful, Friends, Ladies and Gentlemen:

YOU MIGHT feel that art, whatever form it may take, is a complex subject which requires proper specialization to speak about it and that one who attempts to talk about it must necessarily be an artist himself. You and I both agree that I cannot consider myself to be one. But on the other hand, my words here on art are not of the kind which are common these days. They differ from other talks given on this subject or themes in which one has to deal with the particular area of his specialization.

There are some sciences which are oppressed in our society. They are oppressed in the sense that they have no particular owner. The reason they have no owner is because they do not have a set of clearly definable rules and limitations. At any rate, my words on art here are not of this kind. I am not speaking here as a specialist on the subject of art, but rather as one who is interested in knowing about art.

My words will represent my own point of view. They have, at one and the same time, an aspect of specialization as well as an aspect that is quite general and related to humanity. In this sense, it is contrary to some of the sciences which become so specialized that they become exclusive and others are not allowed to express an opinion about them. This is true of physics, chemistry and mathe- matics.

But art addresses itself to all people while at the same time it requires a skill and a technique. And yet, it is more than that. To a certain extent, the knowledge of it requires education and involves training. But I am only speaking here as one who has been addressed by the art of my own time. It is from this point of view that I will criticize and express my views as to why art is as it is.

To begin with, we are considering the problem of art because we are an eastern people. A part of our people relate to some of the great civilizations of mankind. Slogans accepted by all the Asian and African nations today are, 'We must stand on our own two feet,' 'We must nourish ourselves from our own original, cultural resources. We must return to ourselves. We must pull ourselves out of our state of stupefaction of having passively sunk into western cultural values and models. This is only the starting point.

Some think that it is enough to realize the fact that we should return to ourselves and our own character. No, this is only our point of departure and our slogan. We must immediately answer the question, 'What is the self?' What is it that we are referring to when seeking to return to our culture?

Unfortunately, in a society whose fate is fixed, stagnant and immobile, the fate of meanings is just as miserable. When a problem or an idea is proposed, it often meets resistance without having been understood, heard, known or recognized properly. It is put down not only by reason, knowledge or words, but through other ethical ways and means, as well.

If a person tries to turn his back on the question, he or she will sink even further in. If one is hard-headed and stands and resists at any price, then one becomes the idol of fashion. When fashionable, it then becomes vulgar to the degree that the person will regret it completely.

The idea of 'returning to self' has now become such that the people who first suggested it, with great difficulties in some coun- tries, are now prepared to pay any price to acquit themselves of the blame. Returning to self has now become equivalent to the revival of superstitions, frozen traditions, fanaticism and a return to the uncivilized, indigenous traditions.

Returning to self means to return to one's own character. It means to breathe with the spirit, seeking the constructive, active and progressive aspects of culture which have, in the past, created societies, civilization and urbanization. It does not mean to return to problems which have, through time and according to needs, died, and are now extinct and dead matter. It never means to explore meanings, feelings, emotions, ideas and philosophies from the begin- ning of time and exhibit them in our modern museums.

We should rather return to ourselves as the reality and truth demands, to our national and ethnic character. We should not do so with an attitude of racism or because of being attached to blood or land, but only because of our relationship to humanity. To return to that character means to gain independence from the attacks of foreign values. Meanwhile, one of the most immediate and genuine responsibilities will be to fight against superstition, archaic values and all the elements which blind and weaken a nation and its insight and keep it from creativity, modernization, progress and continuous change. A return to self does not mean a return to the old, worn out ideas.

But the question remains, which culture is it that we should know? Which culture is it that we should revive in order to receive inspiration from its creative and constructive spirit? Return to self is all right, but what is this true self ? Answering this question presents an immediate problem. We should no longer pose the question, 'Should we or should we not return to self or to our own culture,' we should now, know ourselves. That is, we should start a scientific search. We should seek an up-to-date outlook in our choice of sources and resources, whether human, scientific or cultural and one of them would be the arts.

Contrary to the judgment reflected in the mind of our dormant generation, we are neither weak nor poor in our arts, deeds or manifestations. We should forget standing dumbfounded as primi- tives when confronted with the expressions of the world's progressive art. If we study art in all its dimensions, and not only through translations of the history of art or lives of the artists where the encyclopedias begin with Greece and end with France, but rather, as a reader, an independent historian, if we regard the whole world, its history and its diverse ways, we will see that we do have a profound base in the arts. I would also suggest that modern art, that is, the art characterizing the twentieth century, which contains the rays of the future, is an art which tries, in a new way, to approach the artistic spirit which was the fundamental basis of Oriental art. I will explain how.

Secondly, the concept of art is no longer a minor and secondary part of the life of the well-off and the aristocrats as it was in the past. On the contrary, it is the most serious and essential human problem to be considered in the modern world today, the world which has surpassed its limits of aristocratic palaces and the comfortable life-style of the rich. It has extended itself into the crowd and has spread among the masses. The new art is no longer controlled by the aristocracy, as was the case in the past, but it is the sympathetic intellectual, conscious and sensitive, who leads it. Art is no more a pleasant and diverting tranquilizer to keep our lives closed and comfortable. It leads the philosophies of today and runs ahead of our contemporary ideas. It is essential for us to know art, both because of the way it has extended itself in the human world and because of the serious and supreme responsibility it has acquired today. To what- ever history, culture or land we may belong, we are still living in this century.

Return to self, knowing oneself, on the one hand, is not to limit and confine oneself to one's own model, but rather, only they can know themselves who can know others at the same time. The proverb about language is relevant here which says: Only that person knows his language who necessarily knows a foreign language as well. one only knows his culture, religion, race, talents and history who essentially knows another's history, religion and language. This is why, while our goal and our struggle may be to find our lost and changed character, at the same time, knowing the West and the new waves of the contemporary world and civilization becomes necessary as well.

Everybody blames the poor West for his weaknesses, corruption and absurdities. Who is the foreigner we have learned to become like? What we see today is not the result of imitating the West. It is rather because of not imitating the West. It is caused by not knowing the West. If we had been conscious imitators of the West, we may no longer have been Eastern, but at least we would have been 'some- what Western' whereas presently we are nothing.

The points referred to here are suggestions I made in five lectures delivered in Paris in 1962. One of the lectures I had prepared was on the subject of 'the Spirit of the Iranian Nation.' Another was on the life of the Prophet, 'Mohammad, his Wives and his Names.' It was in response to a Catholic conference which had made the private life of the Prophet into a play. Another of the lectures was about 'Art Awaiting the Saviour.' This lecture was later translated in Tehran, but for some reason, half of it was left out and the other half rejected. Since then, I have made fundamental revisions in my views on art. My outlook now differs. Although the points and observations I made then are the same, there are some examples, appropriate in the context of the original conference, which I have now changed.

As the title of the subject suggests, I intend to show that art is a religion, a transcendent and sacred truth, a saviour of humanity. It has a responsibility which is great indeed and which rises above materiality. It is a responsibility which is totally human. But art has been turned away from this faith, the religion of art, not by an enemy, since an enemy never causes deviation, but rather, an enemy enlivens its enemy. What transforms a religion and thought, is a friend or an enemy which appears as a friend in society.

The form of all religions has been modified and made to rot from the inside. Look at Islam. When the Qoraish stood against it, it was a growing, radiant, exalted, powerful and proud society. But when the same enemy became Moslem and put on the cloak of a friend, the situation transformed into something else. It took a completely opposite turn. This is why we say that it was not wars and conflicts which caused Islam, Judaism or Christianity to weaken and shift from the true way. But as Jesus says, it was the Jewish priests who corrupted the Jewish faith. It was Papism that caused Christianity to diverge. In the case of Islam, we ourselves have led the faith astray.

Art was not weakened by Plato who opposed poetry and art. Neither was it weakened by those who see it as vain, nor by people with a conscious, clear mind, those who know the Truth of that religion and have recognized the shift from its original goal. The conscious are aware that religion is something else and has now turned into another thing. It has been corrupted by our great artists who have brought it down to today's level of vulgarity.

When a religion declines, as we have pointed out, it takes a direction opposite to its original one, it is metamorphosized, so to speak. There is a group of people who believe religion by itself is metamorphosized and thereby declines. There is another group of half-literate intellectuals who think that the metamorphosis or decline itself is that religion and oppose it on these grounds.

When we turn our attention towards those who are conscious and aware of the real spirit of religion, we are met by a revolutionary thought, manifest in all religions, which is the belief in the final salvationythat which will bring about revolutionary eradication of decay and oppression, that which will obliterate all deviation.

This promised salvation (namely messianism) is essentially a revolutionary thought that arises from the spirit and throws out all false habits, customs and delusions at one time, revealing the true and direct way. It leads art and religion back to its original path.

The state of art is such today that the worst of the duties and the most mischievous of the missions is left in the hands of this world. The role of art should be exactly the opposite of this. On the other hand, there has always been a misuse and inversion of supreme beauty and truth. As Jalal al-din Rumi says, 'If you see that there is a forged coin current in the market, know that there has been a golden one which was a means of exchange.' No one makes a simple forged coin but always a forged golden coin.

This very imitation directs us to the fact that man is deceived through religion, art and philosophy and this fact should indicate to us that the way to awareness and the construction of human beings is also through them. That which is relevant between myself and my friends becomes an excuse to be used by an enemy who has a different opinion than we do. Is it that when a truth is misused, we should wash our hands of it? Or, the reverse, fight against the misuse? The enemy is armed with this weapon. This is why we should keep the truth and defend it. If we let it go, the enemy will be victorious and we will be defeated.

Historically, the misuse of something was most often carried out in the name of religion and it is now done in the name of art. This is why we should come to know the real direction of art and once we know it, make it known to others. This is a most immediate problem because art has occupied all of our time in the 20th century. This is not correct to my way of thinking. Rather, it is one of the stages that art has to pass through in order to reach a superior one.

For a discussion on art, we should put beauty aside. There is nothing more important and at the same time suspicious in artistic, philosophical and scientific matters than the truth of beauty. Unlike the problem of metaphysics and religion, beauty cannot be denied, even though we usually deny it when we reach a dilemma. But, it is there, for all men are affected by it and everyone recognizes it. If there is any disagreement, it is on the different kinds of beauty in human life, be it in what I see or what I feel in my heart. On the other hand, we are bound to analyze it, and it does not lend itself easily to analysis.

As history shows, people have tried to scientifically and philosoph- ically analyze beauty and develop rules and limitations for it since the time of Aristotle. But all these efforts have been in vain and remain unrealized. In fact, each of the various ideas have certain followers but this shows that, in fact, the arguments have not as yet reached any particular stage.

We do not have time here for me to talk about the various concepts of beauty presented as an idea in the different schools of thought. But I will have to name them as examples where necessary in the course of our discussion.

The understanding of art and beauty is very much dependent upon comprehending the human being. In particular, the problem of art, more than anything else and more than ever depends upon the role of the human being and upon comprehending him. Efforts towards the development and evolution of culture have been strengthened, but they have remained incomplete because the human beings who must live in this civilization and within this cultural framework are not comprehended. Their needs are not known and the knowing of these needs depends upon knowing the human being. Art more than anything else is in need of comprehending the human being because art is usually considered to be either subjective, that is, completely human or else very objective. Those who believe that beauty consists of a truth which comes into being from the interac- tions of our spirit and an external object, think it is an objective approach, but because we think subjectively, we actually see all things half-subjectively and half-objectively. Thus we cannot say anything about art and beauty unless we first speak about the human being.

The true human being is in a state of becoming, whereas mankind has a specific and distinct existence which can be described from its five hundred thousand year history. The human being's 'becoming' is not the same thing as mankind's 'coming into being'. That is a reality with other kinds of peculiarities.

From the depths of the world of feeling to modern philosophies, multiple mystic, philosophic and even materialistic interpretations have been given. But it all means that to the extent to which a creature is part of nature, society, a tribe and comes into being through physiological and material laws and rules, he or she eventually becomes lonely and then the feelings of loneliness and the desire for freedom arise Based upon these feelings, anxiety and agitation follow and efforts towards once again joining that which, with effort, he or she left and thirsted for, becomes a perpetual ascending evolution which, through choice and effort, takes the shape of a will which compensates for what he or she feels is lacking in the existing world.

It is possible that all the ideas of a human being may not be right, but knowledge means struggling, thinking, making observations and adjusting one's views to reach something. It is not that we should say nothing until we reach 'the knowledge of certainty' and 'the truth of certainty', for it is impossible to reach it all at once unless it be through revelation. We should continue saying and thinking as we reach towards it. We had a teacher who would slap us whenever we made mistakes in reading the Qoran. Thus none of us ever learned to read the Qoran properly.

The paradise that I know or presume to know is subjective and related to the human being. In the story of creation, as I understand it, history is not denied. It is simply not natural history. Rather, paradise is a philosophical-symbolic expression which attempts to analyze contemporary man and the enigma that is called humanity. What does paradise mean ? It means paradise. We see there are still people in paradise. They have not been expelled from it yet. Their world is filled with blessing. The world is full of joy. Man feels rich, satisfied and fulfilled in life. The one who is happy with the thought that parliament may pass a law sometime in the future that would add 1110 to his salary, is in paradise. He has not yet come out of it. The one who has not eaten the forbidden fruit that God asked him not to eat, is comfortable. He is satisfied and happy.

But what is that forbidden fruit? The Old Testament and the Qoran both talk of perception and consciousness. I know some paradisiac people who find pleasure in this world, who find joy in seeing that it is the season for the fresh sheep's milk and yogurt. They sense the coming of spring.

Henry Luper says that there are two kinds of people. One group are a hundred percent objective, realistic and ordered. They have not the least bit of unexplainable pains; they are all reason. But which kind of reason ? The reason that dominates the material world. I met an example of this group in a restaurant a few years ago. I was reading 'Le Monde'. It had an article analyzing the situation in Bolivia. They had just had a coup d'etat. Next to me, a man, while eating his meal, had bent his head trying to read as much as could be seen of the third page. I was not paying any attention. When I realized he was interested, I asked him which page he was trying to read. He said the third page. The third page is economics. That is the one which gives the price of cars, objects and also the daily rate of exchange. It is useful for the wealthy.

As I was interested in the article on Bolivia, he asked me what my occupation was. He wanted to know if I was Bolivian. I said, 'No. I am not a politician, but an Iranian student from Mashad.' I asked him what he was doing. He said he was a student from Israel. 'I live with an income of 600 francs per month,' he said. I asked him why he was interested in the rate of exchange adding, Whatever it may be, what difference does it make to us what the rate of exchange is for the French franc?'

He said, 'You are from a corner of the world and not even a politician, but you want to find out what is going on in Bolivia. But I am a person who is living anyway I can with this 600 francs per month, in this place with these fluctuations in the rate of exchange for the franc, pound and dollar. It affects my life of 600 francs. I buy cigarettes, if the rate of the franc falls, my two francs will be worth two and a half francs and I buy food. If the position changes while I am studying the rate of exchange for the franc, if after a year, the increase of five centimes is added to the price of air fare, all of this has a direct effect on my life. But what you read never has an effect.' I remained silent. We looked at each other for awhile. We could clearly see how each of us was a fool in the other's eyes.

As Henry Luper says, there are two or three resources in man. One is reason, another perception and the other thinking. These are all terminologies. There is only one and that is understanding which forms the quality of what I receive and what I come to know. It is not that which reason says, or that which my feelings, as such, show me. There are different kinds of reason. Each person sees the world according to the character of his reasoning. This includes even the way he sees material objects and colors. Certainly, two types of reasoning will describe one color differently. We do not see the world as it really is, but rather, we see the world as we really are. This need, which is an essential part of man, has been explained with subtlety and extreme profundity in the philosophy of the creation of man.

The man who has had everything, who is satisfied and who has felt no need or suffering and who has had only pleasure and blessings within his reach, was told not to eat the forbidden fruit. But he was deceived by the devil and ate it. He reflected for the first time. It is all very clear what that tree was and the effort of Islamic and Jewish interpreters to verify whether it was an apple tree or a sheaf of wheat or something else is all in vain.

It is clear that after they ate the fruit, as the Qoran says, God came to see them. He called them, but they did not come. They said they were ashamed of their nude bodies. God realized that they had eaten the fruit of that tree. It means that they had not previously been aware of their nudity, indecency, ugliness and shamelessness. This was why they were happy. Because of this, they were in paradise. was why they were happy. Because of this, they were in paradise. It has been clearly and directly stated in the Qoran and the Old Testament that this was the fruit of perception and consciousness. The Qoran explicitly refers to it. It is clear from the text that as soon as man swallowed this forbidden fruit, the sight of paradise becomes an earthly world of pains, smaller than the needs of human beings. This is the meaning of fall and descent.

The Garden of Eden is on earth and it is this earth. We can see now as always that the more human beings eat of that fruit (consciousness the more they sense that their life upon the earth is constricted. They suffer more in sensing the inadequa- cies of others The less they eat, the more peace they have ant the more pleasure they experience. Their needs are immediately met by winning a lottery ticket.

This is why they say that in paradise, by just saying a prayer, they will have everything they want. can there be any thing simpler than this? And is there anything more true than this?

But why is this fruit, which has been eaten more than once by man and is continuously being eaten, forbidden? Because it makes the human being fall from that comfort, satisfaction, ease and pleasure and begin to feel things lacking in the world. The walls of unaware- ness close in on him, narrow the passage to his soul and cause him pain. He is always moving, searching, struggling, working and wanting. He will not be satisfied. Whoever eats from the fruit and attains another stage of consciousness, feels more need and this is what to rebel means.

Who is the one to rebel? The one who is conscious. Rebel against the will of God? What is the will of God ? The will of God is the law which exists in history. The will of God is the law which is inherent in nature. The will of God is the tribal laws and the laws of human societies. It is the law that exists in the physiology of my organism which makes me be part of mankind, a living being in this world.

Hence, the will of God which tells us not to eat from that fruit, is the four bounds, the four forces, the four chains that want to keep us in this atmosphere. When one reaches the state of perception and consciousness, one is freed from the determinations of nature, history, society and the self.

This is what Hegel calls absolute will, free from primordial nature, the primordial state of being, and this very term of Hegel's is what our mysticism is all about. It is with the same words of Hegel that our religion says that we will return to God. It is this very term which in our religion says, 'I created man in the image of Myself' and 'I made him successor upon the earth.' This means that the human being, in his struggle, becomes free from the bonds of nature and the laws that nature has used to build him. But because nature builds him, it rightfully intrudes. In this latter state, the human being is only an animal or a plant. He frees himself from the prison of history, for as historians say, each person is the result of his own history.

He is freed from prison, laws and social traditions. All human beings are products of their social environment, social laws and relations save those who reach absolute consciousness and are freed from their material and worldly prison. That is, they are freed from their paradise. This freed human being, to the extent that he has freed himself, reaches a state of consciousness and knowledge. We see that it is through this technique that we continue to free ourselves from social laws and thereby dominate society.

The human being of today, changes and builds his society, whereas human beings of the past were built as their tribe or society demanded. No one who is part of a tribe has ever reached the state of consciousness to be able to change his social traditions or change his religion or change his social relations and his life. He does not feel, for there is no 'I' for him. There is no free and liberated human being. The human being who is his own prisoner means that all the drives, attractions and tendencies which nature created in him to enable him to continue living, have bound his will in the trap of these physical demands. He pushes all of these away and then that human being reaches that absolute consciousness, the will to choose, and comes closer to God. He comes closer to the image of God in which he was created.

It is the human being who attains such a level of consciousness and feels liberated and separated who becomes lonely. It is this lonely one who sees the world to be too small. It is this lonely one that feels the anguish, it is the needs of this human being which are not satisfied by the earthly benefits and blessings of nature.

The human being never approaches colorlessness and should not wish to do so. Colorlessness means death. It means becoming a vegetable. The human being should wish to replace inferior needs with superior ones and hope to feel greater and higher pains. Who is the one who has more agitation and thirst? Not the one who is more prosperous or the one less so. This is not the question. It is the one whose needs are more and superior. It is this human being who is more anxious and under more stress.

In an Anthropology Conference held in Belgium, everybody agreed to name the twentieth century, 'The Century of Anxiety.' Why? All of the different considerations in various areas and occasions which I have mentioned here exist, and yet, it is undeniable that today's human being has more knowledge and is more conscious than in the past.

In Durkheim's words, the 'I' has appeared in contemporary man, meaning that the individual has developed, whereas the man of the past was a being living within the fabric of nature. The sap of life and nature were running in his veins and he was nurtured by it. By means of that sap, he was fostered, grew and found peace and order. But the lonely human being of today? But why lonely? Being with everyone? Is this the only need that a human being has? Which need? The need which comes about when an individual understands what he or she should be and is not. This need is constantly increasing. It reaches the state of more knowledge, consciousness and world consciousness and the need finally becomes independent from nature. At the same time that he knows that nature is a house that is shared with the animal and vegetable kingdom, he also knows it lacks something.

He needs to have the world sense him. The more lonely the human being becomes, the more alienated he feels. What Camus says is that contemporary man is alienated from everything. This alienated man feels closeness and familarity more than ever and he needs to feel familiarity, yet his family and the world are more than ever alienated from him. He senses in his nature, and in the depth of his thoughts that all boundaries will end when his feelings find continuation in this world.

Existence accepts death. But his feelings will continue. He weighs what exists with his spiritual and transcendent needs. He sees that he does not get enough and feels alienated.

This problem of alienation is not only a metaphysical problem. The alienation which Sartre, Camus and Heideger talk about is something which gives existence to art.

Science is the struggle of man to know what exists. Technique and industry are defined as: the means and the mental struggle of human beings for benefitting from as much as is possible of that which is. But art consists of the struggle of human beings for benefits which should exist, but do not. Therefore, the human being who sees himself alone, wants to set up, through art, a relationship with this earth and sky or with the objects which he is alienated from because they are not the same kind as he. He wants to color them with familiarity and understanding.

Thus, one of the things that art does is to help decrease the feeling of alienation of the conscious human being who has fled and alienated himself. How? It allows him to decorate the walls of his prison in the image of the house he wishes he was in and isn't. These objects, this sky, these stars and mountains do not understand him. He is left alone, stone-like and blind among all these objects. Art gives feelings to all these objects.

Our poetry is a perfect example. What most of our poems do is to reconcile the lonely poet with the crowd. This man who is lonely becomes understood through a candle. Art changes the candle into an acquaintance which feels the poet's animosity. Art sees the sun rise not as a revolution of the earth and sky but in a way that makes the sun suddenly appear in the sky. This does not fulfill his needs, but it is like a message from a friend. In this artistic deception, his feelings of alienation and separation from objects in nature becomes refined. Art also does something else. It allows the artist to make and create in the world something that does not exist in nature, but 'he needs it to be'.

The art of the past was kept at the level of imitating nature. Plato said, 'Art is the imitation of nature.' If art is imitating nature, then Plato's words are clear. Art is a game. It is deceitful and false. A man who has realities at his disposal must be made to simulate them. Would anyone simulate water? Where there is water, why should there be its imitation ? Plato may be right in thinking that it is only a game and all in vain, but I understand it quite differently.

Art is imitating precisely what is beyond the tangible, beyond nature, in order to decorate nature in its image, or to make something the human being wants to be in nature and does not find. It is there to fulfill his feelings of need and agitation, loneliness and most of all, his need to transcend, that is, separate himself from tangible, material needs.

This is why God entrusted art to man. He offered it to the earth, the sky, the mountains and oceans; none accepted it. This does not mean that they were asked, 'Oh mountain or sky, do you want it?' And they said, 'No.' So man picked it up. This means, rather, that mountains and oceans do not have creativity, they are not conscious and do not feel the need of things beyond that which already exists. They cannot feel. They are neither in need nor agitated and pained, nor can they create. It is the human being who picks it up. But what ?

He picks up the ability which he feels he has; he can choose; he can create. This is why I said that art is the expression of the power of creativity in human beings. In continuing it, in decorating it, it continues being. Being is the ultimate goal for everything, both the being of nature and that of the life of society, both organic being and the being of our human limitations.

Art is the expression of the human being's creativity and through the continuation of this being, it becomes an expression of the creativity of God, in order to create what he wants and does not find. Therefore, as Hegel says, 'Art has been evolving from the material and objective towards the perceptible, intellectual and subjective.'

By subjective, I do not mean the bourgeois idealism that one might have in mind and we all condemn. I have nothing to do with its philosophy. Rather, in the beginning, the human being was an absolute, non-conscious soul that penetrated the organisms of nature. Then the evolutionary process of that soul reached the human being. The human being is becoming conscious. The more conscious he becomes, the more he can sense the abstract which he himself represents. That is, as I see it, art brings consciousness to the unconscious soul of the human being because art, awakening the sense of the abstract, allows us to come to know God.

If you look at our own literature, the poetry of Manuchehri, Roudaki, Farrokhi, their wishes, their lives, their ideals and their needs are all objective, material and concrete. What are they longing fort They are longing for what there is but they do not possess, whereas Rumi is longing for that which does not exist.

It does not exist, we have found it.

That non-existent is my longing.

Art is searching for 'that' and industry is looking for 'this'. Industry is trying to find what there is in nature which is out of man's reach and reach it. This is exactly the opposite of what art is searching for. As we said, man seeks that which is not.

The more one struggles, the more one creates and the more one evolves, the more one will feel that one is becoming separated. As a principle, this is the motive for the evolution of man.

Manuchchri's love poems are at a very objective level and they do not have the least bit of human feelings in them. They are exactly paradise. Whereas when we reach Saadi and then Hafez and Rumi, there, in great abstraction, lies the story of feelings and expressions of the spirit. The world is imprisoned and paradoxically it is not there. One cannot even identify objectivity and materiality. Sometimes, when one wants to address this subject, the addressed feels him. He can well see that it has become a kind of consciousness. It has become exactly like the image of love and the breath of feeling. Sometimes it is not realized. Sometimes we cannot realize it.

What can I call It when I don 't know it?

This is not about the celestial lover, although it has reached the level of abstraction and transcendence. One can confuse them since limits belong to the sphere of objectivity. The difference of opinion as to what wine is made from and what it is, is all useless. The problem is to reach abstraction. In abstraction there is no boundary anymore and none of these categories and limitations exist in one's feelings. He is Manuchehri, as long as he uses words. It is the wine which he has received from his lover. After he becomes old and religious, it is obvious that his wine is something else and his lover of another sort. It is in this evolved feeling that he approaches abstraction. These arguments are appropriate in the study of life and works of Manuchehri and Farrokhi.

The abstract feelings reach the point of saying,

What can I call it when I don 't know it?

Why should I say I'm not, when I am in love with it ...

It is in the completely subjective, in the depths of the individual, far from the various natures and material objectives that this poetry reaches new poetry-modern poems.

My friend, Dr. Mokhtari, translated a book and gave it to me to read. This modern new novel was all about the description of objects. When you open a new novel, all you see is words about buses, buying tickets and cars and their honking. They are all describing common everyday life. It would seem as if-literature and art had escaped out of the interior essence of the human being. It has become objectivized and materialized. But in this novel, it says that, on the contrary, none of the external objects are the ones I am talking about. The tree I am talking about is not the tree that grows in the garden. It is the tree whose image is in my heart. I describe it. That man, of whom I am speaking, is different from the man that the biographer or the doctor talks about. He is a man who is in my mind. Therefore, I see him differently and it means something different to me.

Opposed to what Aristotle says, art has always been struggling to free itself from all that is objective, concrete and a subject of science based upon the humanism of ancient Greece, on the beauty of reality, on the beauty of the mountains and the valleys and, most of all, on the beauty of the human body. It tries to free man from these things as well.

But in the course of history, whenever art has been expressed freely and has not been the reflection of physiological needs, it has struggled to free itself from its bonds. All the artistic movements formed by artists, either with supernatural feelings or by ones without them, have tried to make art not so much a means to picture and describe reality or to define man, as his clear, existing model, but to use and recognize it as an inevitable challenge, a divine, creative becoming, the evolving of feelings and of the essential truth of man's being.

The most material of the arts is sculpture. Painting is more close to perfection. Why is it more perfect? Because it has one dimension less. It is two dimensional. As it has one dimension less of nature, it possesses one more potential to approach subjectivity. That is why we have in art today, great men such as Picasso. But in sculpture, such geniuses have not been able to develop, for they are bound in three dimensional forms.

Although dance is a classical art and a physical art, at the same time, that which it tries to embody is quite in accordance with the spirit, feeling and perception. Therefore, it can be the expression of an individual's inner feelings and an abstraction. Music has only one dimension which is time. Poetry is the absolute abstraction. This is why we see that in poetry we are able to express concepts in their highest form, whereas other fields do not lend themselves as readily.

Today, sculpture, which is the most material expression of old and new art, no longer tries to make us think we can make a statue of a champion or conceptualize the picture of a man or a woman. The artist does not use stone to build a body. A painter does not create a face with paint. They speak with stone and paint. Today we see that we can create better sculpture and painting than some of the works of artists.

An artist does not want to paint a nose like a real nose. How much is his own nose worth that he should try to simulate one? He creates a human being like Picasso created with one eye in the middle of his forehead. What is he trying to say? He wants to speak. The artist does not want to express that which is. He wants to say that the human being of today has become one dimensional. Picasso did not paint a painting of war and peace. He showed the philosophy ant meaning of war and peace. Just as I use the words of war and peace to express human problems, he uses the brush to speak of it, not by giving us the image of it.

Georges Saurat, a great impressionist painter, who might even be called one of its originators, says, "I may draw a horse. But this is not the horse in the field. This is the meaning and the concept of horse, expressed and embodied in the figure of a horse." He says, 'The people I have shown in the island painting, are people who have the curvature of their bodies composed of very fine points which were nothing but subjective images. We do not take any of these forms as conforming with nature. We take this as a joke. Certainly it is always easier to laugh at a new creation and no one needs any specialization or fairness in order to be able to beat it down. It is enough to say, 'I do not understand it. In this way, I will not be the one condemned, but him.'

The artists who painted in that style, where the curvature of bodies were made of an endless number of fine points and were nothing but subjective forms, made their paintings and colors clearer than those of Manet and Picasso and all the impressionists. The life shown in the picture belonged to no one. It was the reflection of a dazzling light. Spirit, substance and breath were foreign to it. Motion was removed from it. A confused scene flooded with the sun in an impressionist painting is not a piece of earth over which the silk of the sun draws itself.

He is not concerned with how he sees the sun or which kind of sun he needs. He creates it, as Khaqani and our other poets created the sun. There were some unfamiliar trees standing upright in the painting and some animals that Fourier, the famous zoologist, could never have imagined. The meaning of creating from non-being into being, is a responsibility of God and art, meaning the divine expression of art, the human being. The people Gaugin binds together are bound by something which Gaugin has created.

A sea could be seen which seemed to have flooded out of the mouth of a volcano, a sky that no eyes have as yet seen. There were the wild men, the alienated, the nonexistent beings with strange figures. He wants to talk about this human being. He is searching for him. He does not exist, so he creates him. This is who Rumi is looking for. He creates non-existent beings with strange figures. He wants to talk about this human being. He is searching for him. This is the human being whom Rumi seeks. He creates the non-existent, the human being that all men are looking for. one reaches the sun through mysticism, while another reaches it through his paintings. This human being, with his strange look, has hidden the unbound mystery in his innocent eyes.

Each signify something expressed through imaginary veils of pink and violet colored flames. Each one tells a meaning. It is a story with no veils, strange scenes, where animals and wild flowers grow and blossom under the fiery rays of the sun. Which Sowers grow and blossom in fire? Even plaster and stone transform into meaning, feeling, reflection and abstraction under artful hands.

Heidegger sees the human being and his true essence, which science has always neglected. Science keeps him from watching nature and searching into it. It still does. Some blame science, the science which alienates man from himself for not allowing the human spirit to liberate itself from the bonds holding it to nature's laws. For the only thing science and industry are concerned with is nature. They have left man alone.

Sartre feels the extension of the same loneliness and considers the world as lacking everything. He says that the human being should construct himself with his thinking and his will. Camus finds the alienation of man, the plague, here in this world. The altar that Lucres speaks about is this very world.

For whom? For the person who has reached that alienation and loneliness. That is the plague, the alienation. He reaches the state of absurdity and life becomes useless. Who? The human being. Which human being? The one who until now accompanied the 17th, 18th and 19th century bourgeoisie who wanted to build a philosophy of paradise for himself in a philosophy which would replace religion. The bourgeoisie had forgotten that man rebelled from sin millions of years ago in the paradise that God had made for him, where there was consumption, prosperity and joy.

How can you have the man who has reached such transcendent consciousness, stay calm and feel satisfied in the bourgeois paradise that you are making for him in life, in time and on this earth? The human being revolts. The revolt that we see is the revolt of the comfortable man. It is exactly the same revolt that he made in paradise.

Today, man becomes conscious and revolts. If any man, wherever he may be, in the divine paradise and the garden of Eden, attains consciousness, he revolts against all there is, longing and struggling in love for what there should be. This is the law of humanity.

We see today that art in the East has revolted against the humanism of Greece and the humanism of the Renaissance which went towards pleasures, showing the beauties of nature, the volume and line of the human body, human beauties and remaining in the framework of objectivity and reality. Along with philosophy and well-off people today, the revolt is also against the bonds of being and objectivity, not drowning oneself in the idle comforts, rather, continuing and finding the continuation of the human being.

Realism means remaining within the framework of what exists. This is stagnation in man which does not fit the rebelling, ever- thirsty man. In the same way, idealism is a betrayal of man who is true and real.

Along with philosophy and the human being of today, art is the standard bearer of this revolt against nature and objectivity. It is the standard bearer of man's self-discovery and the blossoming of and giving blossom to the transcendent possibilities and even those which transcend the human intellect and logic.

Art of today, in opposition to the past, does not remain in amusement, rather, it is to build something higher than the human being and humanity. This is a mission and a trust. As Metterling said, 'When God had made all things, He reached man. He stopped and left the creation to man himself.' Creative human being means artist, the human being who cuts away from everything, while he is creating, and with his creativity, he creates his art, he cries, he tries, he builds himself and he expenses himself. Whoever writes a new book, creates himself. A human being becomes his own creator and builds himself to the extent that his art contains the sense of his own humanity, not in the sense of his knowledge or his craft.

Where is the art today that takes the form of a bourgeoisie philosophy of entertainment as its mission for life? It is n the paradise which he wants to build on earth which consists of eating, pleasures and remaining in paradise. To consider art as pleasure, a pastime activity, a relief from the rigid industrial life, is to give this lowest of tasks to the most sacred of activities, that is, art, as if it were only to entertain whereas art should be put into the hands of a creator, as prophecy has been sealed.

Source: http://www.shariati.com/savior.html

Sang Hyang Segara Rekayasa

2008-10-06T14:32:00.000+07:00

Sang Hyang Segara Rekayasa

My worship is for God only Universe creator and all its I adore all of the great poets To whom worship God only

ASTINA.—The leaders of Kurawa together with General Baladewa, the President of Mandura, discuss national catastrophe.

DURYUDANA: All distinguished leaders! As though those tsunamy ocean, extraodinary raining season, rainstorm, flooding, they would sink the earth, bacoming global catastrophe. Is it also happening in Mandura?

BALADEWA: Yes—exactly! Even many areas have been flooded by tsunamy of the ocean.

KARNA: It happens in the Propince of Awangga, too! Fishermen have been the victims! Marine tourism dies! It ruins here and there.

DURYUDANA: What's actually the cause of this catastrophe? How can we overcome it?

SAKUNI: Excuse me, Sir! Prehaps Prof Durna has an authentic thinking and a sophisticated problem solving strategy.

DURYUDANA: OK, Prof Dur—go to the podium, please.

DURNA: Nah, hahaha… thanks! A great expert needn't boasting in the podium! Suporting form behind! Nah, hahaha… you see my dear Kurawa—these do not only happen in Astina, Mandura, Awangga that fall into catastrope, but also happens in Bangladesh. More horrible! Nah, theoretically—there are cause and effect! Such a catastrophic effect is caused by an impact. Tsunamic ocean, rainstorm, flood, and even the icebergs in both polars of the earth have been melting—those all are caused by human deeds that do not care environmental life. Irresponsible ocnum!

BALADEWA: Krrk-phew! Bastard ocnum! Who is s/he, Prof?

DURNA: According to my research, that's caused by Antasena's exsperiment in the abyss of an ocean.

BALADEWA: Krrk-phew! Son of a bitch, Antasena!

KARNA: What does he want?

DURNA: For he is an admiral of Amarta, he has a political purpose. For the sake of Pandawa national power! He wants to be the authority of ocean and calls himself Sang Hyang Segara Rekayasa.

BALADEWA: What? Sang Hyang? Krrk-phew! Crazy! How insane Antasena is! Does such a title exist in holy book, Prof?

DURNA: Ah, No! I've read all bibliographies. The libraries of Sokalima University and Atasangin University I've researched. Either in ancient books such as Tantu Panggelaran, Kitab Manik Maya, Kitab Paramayoga, Kitab Kanda, Kitab Sudamala, Kitab Nawaruci, Kitab Gatutkacasraya, Mahabarata, Ramayana, or the modern ones—there is no Sang Hyang Segara Rekayasa. Sang Hyang the forger! Holy falacy!

DURYUDANA: All right, make theexperiment fail, catch and justify him!

SAKUNI: How if Amarta protects him?

DURYUDANA: Attack!

“Good! Great! Acc!” + “Okay!” + “W-well!” + “OK!” + “Long Live Kurawa!” + “Long
live! Long live! Long live!"

BALADEWA: Krrk-phew! Percisely!

DURYUDANA: Al right, General Baladewa—lead the multinational troops. And Let. Gen Karna should lead the Paracommando troops of Astina.

BALADEWA: Yes, Sir!

KARNA: Yes, Sir!

“The Paracommandos of Ocean Operation—attention! Dursasana, Dursala, Dursata, Durmuka, Durkarna, Duradara, Durwigata, Durmagati, Kartamarma, Kartipeya, Citragada, Citramarma, Citrakandala, Citrayuda, Citraksa, Citraksi, Adityaketu, Bimabahu, Dirgabahu, Dirgalacana, Dirgarama, Dredarata, Drepasastra, Drestahasta, Drepayuda Drepawarman—ready to move!”

“March forward!”
“Yes, Sir!”

In the ocean war Kurawa
Is ready to attack Antasena

DASAR SAMUDRA.—Teritorial zone of Amarta.

(BOOM!)
“Krrk-phew! Bastard mine!”
“Look out the submarine!”
(BOOM!)

ANTASENA: Hmh, Kurawa—never think you can make Amarta defense ruin. Submarine of Antaboga the masterpiece engineering of Prof Dr Antaboga is very sophisticated. I'm Sang Hyang Segara Rekayasa doing an exsperiment in the Oceanoculture Sea-Lab for the future of Amartan nation. Whoever can't go into this Sea-Lab.

Gara-gara
The earth quakes
The ocean storms

TUMARITIS.—In the earthly hollow-sorrow, Panakawan is joking.

“Excuse me, I’m Petruk Swayze. Dear Readres—how are you today? Fine? OK, so am I. Hehehe… in its story it's raining: wet, leaky, muddy! Ehm… Yun, Ren, Sis—what are you doing? Keep on showing off! When will you showw off in Matahari again? Alter! Go to campus please, hehehe… what about Wayang Kampus? Happy-dumpty! It's said: activist! Be scientific please, hehehe… not arty ah!”
“Talking to whom, Truk?”
“To my fans, of course!”
“Huh, pretending to be top n pop!”
“Hehehe… of coz! Eh, where's Gareng? Bang, Gareng Mbeling has been made yet?
Hurry up, it'll be played! I'll have a show—not only Bagong which is in action.
Boring!”
“U're sentiment to me, Truk!”
“I'm! Nah, that's Gareng! Come
here, Reng! Where’re ye from?”
“Show-biz!” + “Show off!”
“Zow, you know?
Not like u: show off. No sale!”
“Fuck u! I made an observation there to investigate the attitude of the consumerism culture to anticipate next business. It's enjoying!”
“O rather Bagong the urban!”
“Stop! Mr Jun is coming here!”

ARJUNA: Kang Semar—we should look for Admiral Antasena. So long he has not reported his job to Amarta.

SEMAR: All right, Sir.

Arjuna and Panakawan
Pass through the jungle

“E-e-babo-babo… Gog—there's a j-jungle p-passer c-comes t-to Pringgadinga-cala.
W-who's he, Gog?"
“Ssh! General Arjuna!”
“E-e-babo-babo… a-attack!”—(Whoosh!)—“C-ciaat!”—(Clunk! Thwack! Dig! Clunk)—“Hugk-khoeekh uhuooo… m-me d-dead, Gog!”—(Crash!)
“Cakil died, Lung!”
“Neven mind, Gog!”
“Grr-babo-babo, the deuce! Face me Dityakala Badaisegara! Hey, bro: Pragalba, Rambut Geni, Padas Gempal, Jurangrawah, Buta Ijo, Buta Terong, Buta
Endog—let's mob the devil officer!”
“C’mon!” + “OK!” + “Move!”
“One, two, three! Ciat! Ciat! Ciiaatt!”—(Boom!)—“Ouch! Ahk! Khk! Klk!”—(Clunk! Clunk! Clunk!)
“O Lord! All died!” + “All light! Let's go, Bro!”
(Whoosh!)—“Stop!”
“Who are u? O yez! It'z me Mr George! Yez, Mr Joz!”
“Wow! How cool the Buta's name—using a pop name! U loose, Reng.”
“Em… who are u, double Dutch?”
“Mistel Gabliel! Let's go ah! Nevel cale such a scloundle!”—(Thwack! Clunk! Dig!)—“Ouch! U beat me till bluised! Ef u wanna make wal, be spoltive! Caleless u!”
(Bang-bang!)—“Finish, Gong!”

All mal-giants
Died quickly

The teller tells
The tall tale

OCEANOCULTURE SEA-LAB.—Admiral Antasena called Sang Hyang Segara Rekayasa makes the world riotious because of his invention of Abyss Ocean Defense System, and his Oceanomigration can solve the demography of the world in the future by creating Seascrapper Buildings. Such a phantastic exsperiment causes pro and contra all over the world. There's no mystic-magic if Girinata, the President of Sorgaloka, comes down to earth.

GIRINATA: O the World of Divas! Antasena—stop thy exsperiment! Don't go after the God's will! And take Sang Hyang of thy name.

ANTASENA: Sorry, I can't! This exsperiment is not just a mere expert pretension. This title is not for pretending to be great! This is for life's sake.

GIRINATA: Babo-khhk-phew! It's rude! Aren't thou afraid of the multiuniversal troops of Triloka?

ANTASENA: Sorry, Sir! No!

GIRINATA: The deuce! Catch him!

“Ay, Sir! Indra, Bayu, Brahma, Wisnu, Surya, Sambu, Kamajaya, Yamadipati,
Temboro, Trembuku—sergap si Antasena!”
“Ay, Sir! Ay, Sir! Ay, Sir! Ay, Sir!”
(KABOOM!)
“O the World of Divas!” + “Back off! Bayu back off!”
“Bergenzong-bergenzong, Antasena can't be destroyed! Actually super-powerful
he is! Dangerous! Only Ki Semar can overcome this case, Lord!”
“Look! Ki Semar's coming!”

SEMAR: What's the matter, Lord? Battling with Mr Pak Antasena I see. Mercy me, Maha Sang Hyang! For universe's sake—Sang Hyang Segara Rekayasa is actually moved by the power of Sang Hyang Wenang. Nah, Mr Antasena—the tour of duty's finished! Wenang creates, Wenang reengineers, Wenang nurtures nature. Is it right, Maha Sang Hyang?

“About LHN—our father's the expert!”
“What is LHN, Truk?”
“LHN: Lakonet of Hyang Nation."

SANG HYANG WENANG: Ki Semar's right! Manggayuh karahar-janing praja, memayu-hayuning bawana.

Pick the flower
To free whatever

By Ki Harsono Siswocarito a.k.a Siswo Harsono. Semarang, December 22, 2007

Four Haiku

2008-10-03T14:24:00.001+07:00

Four haiku, a poem by Saut Situmorang

such boredom...
the goldfish swimming
measuring the aquarium

***

CHURCH BELL
the city walls laugh at it

***

ANCIENT TREE
a flower on the top branch

***

MIDDAY SUN
the dew in the graveyard still

Saut Situmorang, one of famous Indonesian Poet, now living in Yogyakarta, a basis of Indonesian intellectual. Saut recently released his "Otobiography" which content his complete poem collection. Saut chalange Indonesian literature society to againts Utan Kayu domination.

Goenawan Mohamad: On God and Other Unfinished Things

2008-09-30T14:15:00.004+07:00

I was feel alienated when came to community that I visited several times at the past. Last night at Freedom Institute-Jakarta, the newest book of Goenawan Mohamad (a.k.a. GM) –the founder of Tempo and one of Indonesian journalist living legend- was launch. Present as speakers were Rev. Martin Lukito Sinaga and K.H. Husein Muhammad. As I observed, guest whose came divided into: GM’s inner circles, peoples who their work and daily life connected to GM including press, peoples who like party and ‘food free to eat’ like students, and peoples like me: who confused to categorized themselves.

However, confusion was not my monopoly that night, because many guests whose came looks shocked when they read this unique book. This book is compilation of 99 short fragments which named book, titled with weird like some philosophical book: On God & Other Unfinished Things. Read this book, I remember Nietzsche’s work which used fragment broadly, even longer. This model is shortcut for ‘peoples who have many ideas’ which often that idea came by co-incidentally fast that needs to write down immediately before it pass away. It is logic, if fragment chosen as the best way to extract idea. Because of that, never fall into confusion if you don’t find chapter number, changed with fragment although it not mean as a row. Never think you can read this book regularly like complete book from the first page until the last page. I was open any page randomly and a-ha!, I got the same sensation. Every fragment was separate but still related each other. Readers have no obligation to read until finish then. Only one thing clear, this book explained about searching process of one wayfarer about meaning of life. And life in the par excellence form is God.

The author seemed to show off his knowledge about world horizon. Likely he already discovery every valley, climb every mountain, dive In under every ocean, for write off this book. The never ending style since the era he wrote on Catatan Pinggir (means Side Note, name of his column) at Tempo magazine before it was banned. At his brief GM acknowledge also there are some parts of his book came from his legendary column. For readers who have limitation about religion horizon, this book could shake your faith. Although it not put bright blurp on it’s cover like Da Vinci Code was.

He took splash stories from far lands: Illiad which tell about Troy (38), al-Mutawakkil Baghdad caliph (41), 1001-Night Tales by Shahrazad (11), Sultan Akbar from India (21), Musa (23, 26,27,28,30), Yesus (24), Sophocles and Mahabharata (39), Serat Cabolek from Java (52), Ratu Kidul from Java also (67), Yosua (88), Sherlock Holmes and Andersen (56), Cervantez’ Don Quixote (81), until Mel Gibson’ Passion of The Christ (24) and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’ Babel. GM also rowing many great names –including from Indonesia history-: Sunan Kalijaga (1), Sitor Situmorang (2), Rilke (3,60), Omar Khayam (4), Subagio Sastrowardoyo (4,62), Chairil Anwar (4,16,32), Derrida (6,61,96), Holderlin (7), Amir Hamzah (8,21,40), Ibn Rushd (8, 22), Ibn Sina (8), Al-Ghazali (8,31,76), Buddha (9,28), Shakespeare (9), Karl Barth (13), Tagore and Adorno (15), William James, Roland Barthes (16), Tahar Djaout (17), Alan Badiou (22, 54), Simone Weil (21), Nietzsche (26,74,84), Lyotard (27), Muhammad (28,30), Santo Agustinus and Rudolf Otto (28), Boris Pasternak (33), Pramoedya Ananta Toer (33,53), Brecht (36,83), Noah (40), Al-Tabari (40), Goebbels dan Hitler (42,56), Claude Lefort (48), Baudrillard (49), Rene Girard (50), Lacan (51,54), Descartes (52), Neruda and Walter Benjamin (53), Foucault (54), Karl Marx (54), Sayyed Qutb (55), Gadamer (55), Heidegger (29,42,52,61,67), Ilya Ehrenburg (53), Albert Camus (57), Asmuni (58), Dao and Ranggawarsita (59), Levinas (61,85), Heraklitus (62), Vico (62), Marcel Proust (63), Cokot, Duchamp and Jean Tinguely (64), Husserl, Basho, Matisse, Jean-Luc Marion, Rusli, John Cage (65), Kafka (66), Abraham (68,79), Kierkegaard (68), Allen Ginsberg (70), W.H. Auden, Ibn Arabi dan Herodes (71), Naoki Sakai, Ito Jinsai and Kong Hu Cu (73), Angelus Silesius (74), Signorelli and Michelangelo (78), Roberto Calasso (79), George Steiner (80), Dylan Thomas (82), Fukuyama (84), Iqbal (85), Joan Copjec (86), Nelson Mandela (87), Derek Walcott and Sukarno (92), Rachel Bespaloff (93), Marion (95), Groucho Marx and Franz Fanon (96), dan Habermas and Mother Sud (99).

I feel strange, from that many names which like worker who like to put ther presence card on the machine, GM not mention many names of God as they are same each other. He put God concept from any ages and cultures as simply as “God” word only. As simple as that. Just like what he hope from his book reader not to think too hard and look into his writing as simple as look at many stars which became the mystery of night sky. Then, this book maybe as manifestation of question about God which shadowing author’s mind for years. The thing that could happen to other wayfarer also.

Bahasa Indonesia:

Saya merasa asing berada di komunitas yang dulu pernah beberapa kali saya sambangi sewaktu jadi aktivis mahasiswa. Malam tadi di Freedom Institute, buku terbaru Goenawan Mohamad (GM) diluncurkan. Sebagai pembahas dihadirkanlah Pdt. Martin Lukito Sinaga dan KH Husein Muhammad. Pengunjung terbagi menjadi sejumlah kelompok: orang-orang dekat GM, orang-orang yang kerja dan kesehariannya bersinggungan dengan GM termasuk pers, orang-orang yang tertarik pada keriaan dan makan gratis seperti para mahasiswa, dan orang-orang seperti saya: yang bingung mengkategorikan diri. Toh malam itu kebingungan bukan semata monopoli saya, karena banyak pihak yang malam itu seperti terhenyak membaca buku GM yang mak nyuss. Kumpulan 99 fragmen pendek (GM menyebutnya ”tatal”) yang dinamainya buku, diberi judul aneh pula: Tuhan & Hal-Hal yang Tak Selesai.

Membacanya, saya langsung teringat karya Nietzsche yang banyak berupa fragmen, meski lebih panjang (Meski GM menyebut ia terinspirasi Roestam Effendi). Model ini merupakan jalan pintas bagi ‘orang-orang kebanyakan ide’ yang seringkali ide itu muncul selewat sehingga perlu ditulis bergegas sebelum ia menghilang. Maka bentuk fragmen jadi pilihan logis. Karenanya jangan heran bila tidak ada judul bab, yang ada adalah deretan nomor meski itu bukanlah urutan.Jangan harap akan membaca sebuah buku utuh dari depan ke belakang. Saya malah asal membuka halaman dan benar saja, sensasinya sama. Tiap fragmen terpisah tapi tetap berjalin-kelindan. Tidak ada keharusan membacanya sampai selesai bahkan. Hanya satu yang jelas, buku ini memaparkan pencarian seorang pejalan tentang makna kehidupan. Dan kehidupan dalam bentuknya yang par excellence adalah Tuhan.

Di buku ini GM seperti pamer pengetahuannya akan cakrawala dunia. Seolah sudah dijelajahinya seluruh lembah, didakinya segala gunung, diselaminya selaksa samudra, demi menuliskan buku ini. Gayanya tetap tidak berubah, penuh referensi tanpa perlu catatan kaki. Gaya yang tak lekang sejak eranya ia menulis Catatan Pinggir di Tempo era sebelum dibreidel. Dalam kata pengantarnya GM juga mengakui ada tulisan yang berasal dari kolomnya yang legendaris itu.

Bagi yang khazanah pengetahuan keagamaannya minim, dijamin buku ini mengguncang iman. Meski tanpa tulisan mentereng sebagai klaim “Buku Yang Mengguncang Iman” di sampulnya seperti Da Vinci Code. Serpihan kisah dari penjuru negeri-negeri jauh pun dicupliknya: Illiad yang mengisahkan Troy (38), al-Mutawakkil khalifah Baghdad (41), 1001 malamnya Shahrazad (11), Sultan Akbar dari India (21), Musa (23, 26,27,28,30), Yesus (24), Sophokles dan Mahabharata (39), Serat Cabolek dari Jawa (52), Ratu Kidul yang juga dari Jawa (67), Yosua (88), Sherlock Holmes dan Andersen (56), Don Quixote-nya Cervantez (81), hingga Passion of The Christ-nya Mel Gibson (24) dan Babel-nya Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. GM pun membariskan nama-nama besar: Sunan Kalijaga (1), Sitor Situmorang (2), Rilke (3,60), Omar Khayam, Subagio Sastrowardoyo (4,62), Chairil Anwar (4,16,32), Derrida (6,61,96), Holderlin (7), Amir Hamzah (8,21,40), Ibn Rushd (8, 22), Ibn Sina (8), Al-Ghazali (8,31,76), Buddha (9,28), Shakespeare (9), Karl Barth (13), Tagore dan Adorno (15), William James, Roland Barthes (16), Tahar Djaout (17), Alan Badiou (22, 54), Simone Weil (21), Nietzsche (26,74,84), Lyotard (27), Nabi Muhammad (28,30), Santo Agustinus dan Rudolf Otto (28), Boris Pasternak (33), Pramoedya Ananta Toer (33,53), Brecht (36,83), Nuh (40), Al-Tabari (40), Goebbels dan Hitler (42,56), Claude Lefort (48), Baudrillard (49), Rene Girard (50), Lacan (51,54), Descartes (52), Neruda dan Walter Benjamin (53), Foucault (54), Karl Marx (54), Sayyed Qutb (55), Gadamer (55), Heidegger (29,42,52,61,67), Ilya Ehrenburg (53), Albert Camus (57), Asmuni (58), Dao dan Ranggawarsita (59), Levinas (61,85), Heraklitus (62), Vico (62), Marcel Proust (63), Cokot, Duchamp dan Jean Tinguely (64), Husserl, Basho, Matisse, Jean-Luc Marion, Rusli, John Cage (65), Kafka (66), Ibrahim (68,79), Kierkegaard (68), Allen Ginsberg (70), W.H. Auden, Ibn Arabi dan Herodes (71), Naoki Sakai, Ito Jinsai dan Kong Hu Cu (73), Angelus Silesius (74), Signorelli dan Michelangelo (78), Roberto Calasso (79), George Steiner (80), Dylan Thomas (82), Fukuyama (84), Iqbal (85), Joan Copjec (86), Nelson Mandela (87), Derek Walcott dan Sukarno (92), Rachel Bespaloff (93), Marion (95), Groucho Marx dan Franz Fanon (96), serta Habermas dan Ibu Sud (99).

Anehnya, dari nama-nama yang bak antri memasukkan kartu absen di buku itu, GM sama sekali tidak menuliskan beragam nama Tuhan seolah mereka semua sama saja. Ia memukul rata Tuhan dari berbagai zaman dan kebudayaan semata dengan menuliskan kata “Tuhan” saja. Sesederhana itu. Sebagaimana bisa jadi ia mengharapkan pembaca bukunya tidak mengernyitkan kening dan memandang bukunya sesederhana memandangi bintang yang jadi misteri langit malam. Maka, buku ini bisa jadi merupakan manifestasi pertanyaan tentang Tuhan yang telah menghantui GM –dan mungkin juga semua pejalan- selama tahun-tahun perjalanan kehidupannya.

cited from http://greatliteraryworks.blogspot.com/2008/03/goenawan-mohamad-on-god-and-other.html

Literature, Censorship, and the State

2008-09-27T13:55:00.002+07:00

Literature, Censorship and the State: To What Extent is a Novel Dangerous? 1)

By Pramoedya Ananta Toer
Translated by Alex G. Bardsley

cited from http://www.radix.net/~bardsley/censor.html

I am an Indonesian citizen of Javanese ethnicity. This "fate" [kodrat] makes it clear that I was brought up with Javanese literature. It is a literary tradition dominated by wayang drama, oral as well as written, that tells of the Mahabharata and the Ramayana--the Javanese versions and their chewed-over wads, that continue to depend on the authority of Hindu culture. This dominant literature, without anyone being aware of it, 2) glorifies the satria class or caste, while the classes or castes under it have no role whatsoever. The satria caste's main job is to kill its opponents. In addition to the somewhat more dominant wayang literary tradition, there is the babad or chronicle literature. This also glorifies the satria caste, and in the hands of the court poets conjures away the crimes and defeats of kings, leaving fantastic myths instead.

One example is how the court poets of Java mythified the defeat of Sultan Agung, a king of the Javanese interior, who in military operations against Dutch Batavia in the second decade of the 17th century experienced total defeat. As a result Mataram suffered the loss of its power 3) over the Java Sea as an international [sic] sea route. To cover up the loss the court poets dreamt up the Sea Goddess Nyai Roro Kidul as camouflage, so that Mataram still ruled the sea, that is the Southern Sea (i.e., the Indian Ocean). This myth produced further mythical offspring: it was made taboo to wear green clothing on the shore of the Southern Sea. This was to sever any association with the green clothes of the Dutch [East India] Company. And without the court poets themselves intending it, the Goddess consolidated the power of the kings of Mataram over their people. She even became the thought police [polisi batin] of the Mataram people.

Here we are faced with literature in its relation to the state, and its utilization by the state, functioning for the glorification of [the state's] own works. Passed down from generation to generation the result is to deny the progression of ages, to bestow an unnecessary historical burden, to make people think that the past was better than the present. This conviction made me leave literature of that sort behind altogether. Leaving behind a literature that was born in the lap of power and functions (in my experience) to cradle power, right away I came across escapist literature, that feeds the ancient instinctual dreams of its readers. As Machiavelli put it, this kind of literature becomes an indirect instrument of Power, so that society will pay no attention to the power of the state. In short, so that society will not be political, will not care about politics. Literature of this second category brings its readers to a complete halt.

Because of my experience as the child of a family of freedom fighters, I pardon my own self if I do not like this escapist literature, the second type of literature. Consequent to my personal experience, though at first I was not aware of it, I was drawn directly to a literature that could provide courage, new values, a new world-view, human dignity, and agency [peran] for the individual within society. The aesthetic that emphasizes language and its employment is put to the service of a new orientation of the role [peranan] of the individual in an aspired-to society.4) It was this third type of literature that later became my field of creative activity.

Each work of literature is the autobiography of its author at a certain stage and in a certain context. Hence it is also the product of an individual and is individual in character. Presenting it to society is no different from contributing to the collectivity. Also in regard to the relations of power, and to the prevailing standard of culture, the writer's attitude as an individual is disseminated, aware of it or not. 5) To this point the duty of a writer is to make an evaluation and reevaluation of the establishment in every walk of life. This action is taken because the writer concerned is dissatisfied, and feels cornered, even oppressed by the establishment "in effect."6) He cries out, resists, even rebels. It is no accident if this writer--naturally type three--has been called an oppositionist, a rebel, even a revolutionary, alone in his muteness.

In states living with democracy for centuries, winning and losing in a clash of ideas is something normal. That does not mean that democracy is without flaws. Europe, while democratic in Europe itself, was on the contrary undemocratic in the countries it colonized. As a result, in the colonized countries that never tasted democracy, winning and losing in the clash of ideas can give birth to long-lasting resentment, arising from traditional concepts of personal prestige and patrimonial authority.

In Indonesia, the censoring of literary works was first known in the second decade of this century. Before that, censorship had been more directed at the mass media. And in accordance with the tradition of law, actions regarding press offenses were decided in court. The prohibition against the circulation of several works by Mas Marco Kartodikromo, untraditionally, was put into effect without legal procedures, and was carried out by native colonial officials locally. Prohibition and confiscation, also by colonial native officials, were once carried out against my father's work, though that was not a literary work but a text of lessons for elementary schools that did not follow the colonial curriculum.

Prohibition of a literary work is truly something extraordinary. [So it was] for centuries after the maritime kingdoms of Nusantara were shoved aside by the power of the West and became back-country principalities or agrarian villages; the Power of feudalism that was sustained solely by the peasant brought about the birth of a new mentality that deteriorated too. The court poets of Java consolidated the culture of "tepo seliro" (= knowing one's place), the awareness of one's social station vis a vis Power according to its hierarchy, from life within the family to the pinnacle of power. The use of euphemism (= High Javanese) up to the 7 levels "in effect" to match the hierarchy of Power, interpreted traditional culture more and more stuntedly. Therefore in Javanese culture the evaluation and reevaluation of culture has never taken place. It can happen only by using the Indonesian language, that if need be denies all euphemism: hence it is also in Indonesian literature that Power's censoring occurs.

As ideas from all corners of the world are absorbed by modern Indonesian society toward the end of the 20th century, their reflection can no longer possibly be blocked by a Power that is reluctant to grow up.7) In order to allow [those] people with the power of the state to sleep soundly without the need to improve themselves, the institution of censorship does indeed need to be established.

Java was "fated" to possess profitable geographic factors. Of all the islands of Indonesia, it was on Java that the inhabitants multiplied thanks to climatological factors that favored farming. It is no accident that the Dutch colonialists made Java an imperial center of their world outside Europe. On their departure, as Java remained the center of Indonesia, with its inhabitants [comprising] a majority out of all Indonesia, the introduction of a certain amount of Javanese traditional culture into the power of the state was quite unavoidable. One thing from Javanese traditional culture that was felt to oppress was "tepo seliro," in Power's present existence called, in English, "self-censorship." Seemingly Power is ashamed to use its original name. In this way, how people conceal their atavism becomes one of the facets of existence in modern Indonesia.

I am inclined to include the third type of literature with the literature of the avant garde. I deem writers of the third group to have the authenticity [kemurnian] to evaluate and reevaluate culture and the established Power. And as an individual alone [the writer] in return must endure alone the backlash from any other individual who feels his stability [kemapanan threatened.

So to what extent can a work of literature be a danger to the state? According to my personal opinion, no literary work, here [meaning] a story, has ever actually been a danger to the state. [A story] is written with a clear name, where it comes from is known, and also it clearly originates from only one individual who does not possess a troop of police, military, or even a troop of hired killers. He only tells of the possibility of a better life through models for the renovation of an establishment that is rotten, old, and out of luck.

In the meantime, any state can at any moment change its basis and its system, with or without works of avant- garde literature. Such changes have already been experienced by the Indonesian state itself, from liberal democracy to guided democracy and later Pancasila democracy, that is [during] the era of national independence after the collapse of the colonial state called the Netherlands Indies and the changeover to occupation by the Japanese militarists. During the period of liberal democracy in which the state was based on the Pancasila, the Pancasila did not get much attention; during the period of Guided Democracy when, with all the consequences [it implied], President Soekarno wished to be autonomous and to shake off the influence of and involvement with the superpowers' Cold War, the Pancasila was given more emphasis. Soekarno as the discoverer of the Pancasila never tired of explaining the Pancasila was mined from, among others, Sun Yat Sen's San Min Zhuyi,8) the Declaration of Independence of the United States, and the Communist Manifesto, in issues of social justice. In the time of Pancasila Democracy, which was signaled by the de- Soekarnoization movement, not only were the Pancasila's references no longer mentioned, there was even an effort by a New Order historian to fabricate a theory that the Pancasila did not originate with Soekarno.

Through all these changeovers the existence of a work of literature that conferred any influence was never proved. And indeed an avant-garde literature has practically not yet come into being. Indonesian works of literature have practically only just become descriptive in character. If nonetheless an avant garde came into being, it occurred under the oppression of Japanese militarism, in a rebellion as harsh as its suppression. The individual concerned, Chairil Anwar, in his poem "Aku [I]," declared: "I am an untamed beast /From its herd outcast." He refused to be treated by the Japanese as a farm animal, that must carry out Japanese orders only, and cut itself off from the rest. It was he himself who had to take responsibility for his work. The Kempeitai9) arrested and tortured him, though he was in fact later released. Ironically the society of readers, many of whom read and like that poem, generally do not connect it to the period of Japanese militarist occupation during which he created it.

My apologies if I only discuss Indonesian literature. Still, I believe that to speak about any particular literature is also to speak--although indirectly- -of regional and international literature at the same time, because each work of literature is the autobiography of an individual, one person out of the rest of humankind, who contributes his inner experience to the collectivity of humanity's experience.

Based on its history, Indonesia needs a large troop of writers from the avant garde. For centuries the common people paid on behalf10) of feudalism. With the victory of colonialism, the people then had to fund the running of colonialism as well. Although feudalism as a system was eliminated by the proclamation of independence, the character of its culture still lives on, and the power elite even tries to preserve it. It is avant-garde literature that offers evaluation, reevaluation, renovation, and naturally the courage to bear the risk alone.

Here it becomes clear that a story, a work of literature, is in no way dangerous to a state that at any time can change its basis and system. The literary works of avant-garde writers merely disturb the slumber of persons in power-elite circles, who fear that some time their hold over the common people may loosen. I myself, though coming from a family of freedom fighters and being myself a struggler for freedom as well, have over the 50 years of national independence actually suffered the loss of my personal freedom for as long as 33 1/2. 2 1/2 were stolen by the Dutch, nearly a year was stolen during the Old Order by the Power of the military, [which took another] 30 years during the New Order, among them 10 years of forced labor on Buru Island and 16 as livestock, being a citizen with the code "ET,"11) meaning a detainee outside of prison. As a writer, certainly I rebel against these circumstances. So in my works, I try to tell about particular stages in this nation's journey, and try to answer: why did this nation get to be this way?

That the works are forbidden to circulate in my own homeland at the request of several persons among the power elite, for me is no problem. The prohibitions in fact give surplus value to my works without Power being aware of it.

Perhaps there are some who are surprised, [wondering] why for me literature is so closely tied to politics. I will not reject that fact. In my view each person living in society, let alone in a nation, is always tied to politics. That a person accepts, rejects or affirms a particular citizenship is a political stance. That a person waves the flag of her nationality, is a political act. That a person pays taxes, is an acknowledgment of power, so it also means political obedience. Literature too can not be free of politics, since literature itself is brought into being by humanity. As long as there are human societies and Power that regulates or ruins them, each individual in them is tied to politics.

There once arose the belief that politics is dirty, hence literature must be kept separate from politics. Really, it is easy for politics to become dirty in the hands of and from the business of politicians who are dirty. If there are some that are dirty, surely there are also some that are not dirty. And that literature properly must be kept separate from politics actually emerges from the thoughts of the directors, whose politics is to be apolitical. Politics itself can not be limited in its meaning to a party system. It is every aspect of that which involves Power, and as long as society exists Power also exists, no matter the manner of its existence, dirty or clean. And it can be said that literature that "rejects" politics in reality is brought into being by those writers who are already established in the lap of the Power "in effect."

Jakarta, August 24, 1995.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. "An essay written to be delivered on September 4, 1995, in Manila, as part of a series in the program for the presentation of the 1995 Magsaysay Awards.... The title of the essay was at the request of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation to the writer" (Hasta Mitra, ed.); later published in Suara Independen, no.04/I, September 1995. [back]

2. In this essay, Pramoedya plays with statements about awareness in which the subject (society, the writer, "Power") is indeterminate. [back]

3. Kekuasaan stretches to cover power, authority, domination and so forth. Pramoedya is playing with this broad meaning, and with Benedict Anderson's "Idea of Power in Javanese Culture," (in Language and Power, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990). Following Anderson's usage, I have capitalized "power" where it seemed appropriate. [back]

4. Masyarakat yang dicitakan. Compare to "imagined community." [back]

5. See note 2 above. [back]

6. Yang berlaku is a bit of officialese also meaning "prevailing," "applicable," "that applies" and so forth. On the one hand it is as unarguable as a parent answering "because" to a child's "why," yet the words presuppose an ending to the situation they describe. [back]

7. This nicely echoes the 1950 literary manifesto "Surat Kepertjajaan Gelanggang":

...Kebudajaan Indonesia ditetapkan oleh kesatuan ber-bagai2 rangsang suara jang disebabkan suara2 jang dilontarkan dari segala sudut dunia dan jang kemudian dilontarkan kembali dalam bentuk suara sendiri. Kami akan menentang segala usaha2 jang mempersempit dan menghalangi tidak betulnja pemeriksaan ukuran-nilai...." (Cited in Teeuw, Pokok dan Tokoh dalam Kesusastraan Indonesia Baru, Djakarta: P.T. Pembangunan, 1955, v.2, pp.15-6).
[Indonesian culture is determined by the unity of various vocal stimuli, that is evoked by voices thrown from all corners of the world and that later are thrown back in the form of a voice of its own. We will defy all efforts that constrain or obstruct falsely [?] the testing of standards.] [back]
8. The Three People's Principles: nationalism, democracy, and the people's livelihood. [back]

9. The Japanese military police. [back]

10. Membiayakan, in contrast to membiayai in the next sentence. [back]

11. Ex-tahanan politik: former political prisoner. [back]

The River Banyuwangi

2008-09-24T13:31:00.000+07:00

The River Banyuwangi
(East Java Folktales)

Once upon a time there reined in eastern Java a king named Sindureja whose patih, Sidapaksa, had a most beautiful wife of fine and noble character. Patih Sidapaksa loved his wife deeply, and they would have lived in complete happiness had it not been for the jealousy and arrogance of Sidapaksa’s mother. To her, Sidapaksa's wife, for all her goodness and beauty, was not fit to be the life's partner of her son, because she happened to be of a lower caste. The love and devotion of her son to his wife, in fact the daughter-in-law's very goodness only increased the mother-in-law's hate for her, and each day she tried to think of a way to separate Patih Sidapaksa from

"The old woman contrived a most foul and evil plan By flattery and clever persuasion, she arranged with King Smdureja to have Patih Sidapaksa sent to Mount Ijen with instructions to search for the bud of a magic flower. Whoever wore the flower would remain forever young and beautiful, and Patih Sidapaksa was to find this flower and present it to the Queen.

Procuring it meant a long and dangerous journey that would take months, perhaps even years.

Patih Sidapaksa heard the royal command, and a great sadness filled his heart. This meant leaving his beloved wife for he knew not how long, all the harder at this very time because in a few months she would give birth to their first child. But Sidapaksa was the Patih and he had only to obey his King and to carry out his commands. He bade his wife a sad farewell and then, without any suspicion whatsoever that his own mother was responsible for this heavy task that had been commissioned to him, he took leave other respectfully and submissively, and entreated her to watch over his child until his return.

Not long after Sidapaksa's departure, a son was born to his wife. One day, while the young mother was bathing, having left her baby boy peacefully sleeping, and her evil mother-in-law softly entered the room, deftly removed the sleeping child from its cradle, and after stealthily leaving the house, threw her own tiny grandson into the river that flowed nearby.

The wife of Patih Sidapaksa returned to her room after her bath. Fresh and smiling, full of the love and eagerness of a young mother to see her little one again, she ran to his bed—to find it empty. Disbelieving, she searched and searched; looked for him in the most impossible places; rushed back to his cradle again. All in the neighborhoods were ordered to search, but the baby was never found.

The young mother could neither eat nor sleep, and day and night she grieved for her lost child. Finally she became very ill and in that condition she remained for months and months.

Two years passed and Patih Sidapaksa returned from his journey. In spite of great difficulties, he had succeeded in finding the magic flower that grew at the peak of Mount Ijen. He presented it to King Sindureja's queen, and his duty performed,
with a light heart he left the palace to return to his beloved wife and the child he had never seen. But just as he was about to enter his house, he saw his mother running toward
him. Before he could take another step she stopped him and told him that in his absence his wife had thrown her new-born child into the river.

"Such a woman you married," said the mother.

"Your child-your new-born son she threw into the foul muddy waters of the river, and there he disappeared. And now this wife of yours, as you will see, pretends to be ill. She does this to cover up her evil deed, which she can no longer deny." And many other things the mother told about her daughter-in-law-all evil things, told to make her son hate his wife, all untrue.

Patih Sidapaksa did not doubt that his mother spoke the truth, and to be confronted with this story of his wife's conduct while he was away on his long and difficult journey filled him with an uncontrollable rage. He entered his house and saw his wife lying weak and ill on her bed. He drew his kris and approaching her, said in a rough and angry voice, "Ah, wicked woman. Tell me; before I pierce your body with my kris tell me why you threw our new-born child into the river Tell me!"

His wife looked up at him, her pale face calm and without tear. Oh, my husband, Sidapaksa. Why do you wish to wound me? I am innocent of any sin and it would be a shame for you to stain your hands with my blood. And there is no need to kill me, for in a very short while 1 am going to leave this cruel sinful world. I love you, my husband, and I did not kill our child. Come, carry me to the river, and there I shall prove to you that it was not I who did this evil deed, but. . ."

The mother, listening in the doorway, swiftly interrupted:

"Oh, my son, do not carry out the wishes of this evil woman. Kill her now while you have the chance. Once outside she will escape from you and will bring more evil upon us”

But now Patih Sidapaksa no longer listened to his mother. He was strangely moved by the words and the conduct of this pale calm woman who was his wife. Gently, with the greatest care, he lifted her limp body and carried her to the edge of
the river. He laid her down softly and spoke, "Now prove to me, my wife, that you are not at fault that you had nothing to do with this terrible deed."

Hardly had he finished speaking when his wife leaped up and threw herself into the river; and like her baby before her she disappeared into the turbid and foul-smelling water.

"Aduhai!" moaned Sidapaksa. "How will I ever know now who is speaking the truth. How will I ever know who killed my child?" He looked down at the water, and suddenly, to his great astonishment, two pure white flower-buds appeared the one larger and taller than the other; and a sweet fragrance emanated from them both. They swayed gently before Patih Sidapaksa and then the taller one spoke:

"Sidapaksa, my beloved. Look here beside me! Here is our child. I found him at the bottom of the river and he himself will tell you who drowned him."

The smaller flower-bud spoke:

"My Father, Patih Sidapaksa! My mother is free of sin. She is pure and noble and innocent. It was your mother, my grandmother, who threw me into the river when I was only a few days old-and this she did because of her pride and jealousy. But now my beloved mother has come to be with me, and I am happy, and so is she. We shall never be separated again."

The large flower then enfolded the small one, like a mother embracing her child, and together they vanished into the water, never to appear again. But they left behind their fragrance, and from that time on the river was as sweet-scented as before it had been foul-smelling. And the city on its banks was henceforth called Banyuwangi (banyu meaning water and wangi meaning sweet-smelling.)

Sad story of would-be king to open in S'pore

2008-09-21T13:36:00.001+07:00

Goenawan's 'Panji Sepuh': Sad story of would-be king to open in S'pore

The Jakarta Post, Sunday, November 26, 2006
Blontank Poer

Panji Sepuh, A Remake. Directed by Goenawan Mohamad, choreographed by S. Pamardi. Music Director Tony Prabowo. Stage/artistic design Teguh Ostenrik. Lighting Engineer Iskandar Loedin.

Seven women walk side-by-side, forming a line that resembles the opening of bedhaya, a grand dance unique to the Mataram Dynasty. One by one, they ascend a set of stairs on stage towards an altar. All around is a sense of gripping silence.

The only sound is the wailing of a middle-aged man who is none other than the crown prince -- but the wailing cannot break through the gloom that prevails for the first 10 minutes of Panji Sepuh, A Remake, by Goenawan Mohamad. Instead, it permeates the corners of the "palace" with a heavy atmosphere of sorrow and anguish.

Panji Sepuh (played by S. Pamardi) is in grief.

Reigning a kingdom that is near collapse, Panji Sepuh is a lonely, solitary royal.

On the one hand, he must rebuild the glory of his dynasty, but as a consequence of his duties as king, he will reside in another realm, one that will require him to maintain his distance from everyone: his family, his wife (and concubines), palace officials, even his subjects.

A conflict settles in his mind.

The seven women shift in their roles; sometimes they are consorts (although most are simply concubines) and maids when they accompany the king, but when they are not with the king, they are ordinary women who realize their sense of being, along with their wishes and desires.

The masks (created by painter-sculptor Teguh Ostenrik) the dancers don symbolically distinguish their real and their "other" personalities. In one scene, the women dancers smash their masks on the ground in a show of their rebellion against the shackles of the power the king exerts over them, at the same time rebelling against male domination.

This is the message that is conveyed through the conflict as presented by poet and essayist Goenawan Mohamad through Panji Sepuh, A Remake. The dance performance, which will be presented in conjunction with the inauguration of a performance hall at the National Museum of Singapore on Dec. 8 and 9, is directed by Goenawan, with choreography by S. Pamardi and Sulistyo Tirtokusumo.

Panji Sepuh, A Remake is an adaptation of Panji Sepuh, which was performed in Surakarta, Jakarta and Melbourne 12 years ago. Although the original pangkur -- a type of Javanese poetry -- by Goenawan is still used in this remake, the performance undergoes radical changes. For example, there is no scene about the burning of an umbrella, the symbol of royalty.

In addition, the women are no longer cast as auxiliary objects within a power structure.

"On the other hand, in this remake version, the entire mental conflict of Panji Sepuh all lead to the women," Goenawan told The Jakarta Post.

As women symbolize life, Goenawan presents them as dynamic figures. They adhere to the traditional norms of the palace, but are also capable of rebellion when their existence is threatened and colonized, as is evident in the mask scene in which the women discard their masks of pretense forced upon them by power.

Aside from Goenawan's imaginative use of the character in this dance, Panji Sepuh is originally the name of a dance of Surakarta Palace that is mentioned in the Serat Wedhataya, a manual of classical Javanese dance -- wedha means book, while taya means dance -- and is believed to have been created by Sultan Pakubuwono X (1866-1939).

According to this book of dances, Panji Sepuh contains instructions on movements as well as the philosophy behind them. Almost every movement, including the position of the hands and feet, as well as facial expressions and gazes, are imbued with meaning.

A crown prince is required to dance the Panji Sepuh, a solo piece, and he must perform it in the gedhong pusaka (an heirloom room), where the male symbols of power are kept.

It was the late KRT Kusumo Kesawa, a master dancer of Surakarta Palace, who first interpreted Panji Sepuh in the late 1950s. However, this dance did not develop as well as Panji Anom, which was revived by the late Gendhon Hoemardhani, founder of the Indonesian Dance Academy (now the Indonesian Fine Arts Institute/ISI) Surakarta. Panji Anom is still taught as a dance subject at the institute.

Although Panji Sepuh may not be a singularly popular dance among the repertoire of Surakarta Palace, Sulistyo Tirtokusumo, one of Kusumo Kesawa's students, must be credited for his initiative to reinterpret the Wedhataya.

And Goenawan has re-created from this book the sad story of a Javanese crown prince.

Meanwhile, the heart-rending sound emanating from the strings of a rebab (violoncello) and gender (xylophone) in the score by renowned composer Tony Prawobo lends greater significance to the dance, and the collaborative result is a masterpiece, complemented by Teguh's involvement as artistic designer with lighting designed by Iskandar Loedin.

After observing several rehearsals, it is clear that Panji Sepuh, A Remake will mesmerize the audience in Singapore not only with its captivating choreography, but also in transporting the audience to the mystical, yet philosophical realm of Javanese power in Goenawan Mohamad's version.

It is unfortunate, however, that this contemporary dance performance, which is expected to make up for the stagnant past few years in Indonesian choreography, will not be presented to the local audiences until next year. ***

Novel Saman Challenging Tradition

2008-09-18T12:49:00.002+07:00

Challenging tradition: the Indonesian novel Saman

Rochayah Machali, UNSW, Sydney
Ida Nurhayati ADFA, UNSW, Canberra

Cited from GEMA Online Journal of Language Studies

Abstract

Indonesia has witnessed the birth of a new generation of (female) writers. Many of them are young, cosmopolitan female whose work often challenges tradition, and are quite radical at that. One such writer, Ayu Utami, had won an award for her first novel Saman. This novel has invited critics, particularly because the writer has challenged tradition, both in the theme and content as well as in narrative style. Themes such as sexuality, which had been considered taboo in the past, is explored and challenged in an almost blunt way. Her frequent references to female body parts have been most strikingly merged into her critical views on tradition. Also, her rejection of conventional ways of writing can be seen, for example, in her almost ‘stubborn’ way of switching from first person to third person on the same character in virtually the same paragraph. This, as many have said, would confuse readers. She concocts her challenges to tradition by intertwining the shifts in her narration. These two main aspects of Saman, i.e. content and narrative style are analyzed in this article, with an emphasis on the first, as it is this aspect that most clearly reflects the writer’s break from tradition.

1. Introduction

In recent years, Indonesia has witnessed a significant change in its literary tradition. The era of a new generation has begun, with a writing tradition markedly different from that by earlier Indonesian literary writers. The new generation of women writers constitutes young people, many of whom are in their 30-s. They have been described as ‘a group of new, young, female writers whose appearance on Indonesia's literary scene has coincided with the country's six-year experiment with democracy; women whose handbags and hairstyles are straight out of Vogue and Cosmopolitan.’ (as Dhume puts it, in the Far Eastern Economic Review, July/August 2004 edition).

Young women writers such as Ayu Utami (Saman, Larung), Dewi Lestari (Supernova, Akar), Djenar Maesa Ayu (Jangan main-main dengan kelaminmu ‘Don’t play with your genitals’), Nova Riyanti Yusuf (Mahadewa Mahadewi ‘God, Goddess’) have been classified by critics as Sastra Wangi (lit. fragrant literature). The basic similarity in this genre, as one of the writers puts it, is that they talk about sex in a liberal way (Nova, in an interview with the BBC, Jakarta 10/09/2003). These writers, however, have rejected this categorization, arguing that such label has underestimated women’s work, as though other works (i.e. male’s) are more substantive.

Many critics consider that the writers’ works ‘push the boundary of what is acceptable’ (Dhume, loc cit). Presumably, ‘acceptability’ in this case seems to be based on the fact that the writers explore themes that had been considered taboo in the past, such as sexuality, male homosexuality and lesbianism. In this context, some cultural observers see ‘Sastra Wangi’ as a form of rebellion against these taboos and established values (Media Indonesia, December 2004).

Such rebellion can be seen in the novel written by Ayu Utami, ‘Saman’. In the discussion that follows, all quotations in Indonesian are accompanied with their English version (presented as endnotes). In any case, the translation should be seen as approximate, since it may not capture the aesthetics of the original, particularly when quotations from the novel are presented.

2. Ayu Utami and her novel Saman: a brief introduction

Whatever the genre is called, Ayu Utami has certainly started some changes in Indonesian literary tradition. In her novel Saman (1998) she has made and started new and radical innovations in terms of presentation of themes and taboos and in narrative style. 1) Saman was welcome with enthusiasm after winning the Sayembara Roman Dewan Kesenian Jakarta 98. Literary critics and reviewers wrote favorable and fantastic comments on the novel. The renowned Indonesian cultural analyst, Umar Kayam, for example, has said:

“Semua keluar di situ. Terutama tentang keterikatan wanita terhadap tradisi, tentang hubungan seks, dan sebagainya itu. Yang menyenangkan bagi saya, dia ini anak muda. […] Apa yang ditulisnya merupakan wakil dari anak muda yang cosmopolitan dengan bacaan banyak, pengalaman dan pengamatan yang tajam […]” (Kompas, 5 April, 1998). [see endnote 1 for its English version] – (underlining added)

Thus, the writer’s critical observation of tradition, of sexual relationship, etc is central to the novel. Her cosmopolitan experience is reflected not just in the themes of the novel, but also in the language used. In many cases the words used go beyond just words—they reflect particular discourse ideology and perspective as well as reflecting the writer’s reaction towards aspects of culture that she challenges. For example, her frequent reference to the word keperawanan ‘virginity’ indicates her critical reaction towards the way the society values this notion. 2) The value is such that its loss (before marriage) is comparable to the person being considered as sampah ‘garbage’ (Saman, page 124). Similar reactions towards other aspects of (cultural) tradition are also found in the novel, which are discussed further in Sections 3 & 4 below.

Her writing style has also been considered innovative, as Layun Rampan puts it: “….. tampak dari pola kolase yang meninggalkan berbagai warna yang dilahirkan oleh tokoh maupun peristiwa yang secara estetik menonjolkan kekuatan literer. Sifat kolase itu menempatkan segi-segi kompositoris dengan wacana gabungan fiksional esai dan puisi. [see endnote 2 for its English version] (underlining added) (Layun Rampan, 2000, p.iii)

Thus, the ‘collating’ style (kolase) used in the novel is considered different from what is traditionally employed by other writers. However, apart from the ‘aesthetic collation’ above, the writer also uses a lot of flashbacks. Some readers may find this narrative style confusing:

“Saman is somewhat confusing, with numerous flashbacks and changes in narrative voice occurring seemingly at random.” (Clark, Inside Indonesia, No. 57, 1999).

Indeed, the various flashbacks can interfere with ease in reading the novel. This is especially the case when readers are not equipped with sufficient background information, not just of the novel itself but also of the literary style that seems to be the ‘orientation’ of Ayu Utami’s writing style. Thus a section of this paper will be devoted to discuss the narrative style further, as presented in Section 6 below.

Against the brief background presented above, the paper attempts to discuss two inter-related aspects: firstly, it will discuss the themes that become the writer’s focus in the novel and how the themes are intertwined with her break from tradition; secondly, it will discuss the style that the writer uses in concocting the story line, the themes and the characters.

3. Sex, sexuality and gendered identities

When criticized for being too blunt and vulgar in presenting sex as a theme in her novel, Ayu Utami responded: firstly, that she just wants to be frank; secondly, that she does not depict sex as a story about sex but as a proposition that sex is a problem for women. For example, Yasmin and Saman, two of her characters, talk about sex with guilt. So, to the writer, sex has become a subject of discussion, not as an occurrence (see Intisari, September edition, 1998).

In fact, sex and sexuality have been used to challenge cultural beliefs and identities. For example, she questions why women should have hymen:

“Sebab menurutku yang curang lagi-lagi Tuhan: dia menciptakan selaput dara, tapi tidak membikin selaput penis” (Saman, p. 149). [see endnote 3 for its English version]

The cultural and religious contexts of this quotation are clear, i.e. that an intact selaput dara ‘hymen’ indicates virginity. Girls should only give up their virginity upon marriage, and if a girl is not virgin when she gets married, her husband and his family may consider this a basis for ending the marriage. There was a case in 1997 when a well-known singer (Farid Hardja) questioned his wife’s virginity, which then became a public debate and was very much reported in the media.

This notion of virginity becomes almost an obsession for the author, as shown through one of the characters in the novel, Laila, who wants to give up her virginity to Sihar, a married man. To emphasize the importance of virginity, the author uses the word ‘Chinese porcelain’ as a metaphor:

“… ibuku membuka suatu rahasia besar: bahwa aku ini ternyata sebuah porselin cina. […] tak boleh retak, sebab orang-orang akan membuangnya ke tempat sampah. (p.124) [see endnote 4 for its English version]

Here porselin cina ‘(a piece of) Chinese porcelain’ is used as a metaphor for ‘something priceless or valuable’, i.e. hymen (and virginity) in this context, and the piece of porcelain should not crack (tak boleh retak), as people will throw it into the garbage bin to indicate worthlessness. The author seems to be cynical in her view of virginity, which can be seen through the phrase rahasia besar ‘big secret’, which, of course is not true in reality. Such message is common knowledge, particularly among Islamic people, thus it is not a ‘secret’ as ibu says.

In an interview with Intisari, Ayu says:

“Wanita yang sudah tidak perawan dianggap sudah cacat, tetapi nilai ini tidak berlaku bagi pria. Maksud saya bukannya menganjurkan seks pranikah, tetapi cobalah menempatkan keperawanan itu sewajarnya saja. Karena bila wanita begitu memuja keperawanan, ia sendiri akan rugi. Keperawanan hilang, ia merasa tidak berarti.” (see Intisari, loc cit) [see endnote 5 for its English version]

So, Ayu basically questions the ‘norm’ imposed on this notion by the society, which has been represented by ‘ibuku’ in the novel (See the quotation above).

Apart from questioning biological differences between men and women (i.e. that women have hymen but men do not), Ayu also depicts woman’s inferiority over man, as in the quotation below:

“Lelaki itu telah mencambuk dada dan punggung perempuan itu, tetapi ia enemukan di selangkangannya sebuah liang yang harum birahi. “Engkau dinamai perempuan arena diambil dari rusuk lelaki”. Begitu bisikan Tuhan yang tiba-tiba datang kembali. “Dan aku menamai keduanya puting karena merupakan ujung busung dadamu. Dan aku menamainya klentit karena serupa kontol yang kecil.” Namun liang itu tidak diberinya sebuah nama. Melainkan, dengan ujung jarinya ia merogoh. Dan dengan penisnya ia menembus.” (p. 194). [see endnote 6 for its English version]

The clause karena [engkau] diambil dari rusuk lelaki ‘because you are taken [i.e. created] from man’s rib’ indicates that women’s status is inferior to that of men’s. Being a Christian, Ayu must be referring to the Bible on this notion of female creation. Furthermore, men are also depicted as the strong, the powerful, as represented in the first sentence lelaki itu telah mencambuk dada dan punggung perempuan itu.. ‘The man had whipped the chest and back of the woman’, since he is positioned as the actor of the whipping (mencambuk).

The last sentence in the above quotation dan dengan penisnya ia menembus ‘And with his penis he penetrated [the hole]’also seems to be Ayu’s response to the common cultural belief that men are initiators (of action), as shown by the verb menembus ‘to penetrate’, while the whole (i.e. the woman) is the recipient of action, the passive. In fact this (cultural) phenomenon is also encoded in the (Indonesian) language system. For example, while it is acceptable to say ‘laki-laki melamar perempuan’ (men make marriage proposal to women), it would be culturally anomalous to reverse the order by placing ‘perempuan’ as the subject, and thus ‘perempuan melamar laki-laki’ is unacceptable, at least culturally speaking. With the exception of the matrilineal society of the Minangkabau in West Sumatra, it is not culturally acceptable in this context for women to take an active role.

Ayu Utami has elaborated further this inequality (between men and women) in relation to
marriage, as shown in the quotation below:

“Inilah wewejangnya: Pertama, Hanya lelaki yang boleh menghampiri perempuan. Perempuan yang mengejar-ngejar lelaki pastilah sundal. Kedua. Perempuan akan memberikan tubuhnya pada lelaki yang pantas, dan lelaki itu akan menghidupinya dengan hartanya. Itu dinamakan perkawinan. Kelak ketika dewasa, aku menganggapnya persundalan yang hipokrit”. (p. 120-121). [see endnote 7 for its English version] (underlining added)

There are basically two things that are challenged by the author here: inequality (between men and women) and marriage. The first notion, inequality, is obvious through the fact that men are providers (menghidupi), and women are provided for. Such notion, of course, is nothing new among the Islamic society, since a verse in the holy Qur’an clearly indicates this, i.e. that men are leaders for women (An Nisa, [4]:34). The first sentence is presented as a contrast, i.e. that men can go after women (hanya lelaki yang boleh menghampiri perempuan), but not the other way round. The use of the word sundal ‘prostitute’ indicates Ayu’s strong criticism towards the belief that women should not take an active role vis-à-vis men, since being active in this case is comparable to an act by a prostitute.

The challenge on the notion of marriage is also very strong, i.e. that marriage is [just] a hypocritical prostitution. In some way this reflects the view of the radical feminists that challenge the institutionalization of marriage (see Phillips, 1987 on ‘radical feminism’). 3) In fact, challenging marriage does not stop here; Ayu goes on by imagining the occurrence of polyandry through the character ‘ibu’.

“Sebab ia merasakan ada sesuatu yang lain yang begitu dekat dengan ibu, amat dekat, amat bersatu, ada cinta di sana. “ (p56)

“… saat ayahnya dipindahkan ke Jakarta. Masih teringat oleh Wis bagaimana Ibu meratap seperti seorang janda kematian anak tunggal. Ibu menangis tanpa suara, sebab suaranya habis, tetapi nafasnya dan tubuhnya bergetar, rahangnya gemeretuk. […] Waktu itu Wis sudah cukup besar untuk mengerti dengan intuisinya bahwa kepergian itu menceraikan ibunya dengan sesuatu yang dikasihinya, yang juga mengasihinya.” (p. 58) (underlining added) [see endnote 8 for its English version]

3) Interestingly, another writer of the same generation also questions the notion of marriage. She refers to marriage as institusi maha megah ‘institution of great splendour’, which sounds like a cynical view towards marriage (Dewi in Supernova, 2001).

Through this narration, Ayu tries to describe that ibu ‘mother’ has two parallel lives: the real and the ‘unreal’. Ibu is depicted as having another life with a ‘being’ who loves her and whom she loves. Her separation from this being (when her husband was transferred to Jakarta) has caused sadness for ibu. The dramatic description of her sadness (wailing, as if lamenting the death of an only child, etc) indicates that ibu is not willing to be separated from her ‘other life’. In some other parts of the novel, the author narrates other occurrences when Wis, the priest, hears the voices of a man and children, whom he cannot see and who he believes to be his younger siblings (see also Section 4 below).

The message that the author wants to deliver in this case seems to be that polyandrous marriage can happen or, rather, should be allowed to happen. Probably, Ayu wants to present this as an antithesis of Polygamy, a notion that is legally recognized in the Islamic world and in Indonesia. Indeed, after the fall of the New Order regime in Indonesia, polygamy has emerged as a topic for public debate. This topic was ‘prevented’ from being a public debate during the New Order period, i.e. when polygamy was controlled through a legislation called PP10/1974. The main purpose was to control promiscuity among public servants, based on the assumption that polygamous marriage could lead to corruption, due to a man’s having more than one wife to provide for.

Considering the novel was mainly written when the New Order regime was still in power, Ayu seems to ‘rebel’ against polygamous marriage by using the occurrence of polyandry as an antithesis to polygamy, although in a subtle way through ibu’s two parallel lives.

4. Religious Dimensions and Magic Realism

As mentioned above, Ayu presents the character ibu as having another, unreal or magical, parallel life. This is much depicted in Part II of the novel, i.e. an episode on Saman (see especially attachment 2). In this episode the author critically presents Saman’s life, and she depicts his life by way of magic realism. Umar Kayam sees this in reference to the work of Gabriel Garcia Marquez in One Hundred Years Solitude”. This novel is known for its miraculous, bizarre and supernatural happenings (see Kompas, 5 April, 1998).

The episode starts on page 40 of the novel, when Saman’s original name was Anastasias
Wisanggeni (shortened to Wis). It was 1983, and Wis had just been ordained a new priest. Then, in 1984 he was assigned to a parish in Perabumulih (South Sumatra) at his request. He used to live there as a child in 1962 (pp.44-56), and had experienced an unexplainable mystical experience:

“Suara anak-anak balita serta lelaki di belakang tengkuknya, dekat sekali, alam yang nyata di balik wajahnya. Jika suara itu datang dari arah depan, maka itu berasal dari kamar yang ia tidak sedang di sana. Mereka kadang datang, siang atau malam, pagi atau sore. Lama-lama Wis terbiasa dengan anak-anak dan lelaki yang menjumpai ibunya tanpa sepengetahuan bapaknya. Yang tak pernah ia lihat sosoknya. Apalagi wajahnya.” (p. 53). [see endnote 9 for its English version]

Here, again, Ayu depicts ibu’s other life, while at the same time depicting Wis’ acceptance of this happening terbiasa dengan anak-anak dan lelaki yang menjumpai ibunya ‘[Wis] has become used to the visit made by a man and children to his mother’. Ayu’s proposition that a woman can have two parallel families (thus two husbands) is subtly presented here. This is rather different from the way she explores sexuality, which is more blunt. Maybe Ayu does not want to offend her Islamic readers by being too blunt on this. Furthermore, the emphasis in this case is on the magical aspect of the occurrence, which she explores further, as in the quote below.

[Then, 11 years later when Wis returns to the same place as a priest, he hears the voices again]:

Ketika bohlam dipadamkan, ia merasakan sesuatu. Bukan suara, bukan pula bunyi, tetapi perasaan ambang indrawi bahwa ada orang lain di ruang itu, di dekatnya. Saraf-saraf refleksnya mencuatkan cemas, jari-jarinya kembali menyalakan lampu. Tapi dalam terang ia tak melihat siapa-siapa. Syukurlah bukan rampok atau maling. […] Tapi perasaan itu semakin akut. Ada orang di dalam udara ruang, masuk bersama molekul angin. Wis menghanyutkan diri dalam sensasi itu. Dari arah belakang ia mulai mendengar suara perempuan, terkadang lelaki, lebih sering perempuan, berbicara bukan dalam bahasa apapun yang ia kenal, namun ia merasa orang itu menyapanya. Wis menoleh ke belakang cepat-cepat seperti hendak menyergap suara itu dengan matanya. Ia tak melihat apapun. (pp.61-62). [see endnote 10 for its English version]

It may be that the episode is part of the subconscious mind of the writer. However, to a superstitious Javanese, it may be perceived as a ‘real’ experience. The many Javanese words used in the novel indicate that the writer has drawn from the life and animistic belief of a Javanese in depicting the life of Saman.

So, there are two ways of interpreting the magical phenomenon above: readers may see this episode in a metaphorical way and interpret it as the writer’s subconscious mind, or readers may see it in the light of magic realism, i.e. depicting a reality in a particular community (in this case the Javanese). In her subconscious mind, the writer may try to depict a situation, an impossible one in reality, where the character ibu can have another parallel life, with another family (see section 3 above). The clause ‘cannot always be logically explained’ in the quote of Section 3 seems to reflect an imagination in the writer’s subconscious mind.

A closer interpretation would be to see it as part of the superstitious belief that becomes a special reality among a particular society (in this case the Javanese), which the writer observes. This is obvious from the character ‘ibu’ (mother) below:

“Ibunya yang masih raden ayu adalah sosok yang tak selalu bisa dijelaskan oleh akal. Ia sering nampak tidak berada di tempat ia ada, atau berada di tempat ia tak ada. Pada saat begitu, sulit mengajaknya bercakap-cakap, sebab ia tak mendengarkan orang yang berbicara di dekatnya. Kadang kebisuannya diakhiri dengan pergi ke tempat yang tak diketahui orang, barangkali suatu ruang yang tidak dimana-mana: suatu suwung.” (p.44) [see endnote 11 for its English version]

Here the Javanese phrase Raden Ayu, a term of address for female aristocrat, and the word suwung ‘empty’ are Javanese concepts, which is why it is better to interpret the occurrence in terms of the Javanese belief system than in other terms. The concept suwung is explained further elsewhere as manusia berasal dari kosong dan kembali ke kosong ‘human being comes from emptiness and will return to it’ (p.44). Also, why ‘ibu’ is doing what she does is obvious from the fragment below:

“Bapaknya tak punya darah ningrat dan memilih nama Sudoyo ketika dewasa. Lelaki itu berasal dari Muntilan dan beragama dengan ketat, agak berbeda dari sang ibu, yang meskipun ke gereja pada hari Minggu, juga merawat keris dan barang-barang kuno dengan khidmat” (pp44-45). [see endnote 12 for its English version]

So, being a pious Christian (beragama dengan ketat), his father does not worship the kris like his wife does. Ayu utami seems to reject the idea that piety does not go together with animism.

Interestingly, the magical realism depicted above is intertwined with the religious dimensions that the writer challenges. For example, there are times when Wis thinks God is not there when needed:

“Ia merasa telah mati. Dan ia amat sedih karena Tuhan rupanya tidak ada. Kristus tidak menebusnya sebab ia kini berada dalam jurang maut. (p. 102) [see endnote 13 for its English version]

Although Ayu Utami softens the challenge (of God’s existence) by using the word ‘rupanya’, she actually challenges God’s existence even stronger:

“Tapi ia tak bisa lagi berdo’a untuk itu. Setelah semua kepedihan ini, agaknya Tuhan memang tak menyelamatkan mereka. Tak mau, atau tak sanggup. Atau Dia memang
tak ada.” (p.106). [see endnote 14 for its English version]

The challenge is strong because, because the character who challenges God’s existence is a priest (i.e. Wis). In this episode, Wis thinks that, instead of God, it was the voices (and their power) that help him (Wis):

“Ia tahu ia mulai keracunan asap. Ia akan mati sebelum terbakar. Tapi didengarnya suara-suara itu. Betul, suara-suara yang dirindukannya, yang meninggalkan dia sejak dipenjara. Makin lama makin ramai di sekelilingnya, seperti nyamuk, seperti membangunkan atau membingungkannya. Lalu ia merasa ada energi menyusup ke dalam tubuhnya, ada nyawa-nyawa masuk ke raganya. [….] Rasanya ia bisa terbang. Ia bangkit dan menjebol pintu yang telah keropos oleh api, lalu berlari di lorong yang mulai terbakar.” […] (pp. 108-109) [see endnote 15 for its English version]

In all this, Ayu Utami depicts syncretism in the Javanese belief system. Such system has been described in great details in the classic work of Geertz ‘The Religion of Java’ (1964). In his anthropological research, Geertz found that certain Muslims, whom he calls the abangan, would worship both Allah as well as the kris (as having magical power). So, in this episode Ayu seems to support syncretism and explores it in her novel.

5. The Socio-political dimensions

In the same episode, particularly pp.81-114 of the novel, the socio-political dimension is most obvious. Here Wis has been involved in an armed struggle between the villagers in the rubber plantation and the government-backed developers. Wis was arrested, imprisoned and tortured.

This dimension forms a large part of the novel. The theme of this episode is characteristic of the writers of the 2000 generation, i.e. rebellion against (political) establishment and corrupt regime. Being part of this generation Ayu Utami makes the theme one of the concerns critically observed and narrated in her novel. There are certain key words, phrases and statements which are typical of this dimension and which represent the discourse ideology of the Indonesian New Order regime. The following quotes are some examples (underlining added):

(p. 21) Texcoil punya uang lebih dari yang diperlukan untuk membungkam keluarga Hasyim dan polisi.

(p. 88) Anson yakin bahwa pemerkosaan itu adalah salah satu bentuk terror dari orang-orang yang hendak merebut lahan itu.

(p. 89) Kami menjalankan tugas dari Bapak Gubernur.

(p. 102) Sebab itu merupakan penangkapan gelap.

(p. 103)Kamu pasti mau membangun basis kekuatan di kalangan petani! Kamu pasti mau menggulingkan pemerintah yang
sah.

(p. 111) Ia dituduh menghasut penduduk Lubukrantau untuk menghalangi pembangunan.

(p. 111) Ia juga dituduh mengacaukan stabilitas. [see endnote 16 for its English version]

The underlined words are typical jargons of the New Order (Orde Baru) era. The words/phrases such as membungkam ‘to stifle’, pemerkosaan-teror ‘rape-terror’, menjalankan tugas ‘carrying out orders’, penangkapan gelap ‘illegal arrest’, menggulingkan pemerintah yang sah ‘to topple legitimate government’ are all indicative of the New Order era and are found in use by many writers of that era, to challenge and criticize the government, overtly or covertly. Words such as pembangunan ‘development’, stabilitas ‘stability’, etc. are indicative of the New Order Governments’s perspective and ideology (see especially the language of the GBHN ‘the State Policy Guidelines’), particularly in the last 15 years of the regime.

Of the many writers included as Angkatan 2000, at least 15 have made this socio-political aspect an explicit theme in their writing (see Layun Rampan, loc cit). So, rebelling against an established and corrupt regime seems to be a common theme and phenomenon among this generation of young female writers, apart from foregrounding gendered identities (See section 2 on sexuality). The question is: where does Ayu Utami stand among this 2000 Generation of novelists? It lies in the fact that she manages to “collate” and interrelate characters and events in a different way (see Section 6 below on narrative style). She defies narrative tradition by almost ignoring a plot, and by depicting her characters and events in two main ways: through exposition and through a combination of it and poem.

6. The Narrative Style

The writer’s defiance of linearity in plot is shown through the numerous flashbacks and changes in narrative voice and orientation (see attachments 1 and 2 for charts indicating story line and flashbacks).

The ‘collating’ technique is reflected in the narrative voice: from first-person to third-person orientation and to the narrator. An interesting fragment that Layun Rampan quotes is from page 105 of the novel (numbering added):

(1) Ia terbangun dan merasa dirinya sebesar kepala. (2) Hanya kepala. (3) Tanpa badan. (4) Dia tidak eksis di luar kepalanya. (5) Tak ada jari-jari, tak ada jantung. (6) Lindap. (7) Warna dalam ataukah aku berada dalam rahim? (Layun Rampan, op cit p. iiv) [see endnote 17 for its English version]

Traditionally, first person narration would take the form of a dialogue, for purposes of making the narration and depiction of characters more vivid. However, we can see in the quote that sentences (1) to (6) refers to ia/dia ‘he’, narrating a situation when the character feels that he does not exist in this world apart from just his head. Thus, third-person narration has been used. Then the narration changes in (7), i.e. into first-person narration with aku ‘I’. This kind of shifts occurs in many parts of the novel, almost randomly. It seems that, once again, Ayu defies (grammatical) convention and tradition.

As stated at the beginning of this paper, this style can be confusing for readers, especially when the narration is of the same character. Changes of orientation (from first-person to third or vice versa) can usually be considered as a significant change in narration, scene, etc but that is not the case here. So, while it is true that Ayu Utami introduces a new narrative style, it does not necessarily indicate a positive move, at least not in a narrative sense.

Another example of the collating (narrative) style can be seen in the quote below, where the author combines an exposition and a poetic form in fiction (from page 3):

“Dan kalau dia datang ke taman ini, saya akan tunjukkan beberapa sketsa yang saya buat karena kerinduan saya padanya. Serta beberapa sajak di bawahnya. Kuinginkan mulut yang haus/ dari lelaki yang kehilangan masa remajanya/ di antara pasir-pasir tempat ia menyisir arus. Saya tulis demikian pada sebuah gambar cat air. [..]”[see endnote 18 for its English version]

Here, the poem (starting from ‘Kuinginkan…’ to ‘…menyisir arus’) forms part of the occurrence. Traditionally, the poem would be separated, as a poem (not in a linear form like an exposition), to distinguish it from the story line. However, the author seems to combine these two different forms on purpose, thus defying convention: a narration is a narration, and a poem is a poem, each of which are traditionally presented in different forms. On comparing this with a writer from the same generation, Dewi Lestari (in ‘Supernova’) retains these different forms.

So it seems that the narrative style that Ayu Utami employs is an expression of ‘rebellion’ against established (i.e. traditional) writing style. As it is, her ‘rebellious’ way can be seen as an assertion in her part that, i.e. of her existence and the emergence of a new and different generation of writers.

7. Concluding Remarks

The generation of young female writers has emerged in Indonesia. They write with a vengeance, challenging taboos and established traditions. Among these writers, Ayu Utami stands out, because of her break from tradition. Although many critics see this break as something that is not necessarily positive, one this is clear: she voices her opinion clearly and loudly. In this ‘loud’ voice, she talks about themes which had been taboo in the past, and due to this, she is said to be pushing ‘the boundary of what is acceptable’ (as quoted in the Introduction of this paper). Her defiance of and break from traditional writing style and convention has also stirred criticisms. In any case, however, as Ayu herself puts it, she just ‘wants to be frank’ in presenting what she has presented.

Bibliography

Dewi Lestari (2001) Supernova: Ksateria, Puteri dan Bintang Jatuh, Bandung: Trudee books.

Dhume, Sadanand (2004, July/August) Spice Island Girls. The Far eastern Economic Review.

Djajanegara, Soenarjati (2000) Kritik Sastra Feminis, Jakarta: Gramedia.

Clark, M. (1999, January-March) Saman, A Sensation! Inside Indonesia, No. 57, Melbourne: IRIP Board

Geertz, Clifford, The religion of Java, New York: Free Press, 1964.

Layun Rampan, Korrie, (2000), Angkatan 2000 dalam Sastra Indonesia, Jakarta:Gramedia.

Lipscombe, Becky (2003) Chick-lit becomes hip lit in Indonesia, BBC News Jakarta,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-2/hi/asia-pacific/3093038.stm, accessed on 24/3/2005

Phillips, Anne, (1987). Feminism and Equality, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Redaksi, (1998, 5 April), Pram dan Umar kayam tentang Saman, Kompas, Jakarta: Kompas media group.

Redaksi, (2004, 30 Desember) Sastra wangi muncul sebagai pemberontakan, Media Indonesia, Jakarta: Media Indonesia.

Surono, A. & Teviningrum, S. (1998, September) Potret: Seks itu problem perempuan Intisari, Jakarta: Intisari mediatama.

Utami, Ayu, (1998) Saman, Jakarta:Gramedia.

Foot notes:

1) Layun Rampan in Angkatan 2000 dalam Sastra Indonesia sees her as ‘…novelis ini merupakan pemimpin literer fiksi novel Indonesia mutakhir’ (Grasindo, 2000, p.lv).

2) The word perawan ‘virgin’ and its derivation (keperawanan, memperawani, etc.) appear in many places of the novel, particularly at the beginning and at the end, sometimes appearing more than once on a page (see pp 4; 27;29;30;31;120;124;125; 127; 145; 149).

End notes: English versions of the Indonesian quotations

[1] It’s all out, especially about women’s being bound by tradition, about sexual relations, etc. What I like [about her] is that she is young, […] What she has written represents the cosmopolitan youth who read a lot, and with critical observation and a lot of experience, and, of course, she is a young intellectual.

[2] …[it] appears from the concoction [of story] which shows the various colours realized through the characters and occurrences which produces an aesthetically literary power. The concoction has placed composition aspects [in line with] a combination of fiction, essay and poem]

[3] because] I think, again, it’s God who’s cheating: He creates hymen[for women], but He does not do so with male genital.

[4] ….my mother reveals a big secret: that I am in fact a Chinese porcelain. […] .. [it, ie virginity] should not crack, because people will throw [it] into the garbage bin.

[5] A girl who’s lost her virginity is considered defective, but such norm is not applicable to men. I don’t mean to suggest pre-marital sex, but [please] just try to think of virginity in a natural manner. When women worship virginity so much, they would suffer. [When] their virginity is lost, they would feel useless.

[6] The man had whipped the chest and back of the woman, but he found between her legs a hole with an aroma of lust. “You have been given the name woman because you come from man’s rib’, so whispered God as He suddenly came back. “And I name these [tips] nipples because they are the tips of your breasts. And I name this [thing] clitoris because it looks like a small penis”. But he did not give the hole a name. Instead, he groped with his fingers. And with his penis he penetrated [it].

[7] This is the advice [telling readers of an advice that a character gets from her mother]: Firstly, only men can approach women. Women who go after men must be prostitutes. Secondly, a woman will only give [up] her body to a suitable man, and the man will provide her with his wealth. This is called marriage. Later on [when I became an adult], I call this a hypocritical prostitution.

[8] Because he felt that there was a being that was so close to mother, so close, so united, [and] there was love between them. .. when his father was transferred to Jakarta. Wis still remembered how mother was wailing, as if lamenting for the death of her only child. Mother cried silently, since she’d lost her voice [from crying], but she shivered, her jaws chattered. […] At the time Wis was old enough to understand, intuitively, that the departure [from the place] had separated his mother from a being that she loved and
that loved her.

[9] The voices of man and small children ‘on his nape’ are so close, a real world [behind him]. When the voices come from the front direction, they are from another room. The voices are heard sometimes at day or nighttime, or morning or afternoon. Gradually Wis has become used to [the fact] that children and a man who visit his mother without his father’s knowledge; whose figures he [can] never see, let alone their faces

[10] (When the light was switched off, he felt something. No sound, no voice, but through his sixth sense he felt presence, close to him. He became anxious, and switched on the lights. But he did not see anyone. Thank God it’s not a robber or a thief. […] But that feeling became really strong. There was someone in the ‘space’, who enter it together with molecules, brought by the wind. Wis let himself swept by this sensation. From behind him he began to hear a woman’s voice, sometimes man’s, but more often a
woman’s. They talked in a language he does not understand, but he knew that the ‘beings’ greeted him. Wis quickly turned his back, trying to ‘catch’ it/them with his eyes. He saw nothing.

[11] His mother, who was an aristocrat, is complicated person, who was hard to understand. She was present and absent at the same time, or she was around without being physically present. At this time, it was hard to talk to her, because she did not listen to those around her. At times, after her muteness, she went to a space unknown [by anyone], maybe a space that is nowhere: a suwung. (a suwung= lit. an emptiness)

[12] His father was no aristocrat dan had chosen the name Sudoyo when he grew up. He was from Muntilan and is a pious person, rather different from mother, who, although she went to church on Sundays, she also worshipped [the Javanese] kris and other sacred things.

[13] He thought he was dead. And he felt sad because it seems that God does not exist. The Christ does not save him because he is now in the brink of death.

[14]
But he cannot pray anymore. After all this sufferings, it seems that God indeed does not save them. No will, no power. Or He simply does not exist.

[15] He knew that he began to inhale the smoke. He would be dead before the fire caught him. But he heard the voices. That’s right! the voices he’d longed to hear, that have left him since he was in prison. Gradually it became noisy around him, like the [sound of] mosquitoes, as if to wake him up or to get him confused. Then he felt that some energy had got into him, some spirits had entered his body. […] he thought he was flying. He rose up and broke the door down, which was on fire, [and] he ran along the corridor, caught by the fire.

[16]
(p. 21) Texcoil has more than enough money for silencing Hasyim’s family and the Police.
(p. 88) Anson is sure that the rape is a form of terror stricken by people who want to take over the land.
(p. 89) We carry out orders from Mr. Governor.
(p. 102) Since it constitutes illegal arrest.
(p. 103) You must want to establish a support base among the farmers! You must want to topple the legitimate government.
(p. 111) He has been accused of instigating the people of Lubukrantau to hinder development.
(p. 111) He is also accused of disturbing the stability.

[17]
He woke up and felt [that] he’d shrunk to the size of a head. Only head, without body. He did not exist outside of his head. No fingers, no heart. Obscured. Is it [just] the colour of something inside or am I in the womb?

[18]
And when arrives at this park, I’ll show him some sketches that I’ve made because of my yearning for him, with some poems accompanying them [sketches]. I am yearning for the thirsty mouth/ of a man who’s lost his teenage life/ among the sand where he follows the stream. I’ve written them so in the water-coloured paint.

Rochayah Machali obtained her Masters and PhD degrees in Applied Linguistics at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. She has joined the Chinese & Indonesian Department of the School of Modern Language Studies, UNSW, in Sydney since 1995. Her main research interests are the women's studies, the discourse and translation studies, and Islamic studies.

Ida Nurhayati graduated from the Christian University of Satya Wacana in Salatiga, Indonesia. She became a full time teaching staff at the Chinese & Indonesian Department of the School of Modern Language Studies, UNSW, in Sydney in 1994. In 2000she moved to Canberra and has since been lecturing at the Australian Defence Force Academy, UNSW, in Canberra. Her main research interests are, among others, the literary studies, and the technology-aided teaching materials development.

See the person, not the problem

2008-09-15T13:29:00.001+07:00

Ratna Indraswari Ibrahim: 'See the person, not the problem'

She's one of Indonesia's most prolific short-story writers, with more than 300 published. Plus novels, poetry and a basket full of articles. For these she's collected several awards. When she's not writing she's pushing social and cultural causes.

All this makes Ratna Indraswari Ibrahim worthy of respect; add to this her work practices.

For Ratna is severely crippled and cannot write or use a keyboard; all her stories have to be dictated and transcribed. The Jakarta Post contributor Duncan Graham met the determined author at her home in Malang, East Java.

While the interviews for this story were being conducted Malang was gripped by a bizarre family tragedy.

A young mom who seems to have suffered emotional, domestic and financial problems -- and was clearly mentally unbalanced -- poisoned her four children, then herself.

Adding to the tragedy is that the mother (ironically named Mercy) used her cell phone to video the deaths of her youngsters. She then arranged their bodies neatly on the bed before committing suicide.

The local media published the pictures.

Don't bother plowing through newspaper archives for more details -- just wait for Ratna's next story.

"I'm thinking about it," she said. "The seed is definitely there. I have to get my ideas from newspapers and books. It's not easy getting around."

But she does, and has already visited Australia, the U.S. (where she had leadership training), and China. In some places mobility has been simpler than in her homeland.

In many Western nations pavements should be smooth and level, and public buildings must have wheelchair-access ramps and wide doors for the physically challenged.

Ratna has been campaigning for similar laws in Indonesia for decades. Back in 1994 she was given a national award by then President Soeharto for her agitation on behalf of the disabled -- arguing that the public should see the person, not the problem, and that all citizens have the right to use public space.

But architects and town planners remain largely unconcerned at the plight of Indonesia's handicapped: The legislation is still not in place, ensuring the disabled usually stay indoors.

"I should start a political party," a frustrated Ratna grumbled as an aside. "There are 10 million disabled voters in Indonesia. Maybe then the lawmakers would start to pay attention."

It's not just the indifference of politicians that keeps the crippled out of sight. To have a child who is labeled abnormal is often regarded as a curse, proof to the superstitious that the family has committed some grave sin.

Fortunately for Ratna, her parents -- who came from Padang in West Sumatra, a region with a reputation for practicing heavy-duty Islam -- were open minded, progressive and liberal.

"I was born in 1949 and had a good and happy childhood," she said. "I could swim and loved playing outside. I was considered a tomboy."

Supportive home environment

When she was about 10 tragedy struck. At first it was thought she'd contracted polio, though later diagnoses indicate it may be rickets, a disease that softens bones. Whatever the cause, she lost the use of her limbs and has had to rely on others for her daily needs.

"For the first five years or so I was very angry -- particularly with God because everyone else in the family was so fit," she said.

"All my five sisters were beautiful. However, I think I've only written one story expressing that anger, and I can't remember the title.

"My mother, Siti Bidasari, died only five years ago. She lived long enough to see and enjoy her daughter's success. I'm not trying to be immodest, but she was very proud of me.

"When I was young she told me: 'You cannot walk, but you can write. Not everyone who walks can write. You will do much more than other people because God has given you brains to use.'

"It's true that I may not have become a writer if I hadn't been disabled. I love plants and all living things, and I wanted to become a farmer.

"God made me like this so I could be writer. Originally I wrote for myself -- and to please my parents, to show them that I could do other things. I didn't want them crying because I was sick."

The home environment was ideal. Dad, Saleh Ibrahim, was fluent in numerous languages, an idealistic lawyer who quit his profession over issues of principle to become a businessman.

The family did well -- it owned a major cinema and the house was full of books. If it was a toss-up between spending on haberdashery or hardbacks the novels usually won.

It was also a remarkably tolerant environment. Young Ratna was sent to a Christian school, liked some of the rituals and asked her parents if they could celebrate Christmas with a tree. They agreed -- neither did they prohibit her from talking to the prostitutes at a nearby brothel.

"I was taught not to see people for their faults," she said, "but to look at their character, piece by piece." It's a quality she has taken into her literature.

Mom was an admirer of intellectual and diplomat Agus Salim who also came from Padang. He was one of the founders of modern Indonesia and a writer of the Constitution who stressed the value of education.

While other kids were running the streets, kicking balls and testing the limits of their bodies and the physical environment, Ratna was exploring the limitless world of imagination.

She was exposed to the works of Anton Chekhov, Guy de Maupassant, Virginia Woolf, Thomas Hardy, Alexandre Dumas and others. Her parents would suggest books she might like -- including Karl Marx's manifesto Das Kapital. This was before Soeharto introduced a ban on all works by communists.

"My parents said they would stand by me and visit me in jail if I decided to join the PKI (Indonesian Communist Party), but they'd disown me if I was imprisoned for corruption," she said.

She didn't become a Red, but Marx influenced her to consider the plight of the poor, marginalized and dispossessed -- the people who now feature in her stories.

Ratna went to Malang's Brawijaya University where her friends had to carry her up stairs to lectures. She wanted to learn more about human psychology but lost interest and channeled her energies into writing and activism.

For 13 years she chaired a non-government organization (NGO) for disabled people, then founded an NGO concerned with environmental issues.

She also works for Yayasan Kebudayaan Panjoeng, a cultural foundation to stimulate and preserve local history and the arts.

Her once-secluded 93-year-old home in central Malang is now overshadowed by a hotel on one side, and a high school on the other. When prayers and public announcements are made on what must be East Java's most raucous and deafening sound system, the mind hibernates for self-protection.

It hardly seems the ideal environment for creativity, but Ratna resting on a bed in her library while she structures her next sentence to be transcribed by secretary and poet Ragil Sukriwul, doesn't seem to mind. She has many visitors who bring her stories that may eventually find a way into her work.

Then there are the students seeking the magic elixir: "Please tell me how to write." Ratna's answer is blunt and direct: "Just do it!"

So what sort of courses should they take? "Education is not the same as intelligence."

The 'Cinderella complex'

Relationships between the sexes are a major theme in her stories, with situations growing out of male domination of women in a society that's overwhelmingly dogmatic and masculine, and often violent.

Her female characters are usually semi-urban Muslims struggling with life and injustice, battling to raise families while maintaining a sense of self-worth. Their situations are real. Her popularity depends on her readers identifying with the characters and their daily lives. Surprisingly, many of her admirers are men.

There are two main streams of women's literature in Indonesia, the traditional romantic novel ("love lit.") and the new kid on the shelves, sastra wangi (literally "perfumed writing"), known elsewhere as "chick lit.".

Ratna rejects both as "pop writing". Despite her distaste, she recognizes that the boom in sastra wangi featuring metropolitan teens coming to grips with their sexuality is encouraging young women to learn more about their bodies, human nature and the world they've inherited.

"Better read than gossip," she conceded.

The success of these novelettes (check the number of titles in your nearest bookstore) clearly shows there's a great need among curious youngsters constrained by culture and imposed taboos.

But it's the open discussion of sex that worries the 58-year old author.

"Sex belongs to God," she said. "It's a matter between two souls, it's not an issue that should be discussed in the open, nor treated as vulgar, which is how it's handled by men."

She lumps feminism into the same category because of the stress on sex -- though in a Western reading of her work she is clearly a feminist writer striving to empower.

The traditional romantic novel is given the flick because it reinforces what Ratna calls the "Cinderella complex".

This has a passive young woman waiting for some bloke to rescue her from hardships, then transport her to an abode of bliss. How he's constructed this is of no concern to author or reader.

In this genre the woman does little more than hang around, braid her locks, keep her legs together till marriage and look enchanting. She doesn't have to use her initiative or generate ideas.

In fact any outburst of intelligence would probably frighten away Mr Right who has a fixation on body, not brains.

Sadly, claims Ratna, Indonesia is an "autistic country." Most women still believe in the Cinderella fantasy, even as they pummel clothes in streambeds, hump water up hills and fall pregnant too early and too often to male chauvinists.

She also attacks public perceptions of Islam as a religion that oppresses women. "People confuse culture with religion," she said.

"Islam protects women's rights. It's the culture that creates the role of women in society.

"I want my readers to think about women, how they are treated, to understand their fate. I want to talk humanity -- not feminism or individualism and selfishness.

"Our keraton (Javanese regal) culture promotes mutual support. Human beings were created to help each other. Readers will get what they want from my books."

cited from The Jakarta Post, Sunday, June 17, 2007

Child poet touches all around him

2008-09-11T13:17:00.000+07:00

Child poet touches all around him

Poet Abdurahman Faiz will be busy this summer.

His sixth book, Nadya, Kisah Dari Negeri Yang Menggigil (Nadya, Stories from a Shivering Nation), comes out in July.

Once the book is released, he will travel about Jakarta the rest of the month, meeting his fans and signing their purchases. Faiz has got just a few weeks to promote this latest work, for in August he begins sixth grade at school.

To read a Faiz collection is to walk Jakarta's streets. It is to ponder headlines, to question, to belong. Family, beggars, God, war, faith, disaster, and hope are just a sampling of the topics within his pages.

His sixth book deals with Indonesian society and politics and is, according to the author, infused with optimism.

Faiz says he is drawn to poetry because poems are short, meaningful and can often be finished spontaneously in one go.

Some he completes within minutes, while his more stubborn pieces can demand a month or two. His Javanese father, Tomi, explains in English, "He doesn't have a finishing target, so he just writes when he has ideas."

The poet says he does not worry about writer's block. When the affliction hits him, Faiz simply goes and plays, confident that the ideas will return. They always do.

He says that he finds ideas everywhere, from all that he sees and hears. He is primarily driven to the keyboard by social problems that he witnesses or reads or hears about.

When an idea comes, he records it in his cell phone for later retrieval.

Faiz writes with a clear vision. He knows what needs to be said and will not be satisfied until his message is lucid and strong. He recalls that he has had to fight his editors in order to maintain the integrity and precision of his work.

If even a single word is altered, he feels the work is no longer his and does not accept it. His Acehnese mother, Helvi, a university lecturer, says Faiz remembers every word he writes and is tenacious when it comes to protecting each and every one of them.

*****

On the surface, Faiz is a rather ordinary, almost-12-year-old child. Though smiling and friendly, he is noticeably less-than-comfortable as we talk in his family's modest living room.

He frequently pauses and looks toward the ceiling in search of words. His fingers twist and knot together between his rocking knees. He explains, in Indonesian, that he writes better than he speaks.

When not writing, he is just a boy. He enjoys playing basketball, riding his bike around his Depok neighborhood, reading automobile magazines and books such as Harry Potter and playing computer games.

He spends a lot of time at the computer. Never having liked writing by hand, he took to the keyboard at the age of five. Now he writes poems and updates his blog just about daily. Tomi, a television-news producer, says in English that Faiz is a "completely modern boy".

Readers of his work come from all walks of life: politicians, fellow-writers, academics and the public at large. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono considers Faiz's work to be "very touching."

Political and religious leader Amien Rais calls Faiz "a deeply thoughtful writer," while former president Megawati Soekarnoputri hopes his work will "inspire and give spirit to future generations."

Poet Agus R Sarjono says that Faiz' "worry about social situations is his fresh style." Professor Riris T. Sarumpaet finds Faiz' "concern to be pure, simple, transparent and deeply sensitive."

One of his poems so clearly demonstrates the need for governmental transparency that it is used by Masyarakat Transparasi Indonesia (the Society for Transparency of Indonesia), in its anticorruption campaign.

Faiz' first book, Untuk Bunda dan Dunia (For Mother and Earth), has been reprinted 10 times since it came out in 2004. Altogether, his books have sold around 80,000 copies.

Later in the interview, Faiz relaxes and shows me around the family's upstairs office. The wall next to the computer is nearly completely covered with writing and poetry awards that he has won and framed clippings from newspapers and magazines that have featured the boy poet.

Faiz says that he wishes there were more young authors in Indonesia. He suggests that children who would like to write keep diaries, play scrabble, read a lot, observe their surroundings and always ask questions.

He believes it is vital that writers are sensitive to the surrounding world. Faiz possesses that sensitivity -- he suffers from it.

Helvi says that her son is so painfully aware that he used to cry whenever he witnessed or learned of sorrow. Now, he crafts that raw openness into his art and uses it to affect change.

He donates half of each royalty check to his two foster brothers in North Jakarta and Aceh's tsunami victims.

As he shows me his blog, I think to myself that he is fortunate the room still has three bare walls.

I get the feeling he is going to need them.

Abdurahman Faiz's blog is at http://masfaiz.multiply.com/

Doaku Hari Ini
(My Prayer for Today)

My Lord
Give me your time
To grow in the road of love
A seedling
In all along the road of my parents
In all along the road of my Indonesia
In all along the road to you

Amen

July 2003

(translated by Rafi Hayati and Andrew Greene)

Pengungsi di Negeri Sendiri
(Refugee in Their Own Country)

No one dances any longer
Between the filthy tents
Over here
Only suffering
Caught in our eye
And our ear

Not even one song
We ever sing anymore
Only teardrops sing
Between hunger, thirst
Changing seasons

Have you noticed this, my brother?

October, 2003

(translated by Rafi Hayati and Andrew Greene)

Cited from The Jakarta Post, Sunday, June 24, 2007

Andrew Greene is director of Academic Colleges Group English Jakarta (ACG). If you have any questions about English language courses or in-company training you can contact him at Andy.Greene@acgedu.com or 780-5636. His personal blog can be found at http://writerinjakarta.blogspot.com.

The poet of patriotism

2008-09-08T13:13:00.000+07:00

Toto: The poet of patriotism

cited from The Jakarta Post, Thursday, October 11, 2007

Elementary school students often recite the poem Pahlawan Tak Dikenal (Unsung Heroes) in front of their class or during national day ceremonies.

"Sepuluh tahun yang lalu dia terbaring(He lay down on the ground 10 years ago)/Tetapi bukan tidur sayang(but, he was not sleeping, dear)/Sebuah lubang peluru bundar di dadanya(A round bullet hole in his chest/Senyum bekunya mau berkata, kita sedang perang/(his frozen smile says we are at war)."

Acclaimed poet Toto Sudarto Bachtiar, who died Tuesday of a heart attack, wrote the above poem in 1955 to remember a heroic battle on Nov. 10, 1945, in Surabaya, East Java.

Besides Unsung Heroes, Toto who was born on Oct. 12, 1929, in Cirebon, West Java, wrote many famous patriotic poems, including Tentang Kemerdekaan (About Independence) and Ode.

But Toto poem's were not only about blood and sacrifice. Gadis Peminta-minta (Beggar Girl) is about the frustrations of living in a big city.

In 1987 it was put to music and included in a compilation album that was recorded with the support of culture and education minister Fuad Hassan.

The album was then distributed to elementary schools across the country in an effort to give students a greater appreciation of poetry.

Toto also translated into Indonesian the works of great writers including Jean Paul Sartre, Anton Chekhov and Ernest Hemingway.

His wife, Zinar, said Tuesday that Toto, who was buried in the family's burial plot in Gumuruh Bandung, had been working on a translation of Leo Tolstoy's masterpiece War and Peace.

Toto was not an unsung hero as his poems will be remembered by many people. They remind us of the humbling sacrifice and bravery of the men and women who have served this nation. ***

From bottle poet to sufism

2008-09-05T13:04:00.000+07:00

Sutardji Calzoum Bachri: From bottle poet to sufism

"I am not `Malin Kundang' like Goenawan Mohamad is. I am not the `Man of the Frontier' like Sitor Situmorang. I am not the `Heir of the World's Culture' like Chairil Anwar was. I just bequeath and the world transliterates," said Sutardji Calzoum Bachri in one quick spurt of words while delivering his Cultural Oration during the Jakarta Academy Awards Ceremony on Dec.10, 2007.

With those words he affirmed his position as one of the links in Indonesia's historic chain of poetry, which as a mode of cultural communication arts introduces signals to itself and to each poet of the passing generations and eras; it is his sensitivity to these signals that has distinguished Sutardji Calzoum Bachri from other poets.

Sutardji's relationship with the art of poetry was revealed in his intimate, almost confessional oration.

He said of his working process, "I write on a piece of paper that already bears text. I write upon those texts; the mantras that are the cultural manifestation of the subculture with which I am best acquainted, namely the culture of Riau."

As artists and creative souls often do, when Sutardji delivered his oration, he deviated from the precisely set out text that he was holding in his hands. He let his mind wander, once again, creatively -- his talent emerging, and inspiration flowing and filling his oration with confessions and observations, replete with energetic interlacing expressions of thoughts about the art of poetry, human character, cultural roots, the history of the nation, and the oaths of youths.

"In creating history, poetry has its own unique role. On one hand, poetry is the fruit of history. On the other, poetry becomes the seeds for history. One of the bitterest fruits forced down the craw of the Dutch colonialists was to us a sweet, big fruit in the form of a piece of writing titled the Youths' Oath ... Like that of a poem, the content of the Youths' Oath is imagination.

"This Youths' Oath poem became the seed that grew into the history of the nation's struggle to attain its independence; rendering the imagination behind the words therein into reality."

Sutardji, who is most often called Tardji among his friends, is not only an authentic poet, but also an authentic intellect.

His way of reinterpreting the Youths' Oath (Sumpah Pemuda) is evidence of this.

The Melayu Stage Foundation (Yayasan Panggung Melayu) celebrated his birthday for one week in Taman Ismail Marzuki, July 13 - 19.

A thick book that documents the Working Papers of International Seminars and a number of essays concerning him, including writings from local and foreign writers, was published under the title The President of Poets, The King of Mantras (Raja Mantra Presiden Penyair).

"Apparently Sutardji is even bigger than Chairil Anwar," writes the editor Maman S. Mahayana.

The moniker "The President of Poets" was first uttered by Sutardji himself "in 1974, when he was really drunk," said a friend of his, painter Hidayat LPD.

Also present during the "self-baptism" were Sanento Yuliman, Jeihan, Wilson Nadeak, Jakob Soemardjo, Hamid Jabbar, and a number of other artists and friends.

It was already common among his colleagues to refer to him as "poet of booze" at that time. His performances then were always accompanied by a bottle.

Later, however, this "bottle poet" developed a strong urge to turn to Sufism when in 1989, with Mustafa Bisri and Taufiq Ismail, he was invited to the International Poet Conference in Baghdad, Iraq.

On that trip, he visited holy and historical places like Najjaf, Karballa, Kufa, the tomb of the king of Sufis Abdul Kadir Jaelani, and the Abu Nawas Garden. Sufism became the new direction of his works. He even went on the pilgrimage to Mecca.

According to Abdul Hadi WM, the Sufi spiritual tendency was actually visible in his early works, but was always hampered by the skepticism and nihilism that were also somehow strongly alluring to the poet.

During the Jakarta Academy Awards 2007 program, the title "The King of Mantras" was never heard. The term "The President of Poets" was also unheard. The Director of the Jakarta Academy, Taufik Abdullah, without mentioning the names of the award recipients, simply said, Jakarta Academy Awards are given to recipients with lifetime achievements, not merely monumental works."

Alfons Raryadi, one of this year's judges said regarding the basis of the choice of Sutardji Calzoum Bachri for the honor, "A long time ago Chairil Anwar coined the phrase "Three Unravel Destiny", and now "One Tarji Unravels Chairil'."

Leon Agusta
The Jakarta Post, Monday, December 24, 2007

Sitor Situmorang

2008-09-02T13:00:00.000+07:00

Sitor Situmorang remembers his Batak childhood

Wind and Water of Lake Toba

Wind and Water of this lake
remembering I still hear
their tales in silence
tales over thousands of years
about the past and
the future

wishing to understand
what childhood meant
whispers of conscience
of endless time
in the sinking seconds
drowning
spell-bound melting away
Water-weeds sway
At the very bottom

The latest poem written
on April 1 by Sitor Situmorang
Temporary translation
by Kunang Helmi

Sitor Situmorang who was born on Oct. 24, 1924, in Harianboho, Samosir, North Sumatra, is a poet, writer and journalist.

Sitor said last week that he had left the shores of his home on the northwest shores of Lake Toba as a young boy by boat to continue his education.

His parents had to come to the dock to hear the latest news of their son from the captain of the boat that plied across the waters from the school and their family house.

One of Sitor's close friends in Paris is the almost 100-year-old painter from Medan, Salim, who has lived in Europe, based mainly in Paris, since around 1918.

Here talking to Salim in Neuilly, Sitor could hardly get a word in. But Salim still can recite one of Sitor's poems by heart. A poem that Sitor admitted to having almost forgotten.

However, what Sitor has not forgotten is his attachment to the Batak country, and his childhood, steeped in Batak myths and way of life, starting in the third decade of last century:

"What I long for is an even more comprehensive exhibition of all things Batak! This here in Paris -- and I mean only the special show, 'North of Sumatra, the Batak', may be the essence of Batak culture, but to me, it represents only fragments of my memory," Sitor said.

"I can reconstruct so many things in my remembrance, but what can bring back the essence of my life spent there and childhood? The smells, the conversations, the laughter and the sorrows -- perhaps that is why I began to write poetry.

"Photos and artifacts are but the beautiful, tangible, material proof of something which has fast disappeared; in fact into many museums, collections and memories.

"How can people hope to re-construct the past glory and chagrins of the Batak people? And I am not criticizing this show at all, but it is a question of different perspectives!

Sitor said that in the past 40 years it had been the official policy of the Indonesian government to preserve cultural artifacts, yet so many material artifacts had disappeared from around Lake Toba.

These artifacts are not to be found in Indonesia, not even in private collections.

-- Kunang Helmi
The Jakarta Post, Sunday, April 13, 2008

Chairil Anwar's poems

2008-08-30T12:53:00.001+07:00

Read Chairil Anwar's poems, love your country

Gravestone

It's not death, no, that stabs my heart
But your willingness to go
Nor do I know how high
You are, now, supreme over dust, over sorrow

(Chairil Anwar, October 1942. Edited and translated by Burton Raffel)

Poetry and nationalism. These are things that are definitely not on our daily, weekly or even monthly to think about list.

We barely have time to ourselves, let alone time to read classical poems and ponder what we can do for our country. We usually read poems when we are in love and we often talk about nationalism when Independence Day approaches.

"If you look people today, they no longer have that passionate love for their country," said poet Taufiq Ismail after speaking at a seminar on the works of Indonesia's most esteemed poet, Charil Anwar, at the Habibie Center on Tuesday.

"They don't have that passion Chairil had when he wrote his poetry," he said.

Amid a presumably declining sense of nationalism and interest in poetry, students and people in general are encouraged to develop their spirit of nationalism by reading Chairil Anwar's poems.

"His poems contain universal values and can be read anywhere, any time," said playwright Ikra Negara, who annually recited Chairil's poems when living in the United Sates.

Chairil was born in Medan, North Sumatra, on June 26, 1922. He moved to Jakarta at the age of 19, soon after his parents got divorced. There, able to read English, Dutch and German, he fell in love with books and literature.

In 1942, his poems were published in several publications in the city -- most of them were about death.

"Literary critics always highlight his attitude, which was based on the spirit of freedom, as he tried to break the boundaries of 'isms' and conventions," said Maman S. Mahayana, a University of Indonesia literature academic.

"His belief in freedom as the most fundamental element in the creative process can be seen in his repulsion of the political policies of the Japanese colonial administration," he said.

However, Chairil's health was not as vivacious as his poetry. He died before he was 27 and produced only 74 poems.

Taufiq Ismail said six of his poems excite a strong sense of nationalism -- "Diponegoro", "1943", "Siap Sedia" (We're Ready), "Persetujuan dengan Soekarno" (Agreement with Soekarno), "Prajurit Jaga Malam" (A Sentry at Night) and "Krawang Bekasi".

How do we relate the poems to contemporary Indonesia?

"We have to find its spirit. Krawang Bekasi, for instance, is a poem about sacrifice, which is a timeless value. It is something we now lack. Look at our people. How many of us want to sacrifice ourselves for our country?" Taufiq asked.

Ikra Negara said, however, about 20 poems by Chairil, including his personal ones, could be reinterpreted in the light nationalism of today.

"Nisan is one poem that emanates the spirit of nationalism, although it was originally dedicated to his passing grandmother," he said.

He considered Chairil a poet who was skillful at "aesthetical distance". His poems, he said, were never blunt, enabling different interpretations if read over and over again.

"This is the power of Chairil's poems. Many poets do not leave enough distance between their works and their meaning. Their poems have now become irrelevant," he said.

Some of Chairil's poems were dedicated to the women he adored, while some others expressed a strong sense of individualism. He also lived a bohemian way of life, leaving his job at the Statistics Office to follow his calling as a poet.

"He was an individual, but he could never detach himself from the society in which he lived," Taufiq said.

Ary Hermawan
Cited from The Jakarta Post, Tuesday, April 22, 2008

The lost biography of a young poet

2008-08-27T12:50:00.000+07:00

Dina Oktaviani: The lost biography of a young poet

City lights picked me up/and we tried to forget all the things/that had shredded the solitude back in that room//we may never understand/why old calendars/could change history/as easily and quickly as a highway rush

How do you feel after reading the lines above? How would you feel if you were told that the verse, an excerpt from a poem titled Silent Calendars, was written by a 15 year old? Dina Oktaviani composed it in February 2001. She had never before submitted her work to a national publication, but a year after Silent Calendars was written, Media Indonesia decided to print it in its Sunday edition, along with her other poems.

And how did she feel about it? "I was happy about the pay," she said, laughing. "But seriously, back then, I had to pay my own school fees, and I enjoyed spending money. My parents were proud too. They said they didn't want me to be an artist, but they bragged about my printed poems to the neighbors anyway."

Born in Tanjungkarang, Bandar Lampung, on Oct. 11, 1985, Dina used to dream about being a spy. Today, the mother of a 3-year-old boy has written poems and short stories for various publications, and published two books, Como Un Sue¤o (anthology of short stories, Orakel, 2005), and Biografi Kehilangan (A Biography of Losses, anthology of poems, Insist Press, 2006). Her piece of poetry Hantu-hantu Tanjungkarang (The Ghosts of Tanjungkarang) was recently included in 100 Puisi Indonesia Terbaik 2008 (100 Best Indonesian Poems 2008, Gramedia Pustaka Utama).

In regard to Dina's poems, acclaimed poet Sapardi Djoko Damono commented on the back cover of Biografi Kehilangan: "She entices us to experience the secrets of life in unique ways, ways that have never been captured by other poets. Her experiences are arranged in sharp metaphors and imageries, a characteristic of modern poetry."

Sitting in a quiet cafe in Yogyakarta, smoking clove cigarettes and occasionally taking a sip of her iced lemon tea, Dina recalled falling in love with literature, particularly poetry. It all started in junior high school.

"In third grade, I watched a play that made me want to continue my studies at a school that had a theater group. One day, the play's director came to my school and staged a production, and I found out that Teater Satu, his theater group, had just formed a theater forum for senior high students. I often came to the forum, and I guess Iswadi Pratama, the director, observed my passion for theater and asked me to join the group. A few weeks later, he came to me and whispered in my ear: 'Would you like to learn about poetry?'" Dina embraced the opportunity, despite all the rules her mentor had laid out for her.

"I wasn't allowed to read teen magazines or comics. I couldn't watch sinetrons or band gigs. Oh, I wasn't allowed to have a boyfriend either. Falling in love was OK, but not boyfriends. After my poems were published in Media Indonesia and Republika, he then said I could break all of those rules, that I was free to do all the things that had been out of my reach in the last nine months. But I was no longer able to enjoy the things that I had deprived myself of," she said with a weak smile.

It was a coincidence that her mentor was also an editor with the Lampung Post. "Sometimes he asked me to edit the work of his reporters. And then he suggested that my friends from the theater forum and I work on a supplementary page for teenagers. My friends got bored, so I did the whole thing myself."

However, she sometimes misused the column for her own satisfaction and benefits. "I would make up questions and answers for the discussion section, though I was supposed to get the answers from real people. I was so selfish, I wanted people to read nobody else's opinions but mine. I also wrote poems under my friends' younger brothers' or sisters' names. When it was time for payment, I borrowed their IDs and told the treasurer's desk that those kids had asked me to get the money for them. I was such a criminal."

Dina took out a laptop from her bag. "Hey, you have a laptop too, don't you? This place has got a wireless connection. Let's chat via Yahoo Messenger," she said in a playful tone, adding, "just for the hell of it."

Time for the next question, through the internet, just for the hell of it: Why Yogyakarta?

After graduating from her senior high school in Lampung, Dina went to Jakarta to study French at the Jakarta State University. Realizing she could learn much more from books than from her French classes, she decided that Yogyakarta was the right place for her. "I had imagined Yogya to be a quiet place, and it turned out to be true. Here I also found BlockNot Poetry, which offered more than I had expected." Blocknot was a journal that published short stories and poems. At the end of 2003, Dina became one of its editors.

Since writing is her passion, does Dina call herself a writer, someone who turns writing into a primary source of income? "I do other sorts of jobs. Translating pays quite well, and I also take short-term projects like joining a creative team for events, etcetera. But I had 'writer' typed in the occupation column of my ID card. It wasn't easy. I had a quarrel with the village official. He insisted that 'writer' wasn't an occupation, so I told him: Women get to have 'housewife' written on their ID card. Is that an occupation? Do women get paid for being a wife and a mother? I do have other jobs, but unless you are ready to have me here every month to get my occupation column changed, just put 'writer' there. It's my permanent job."

Dina admitted to being more of a poet than a writer. Imagine the argument she would have to come up with for putting "poet" in the occupation column.

Daniel Rose
cited The Jakarta Post, Sunday, May 11, 2008

Pantun

2008-08-24T12:45:00.000+07:00

'Pantun' festival presents Malay hospitality

Kalau ada sumur di ladang
Boleh hamba menumpang mandi
Kalau ada umurku panjang
Boleh kita berjumpa lagi

If you have a well at your farm
Let me use the water for taking a shower
If long-lived I am
Let us, again, be together

Pantun is not boring poetry sitting dead in a book, waiting to be recited by a poet or the melancholic. It is a lively tradition by which Malay-speaking societies communicate, with humor, respect and wisdom.

"Pantun is an oral tradition that is not only preserved, but also developed and practiced in ceremonial events and in daily life. It is still rooted in the community," Tanjungpinang Mayor Suryatati A. Manan said. Tanjungpinang is the capital of Riau Islands province.

The Malay, unlike the Javanese, do not speak in allusions, but they do use poetry to convey ideas to others.

"We the Malay are not used to being blunt when communicating or telling other people to do certain things," said Aslim Rofina, 34, from Serdang Bedagai regency, North Sumatra.

Aslim, known as telangkai (a man who creates pantun professionally) and his two colleagues put the newly formed regency on the map by winning the competition at the Southeast Asian Pantun Festival, held by Yayasan Panggung Melayu on April 25-29 at Taman Ismail Marzuki (TIM) cultural center in Central Jakarta.

The four-day festival was a feast of Malay hospitality, which can be found in many parts of the archipelago. The competition participants, organizers, guests and impromptu attendants were all amused by the witticism of the festival.

Malaysia and Brunei Darussalam did not make it to the final stage of the competition, but they still gave a hilarious performance when they, along with the other losing participants, shared pantun before the final match between Bengkalis and Serdang Bedagai.

A Brunei participant, Awang Haji Suhaili bin Haji Ajak, the oldest participant, hilariously repeated a pantun saying his country was oil-rich, a fact well-known to the audience.

A pantun competition is held between two parties. The first challenges the second with a question in the form of pantun, to which they also reply in the form of pantun.

Hence, they must have a broad knowledge of their own regions and many other things. Pantun is a quatrain, the first couplet of which is called sampiran, which functions as a prelude to the message it tries to convey.

"First, we have to know the answer to the question posed and the message we are trying to deliver. We do not merely play with words," Aslim said.

However, pantun can be meaningless and used as a way of introduction or as a joke, especially by TV comedians and amateurs.

Parni Hadi, the director of Radio Republik Indonesia (RRI), for example, used this pantun as an introduction: Tua-tua keladi/Jangan dibiarkan tidur sendiri/Saya Parni Hadi/Direktur RRI (An old man/Don't let him sleep alone/I'm Parni Hardi/The Director of RRI).

Parni's pantun is of course very simple. The judges rate the pantun according to its complexity -- the variation of words used and the correlation between the first and the second couplets.

During the pantun majlis session, where state officials such as governors, mayors and ambassadors recite pantun, Depok Mayor Nur Mahmudi Ismail stole the show with his simple witty pantun.

Even Jaya Suprana of the Indonesian Museum of Records made a pantun before awarding the Tanjungpinang youth the record for conducting the longest pantun exhibition.

The record shows the pantun tradition is becoming stronger and is alive today among Malay youth.

Ary Hermawan

cited from The Jakarta Post, Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Si Kabayan 4

2008-08-21T14:34:00.000+07:00

SI KABAYAN BRINGS HOME THE CORN

Si Kabayan had been ordered by his father-in-law to collect the ripe corn from the garden and bring it in to the house. Too lazy to carry so many ears of corn himself, he tied them together and hung them on a bamboo pole which he slung across the back of his horse. Then he himself mounted the beast and held the pole on his shoulders. His father-in-law saw him approaching the house and called. "Kabayan, Kabayan, what in the name of heaven are you doing? Why are you carrying the corn that way, sitting on the horse with the pole over your shoulder?"

"Ah, Pa," replied Kabayan, "otherwise it would be too heavy for my horse."

Si Kabayan 3

2008-08-18T14:32:00.001+07:00

WHY SI KABAYAN NEVER BECAME RICH

Si Kabayan and his wife went to Mount Cede to spend some time as ascetics, praying and fasting and meditating, so that their wish to become rich might be granted them. One day, in the midst of their meditations, a god appeared to them.

"Kabayan," said the god. "I grant you two wishes. But only two. You had better talk it over with your wife before you make them."
.
Kabayan and his wife had a lengthy discussion about what they should wish for. It was simply impossible for them to agree. Kabayan wanted to wish for a great amount of money, but his wife thought they should wish for an abundant supply of rice. Finally Kabayan became so annoyed with his wife that he said, "I wish the gods would turn you into a monkey!"

Immediately Kabayan's wish was granted, and he saw his wife transformed into a monkey before his very eyes. This he could not bear, and so he wished that his wife would become herself again. His wish was promptly granted.

But with these two wishes Kabayan's chance to ask for wealth was gone, and he and his wife remained poor as long as they lived.

Si Kabayan 2

2008-08-15T14:29:00.001+07:00

SI KABAYAN PAYS HIS DEBTS

Si Kabayan was so deeply in debt to an Arab usurer that it made him giddy even to think of it. How could he ever pay his debts when he no longer possessed a single thing that he could sell to obtain even a part of the amount he owed? He thought and thought and thought, and at long last he hit upon a plan.

"Finally!" he said to his wife. "Now I know what to do!"

His wife agreed to his proposal, in fact welcomed it with great enthusiasm, and proceeded to help him carry it out. First she filled a washtub with palm wine and spread kapok all over the floor next to the tub. Si Kabayan bathed in the wine, and rolled his wet body around and around in the kapok until he was white and furry all over. Then he crawled into a large chicken coop.

Shortly afterwards the Arab came to Si Kabayan's house to claim his due.

"Kabayan is not at home," said his wife to the Arab.

"Where is he?" asked the Arab.

"He's gone to appear before the King."

"The King?" asked the Arab in great astonishment. "What has happened?"

"He's gone to report to the King that he has found and caught a very rare bird."

"A rare bird? What kind of bird?" The Arab indicated his desire to see the strange bird, but Si Kabayan's wife refused'. Kabayan was going to present this rare and wonderful specimen to the King, and if she let the Arab see it, she said, Kabayan would be very angry, because Kabayan had said specifically that no one else was to see the bird before the Kin himself.

This explanation merely increased the Arab's desire to see Kabayan's bird, and he prevailed upon Si Kabayan's wife to show it to him.

Allowing herself to be persuaded, Kabayan's wife took the Arab to the back of the house, where she pointed to a chicken coop covered with a piece of cloth. Full of curiosity, the Arab lifted the edge of the cloth. As he raised it a little higher, Si Kabayan burst out of the cage, and crying "ba-ra-ka-tak-t'ak; ba-ra-ka-tak-tak," he ran out of sight.

Si Kabayan's wife began to weep. "Oh, oh," she sobbed. "Look what you've done! What will I tell Kabayan, and what will the King say? I'll have to tell him that it's your entire fault that his bird got away. And then Kabayan will have to tell the King. Oh, oh!"

The Arab was frightened.

"Please don't," he pleaded. "Please don't tell Kabayan and the King."

And in exchange for her promise not to tell Kabayan, he cancelled all Kabayan's debts.***

A Novel Idea

2008-08-12T13:47:00.000+07:00

A novel idea

Cited from The Jakarta Post, Friday, January 26, 2001

I must thank you for publishing a letter regarding the initially somewhat bizarre notion of opening a special cemetery to accommodate "heroic" civil servants (The Jakarta Post, Jan. 23, 2001).

It was such a novel idea that I was prompted by idle curiosity and a little time on my hands to look up the word hero to see if it could in fact be applied routinely to civil servants who die while working, as the writer suggests. Here is what I found:

hero [hj'ro], noun, a man of distinguished bravery; any illustrious person; a person reverenced and idealized; the principal male figure, or the one whose life is the thread of the story, in a history, work of fiction, play, film, etc.; originally a man of superhuman powers, a demigod:

heroine [her'o-in], a female hero.

Sadly for your contributor, the current definition does not seem to indicate that people who die while doing what they are paid to do should be awarded this title. Indeed, if these definitions are indeed accurate, occupancy rates in any new heroes' cemetery might be extremely low as few, if any candidates would seem to qualify.

However, it would be tragic if a hero or heroine, from whatever background, was to die and we had nowhere to put them. I therefore give this initially peculiar and yet ultimately charming notion my qualified support.

In order to be both fair and practical, I feel it would be better not to limit the type of occupant by career background. More importantly, I would urge those whose job it is to heroize, to apply the definitions perhaps more carefully than has hitherto been the case -- otherwise, almost anyone could become a hero and the project could become extremely costly. Real heroes and heroines would seem to be sadly rather thin on the ground just now.

ROSS GULLIVER

Dorothea Rosa Herliany (3)

2008-08-08T08:24:00.000+07:00

An Obsession in Black and White

i am trapped by the rain singing
among the tall grass: so is the moon
as it rises over my shining sorrow.

the hills and rivers of the heart
depict his fear.
the mist encircles him
through the waves of screaming insects
in the distant forest.

a drop of black sky comforts me
among the flying leaves, geese and
a pair of cranes search for the tranquillity
which floods shabby grief
in a spark of red light.

the sun turns to mist in the damp moon
hanging over the heart's emptiness.
how can we ever reunite
everything which has been torn apart?

i can read nothing
in the old thoughts which search
for all that has vanished, except the fear
arising from someone somewhere, "My beloved,
the night trembles with the screams
of strange wild beasts!"

March 1997 - January 1998

Obsesi Hitam Putih

aku terperangkap lagu hujan
di antara ilalang: bulan yang itu juga
mendaki dukaku yang purnama.

lerenglereng dan tebing hatitua
melukiskan ketakutan.
kabut melingkar
dalam gelombang jerit serangga
di hutan jauh.

setetes langit hitam menghiburku
di antara daundaun terbang. angsa dan
sekawanan bangau mencari keteduhan
yang menggenang duka-renta dalam sepercik
cahaya merah.

matahari mengabut dalam genangan bulan
menggantung di kekosongan kalbu.
di manakah bertemu antara segala
yang terpisahkan?

tak ada yang bisa kubaca
dari pikiran tua yang mencari segala
yang tibatiba hilang. selain ketakutan.
lalu bisikan dari entah siapa-apa, "Kekasih,
malam itu getar lolong hewanhewan liar!"

Maret 1997-Januari 1998

Arif B. Prasetyo (4)

2008-08-05T15:45:00.000+07:00

DEAD MOON PROCESSION

Stone stair:
The bridal bed of the sun and its sacrifices
At the god’s navel.
Down below:
The ritual begins.
Nine dead moons
Tie their shawls
On the waving, twitching waist
That dash against my flesh.
Down below:
The lights, the breasts of light
Hanging from the eyelashes:
An eagle snatching
With its two black wings.
A wild wild bird
Scratching my cage of desire.
Go on, you moan.
Shake it, rock it, you scream.
Far, far
In the untouchable chasm.
At its navel:
The cries and the traces
Run over each other
Crushing the souls
Under your soles:
I perish
In the labyrinth of the stones in piles:
A towering precipice
That guide you to the circle of fire
As your body purified
And I vanish.

DANCE

Your back
Is the monsoon hair hanging loosely.
The night chasm shining brightly
burned by the firestorm of your dance.
“Drink me, eat me.
Stab me with your pitch-black thing
For just a little more pain. A bright red stallion groans
Licking my body in pleasure.”
He writhes in pleasure on your back.
And you jump up and down, outraged, in heavy snorting.
A thousand worms gnawing the veins: the intricate network
Of a bruised old banyan’s root. The deathly pale heart at its end,
Trembling in terror, glimpse the angels in the bush.
And the seeds scream, their eyes open wide,
Strangled by desire
of commiting suicide.
Just a little more pain
The storm will sink into your back.
The night chasm will be in seething,
In panting, wet with light:
The drizzle of mushrooms, iron rust
And yellow butterflies.

Children's Theater

2008-08-02T14:07:00.002+07:00

Children's theater: Striving to empower the young

The Jakarta Post, Sunday, July 23, 2006

Tam Notosusanto, Contributor, Jakarta

The Mangkulangit kingdom is in distress. The crown princess is suffering from a rare disease, allegedly caused by a curse. The king orders his two prime ministers, Patih Jalu and Patih Geger, to arrest everyone in the kingdom suspected of practicing black magic.

It's serious business for the two prime ministers, but the two men are anything but serious. They even look funny together: Jalu, the diminutive, energetic guy who, once in a while, does a tumble-and-fall slapstick routine; and Geger, the corpulent state official with his enormous moustache and commanding charisma. Their chemistry recalls Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, even The Blues Brothers.

Yes, this was all a comedy show called When the King and Crown Princess Laugh staged at the Jakarta Arts Hall (GKJ) last March by the theater group Labornitejati -- short for the Theater Laboratory of East Jakarta. The audience, mostly children, were greatly amused by the antics of the actors, who were not much older than themselves. Surya Winata, the 12-year-old boy who played Jalu, is just starting middle school. And Geger was not even male: he was played by a 15-year-old girl named Mawallisa Febrikafi. Their 50 cast mates were about their age or younger.

Fast forward to the group's headquarters this July where they were rehearsing their next show. Surya and Mawallisa had evidently shed their grownup characters and gone back to being children. They spoke with youthful exuberance about their experience on stage. When asked who he models his adult characters on, Surya said, "My mom," pointing to Kartini, a veteran lenong (traditional Betawi comedy show) and screen performer who is one of Labornitejati's administrators. Mawallisa, a charming, down-to-earth teenager who is nothing like the arrogant, oppressive Patih Geger, has no previous experience as an actor. Playing Patih Geger was her first theatrical experience. "Uncle Dorman taught me everything," she humbly said.

The man she referred to is the instructor, writer, art director, songwriter and all-round motor behind Labornitejati. Dorman Borisman has been an actor and director for over three decades, performing with some of the country's prominent theater groups: Arifin C. Noer's Teater Ketjil and Teguh Karya's Teater Populer. He has spent many years acting as foils for comedians and playing supporting roles in Indonesian movies.

He is more familiar to the general public as a sinetron actor, which is how he makes his living. But few people know the 55-year-old actor has been allocating some of his earnings from the entertainment industry to finance his main passion: theater. Teater Jakarta Timur (East Jakarta Theater), the group he established with some colleagues back in 1971, has put on a number of plays with casts comprising both adults and teenagers. Last year, he set up Labornitejati to give children some experience of the performing arts.

"We wanted to develop the talents and resources of children and teenagers," Dorman said. "I do this because it's a spiritual need."

This work requires a lot of dedication. Dorman gets a meager wage from the East Jakarta Youth Arena, the municipality's official venue for children's activities, which accommodates a variety of sports and arts clubs, including his two theater groups. On Thursday and Sunday afternoons, he directs the show together with his associates Kartini and Cak Winarsyowho. Nur Solihin, who helps out with the production, comes to the arena to guide the 60 odd children of Labornitejati through their regular theater exercises.

Children's theater groups exist all over Jakarta. They are mostly community theater groups formed outside schools and some of them are sponsored by the Youth Arenas of each of the five municipalities in Jakarta. A few of them are fortunate enough to be managed by professional performers.

One of the oldest children's theater groups is Teater Tanah Air (TTA), founded 18 years ago by actor-director-poet Jose Rizal Manua, who trains his 80 young disciples every Sunday in a corner of the Ismail Marzuki Arts Center (TIM) in Central Jakarta. Jose, 52, has worked with the country's top dramatists, Putu Wijaya and WS Rendra, and continues to frequent poetry festivals all over the country. He works as an acting coach for some movies and occasionally appears in them. But he never neglects his children's theater group.

"Here's where we nurture their interest and talent," he said. "Through theater, we teach them discipline, self-confidence and social skills."

Jose, who previously worked with another children's theater group in the late 70s through to early 80s, observes that many children's theater instructors do not understand child psychology, and tend to teach children the way they train teenage and adult actors.

"I once went to see them practice," Jose said. "The instructor tells one child to display Angry 1, Angry 3, Laugh 5. The child shows different semblances of anger and joy, but it's all fake."

What Jose does is engage his children in games.

"I tell one child to walk and have her imagine a wasp coming at her, and she has to react to it. Next I tell her to imagine five wasps coming at her, and show me how she reacts to them. Then 10 wasps, then 100 wasps. Every child has a different way of reacting, and it all comes from themselves," Jose said.

Some of Jose's pupils have become renowned entertainers, such as dancer Denny Malik or actors Sylvana Herman and Septian Dwicahyo. Others became bank managers and hotel managers who later went to see Jose to tell him the training helped them professionally.

"I joined the group four years ago," said 15-year-old Ita Puspitasari, a current member of TTA. "Uncle Jose keeps telling me to do stuff in front of the other kids: to improvise, do funny walks, act angry. At first, I was always nervous. But after some time, I become more and more confident."

Some of the young actors' parents notice a difference in their behavior.

"My son used to be extremely shy," said Emmy, the mother of TTA member Rwanda Sutedira. "He has done very well at school and is now beginning high school at age 13. But he spent most of his time in his room, didn't want to go out and play with the neighbors' kids, and would run back into his room whenever we had guests."

She took him to TTA and witnessed a dramatic change. After three months, Rwanda started to open up to people. He became a master of ceremonies at school events and even starred in a television film titled The Little Brigadier.

"He's really changed. "I am not going to push him into the entertainment business, I am just happy he is sociable now. That's why I make the effort of bringing him here every Sunday all the way from Bekasi," said Emmy.

"If children get in touch with art from an early age, they will grow up to have an 'added value' that their peers may not have," said Andi Bersama, writer, director and instructor of the children's theater group Sang Abul, based in Bulungan Youth Arena in South Jakarta.

Andi, a former journalist who is now a stage and screen actor, founded Sang Abul -- short for Sanggar Anak Bulungan or Bulungan Children's Studio -- with some friends in 2003. The group has performed at the Bulungan Arena auditorium and in events at various venues: schools, malls, hotels. Some of these shows were paid gigs, but Sang Abul still has to struggle to finance shows at its neighborhood venue.

Labornitejati, Teater Tanah Air and Sang Abul all charge membership fees, ranging from Rp 10,000 (US$1.10) to Rp 50,0000 ($5.50) a month.

"We implement a cross-subsidy scheme here, because 30 percent of the kids come from poor families," said Dorman. "The well-to-do kids cover their less fortunate friends' fees."

Still, the money doesn't help much when the time comes to put on a show, so the groups' administrators have to ask parents to pitch in. At one time Sang Abul received lunch boxes during rehearsals and show dates from a local restaurateur whose child happens to be in the troupe. Dorman once sent 30 proposals to various institutions and companies to get financial support for a Labornitejati show. He only got a response from three companies, which sent their food and drink products as contributions.

"Our government and businesses have yet to consider the potential in art," Dorman said. "Our society has not made art an important part of life. All we have is the all-instant entertainment industry, which doesn't make us any more intelligent."

Dorman and Jose tell of talent agents who lurk around their headquarters, while Andi has been approached by stage parents who mistake his place as an inexpensive talent agency.

"I was once offered millions of rupiah by parents who wanted me to get their kids shortcuts to TV stardom. I flat out refused them," said Dorman. "I once told one such parent and his child to leave the group."

Andi is more moderate. "My TV connections enable me to link up production companies and child actors," he said. "But I tell parents that's not what Sang Abul is here for."

Their main business is, of course, to get kids to express themselves onstage. Sang Abul was the winner of the biannual Jakarta Children's Theater Festival in 2004. Labornitejati's March show was part of GKJ's Children's Celebrations event. This July, they have been selected by the Jakarta administration's Cultural Affairs Office to represent the city in a children's theater event called Duta Seni Pelajar (Student Art Ambassadors) in Banten from July 17 to 20.

Teater Tanah Air won Gold Medals at the Asia-Pacific Festival of Children's Theater in Toyama, Japan, in 2004 and this July they went to Lingen, Germany, to compete in the ninth World Festival of Children's Theater.

"I realize many people hope to take advantage of what I do for the kids," said Dorman. "But we remind ourselves not to take advantage of the children. It's our commitment to them."

Tam Notosusanto is an actor and director with the community theater group The Jakarta Players.

Saint Rosa of Indonesian Poetry

2008-07-29T13:05:00.000+07:00

Dorothea Rosa Herliany: 'Saint Rosa' of Indonesian poetry

The Jakarta Post, Sunday, December 17, 2006

Harry Aveling, Contributor, Jakarta

Dorothea Rosa Herliany may not be a saint, but she is one of Indonesia's most praised poets, both at home and abroad.

Last month, she received the prestigious 2006 Khatulistiwa Literary Award for Poetry. The award acknowledges her latest book Santa Rosa/Saint Rosa, first published in 2005.

The bilingual volume contains Rosa's latest poetry in Bahasa Indonesia with English translations. There is a preface by senior Indonesian woman poet Toety Heraty, and an afterword by the late Dami Toda, both with English translations as well.

Canadian artist Ken Pattern, a long-time Jakarta resident, provided the stunning lithography that illustrated the first printing.

The poetry was written between 2002 and 2004 in places as diverse as Japan, Europe, America and Australia.

As Toda says: "Various languages and panoramas change shape in their itinerary through the ear and the eye. But poetry does not change its map or time when it sits enthroned in the mind."

Their subject matter includes universal religious themes, human relationships, gender equality, social norms and the nature of history; the writing reveals a struggle to understand human experience in all its reality -- not as an ideal but as a fact that reveals profound suffering and hurt, without, apparently, any hope of redemption.

Leading Australian poet Judith Rodriguez has described Saint Rosa as an "exceptional" volume. These are, she said, "texts of exceptional difficulty and exceptional interest". Rodriguez describes the poems as "highly colored, morbid, even shocking" and significant for their "metaphorical tours de force and paradoxical glories of unwilling illuminations".

In Rodriguez' opinion, Saint Rosa "confirms the importance of this notable poet" and is "a notable addition to world poetry".

Rosa's place in world poetry will become more obvious in 2007 with the publication of her previous book Kill the Radio: Sebuah Radio Kumatikan (2001) by Arc Publications in England.

In a new preface to Kill the Radio, British poet Linda France writes: "The energy and violence expressed in the title of the collection runs through the work like a ruptured vein, fragile and vulnerable but necessary for survival."

The destructiveness and chaos of the outside world broadcast on the radio summons a reaction of echoing violence, filtered through irony. Many of the poems use this mirroring effect, the consciousness of the individual poem reflecting back what it sees and experiences.

The "Self" contained in the poems is ill at ease, often "trapped", "always hurrying ... searching and never finding".

Underneath this troubled surface there is so much tenderness and openness, in shocking contrast to the "Other", represented by the world of politics and war, that the speaker of the poems is aware she is in danger of annihilation.

Saint Rosa and Kill the Radio are both currently being reprinted in new formats by the original publisher, IndonesiaTera, and is expected to be available in bookshops shortly.

They are essential reading for those who love Indonesian literature, and for all who want to understand this country better.

The writer is a scholar and translator of Indonesian literature, including the poetry of Dorothea Rosa Herliany. In 2006, he served as Visiting Professor of Translation Studies at the University of Indonesia.

Theater makes children strong

2008-07-26T14:03:00.002+07:00

'Theater makes children strong'

The Jakarta Post, Sunday, September 10, 2006

Tam Notosusanto, Contributor, Jakarta

You can't question Norbert Radermacher's dedication to children. He had taught theater at a school in a small German town called Lingen for years and still did not feel he had done enough. The former football player, who studied philosophy, arts and drama, felt there was much more to do beyond working within the curriculum and in the classroom.

So he founded Theater Pedagogical Center (TPZ) in 1980 with the support from the Emslandische Landschaft e.V., the governments of the Lower Saxony, Emsland and Bentheim districts, and the municipality of Lingen. Located in Lingen, a town of about 60,000 residents situated in the Northwest of Germany, near the Netherlands border, TPZ is now Germany's biggest academy for theater, play, dance and circus education. Besides offering drama courses for children and young people, it also has workshops, seminars, and training for teachers, social workers and individuals to promote theater as a means of cultural education.

In 1990, Radermacher introduced the World Festival of Children's Theater, where children's theater groups from all over the world perform in front of an international audience. The festival also holds symposiums attended by theater pedagogues from 24 member countries who discuss the latest trends in children's theater work. Established in cooperation with the International Amateur Theater Association (IATA/AITA), the festival has been held alternately in Turkey, Denmark, Japan and Cuba as well as in its home base, Lingen, Germany.

This September he made his first ever trip to Indonesia to give workshops to children's theater groups in Jakarta and Bandung. Here are excerpts from an interview with Radermacher and from his discussion with leaders of children's theater groups in Jakarta.

What was the idea behind the Theater Pedagogical Center?

Twenty-six years ago there were a lot of music schools and art schools in Germany. But there was no theater school. I realized teachers and social workers are looking for such an institution. They work using social methods but those methods don't work for very long because young people need much more. You have to take care of them, you need to push them. How do we do that?

Theater is good to push them. There's no better place for saying what you're thinking, what is on your mind, than onstage. Onstage you are an artist, you can say "we want a better society," or "we don't want war" or "we want freedom." The stage for me is not like painting. With painting, you can do it by yourself, then hang the picture on the wall. Theater needs an audience. So it's wonderful for young people. You can feel it. Children can be powerful when they are onstage, they are strong. The adults in the audience are always amazed, they will say "Oh my God, I didn't know they were strong." If children are strong, they can play an effective role in society.

What have been the challenges of establishing and maintaining it for the past 26 years?

When you start an institution like this, you need well-trained, educated, artistic people. We needed both artists and pedagogues. But not all artists can work with children, and not all pedagogues can teach art. So we did a lot of training and workshops for teachers and artists so that they acquired the balance.

We want to involve as many social workers and teachers, but the problem is, a lot of them have no experience in art. So I brought them to meet artists, for them to hold some forums of dialog to learn from each other.

After 26 years, TPZ now is an academy for theater, dance and circus. We also have theater programs for handicapped children and programs for senior citizens. But our main work is with children. The focus of our drama education is not primarily on the eventual performance or show, but rather, the process leading up to it: training of expression, working within a group and the joy in playing.

Now we have 25 full-time staff, others work on projects for two or three years before they go back to their schools or social work to implement what they learned from TPZ.

How did the World Festival of Children's Theater come about?

Every year, the children of TPZ's theater, dance and circus classes meet for a theater festival named "Children play and dance for children." There they have the opportunity to perform their work and learn from each other. Groups from all over Lingen participated. It became a regular event every January.

The event became the inspiration for a world-level festival. Especially when after I visited the World Theater Festival for adults of the International Amateur Theater Association in Monaco in 1985, I realized there was no children's theater festival in the world. There were already lots of professional theater festivals or puppet theater festivals, but no world children's theater festival.

And so we had the first World Festival of Children's Theater in 1990 in Lingen. It brought children theater groups from all over the world together. Before 1990, we had worked separately, in our respective countries, holding national-level festivals. We did not know one another. But since we did this festival, we've gotten to know one another. We all come to one place on a world level and have been able to compare work between Japan and South America, between Europe and Asia. The network was born and it quickly expanded before I even began to think about it. I've been invited to many countries. I went to India, and I met a person from Pakistan. Next, I got invited to Pakistan. It's like a snowball effect.

If you do a local festival for children, nobody will interview you, no TV will come because it's not that interesting. But an international festival, that's interesting. That will draw a lot of attention.

I do it for the children, because children don't have (an avenue to) lobby. You have to give children the (opportunity to) lobby (for their interests), the possibility to think about something. So we have to build the network. Secondly, we have to give children space in this world.

Theater Tan Air from Indonesia has won first prize two consecutive times at the 2004 and 2006 festivals. What was your impression upon visiting them here?

I'm surprised to hear Tanah Air doesn't have space, any room. (Teater Tanah Air regularly rehearses in the lobby of Graha Bhakti Budaya at Ismail Marzuki Arts Center --Ed.) It's a wonderful group. The children should have room. Jakarta is a big city, I don't understand why the government can't give Tanah Air space for rehearsals. I know a lot of theater groups in South America, in Africa, much poorer countries. They have theater houses. I want to talk about this, I want to make articles. We have to give children space to come together, to communicate with each other, to be creative. Don't just give them computers.

But many theater groups in Indonesia are used to rehearsing in lobbies, in their backyards, on the sidewalk. It's their cultural tradition, they can rehearse anywhere.

Well, it's maybe my European way of thinking. Children should have their own space. Children's theater groups should have their own theater houses. I really want to take the children of Tanah Air to stage a demonstration in front of the city government's building, demanding a room. This just reflects the government's indifference: that Indonesia has a rich culture, as shown by Tanah Air's performance, and that they need space to grow. We need to respect them, talk to them at the same level, not talk down to them. Because we want to make them strong, we want them to play an important role in the future of the country. ***

Javanese novels

2008-07-24T13:55:00.002+07:00

World of Javanese novels in the '50s

The Jakarta Post, Sunday, January 14, 2001

Priyayi Abangan -- Dunia Novel Jawa Tahun 1950-an (The World of Javanese Novels in the 1950s)
By Sapardi Djoko Damono
Yayasan Bentang Budaya, Yogyakarta, 2000
xi + 434 pp

JAKARTA (JP): Originally a dissertation for a postgraduate degree in literature under the title of Javanese Novels in the 1950s - a Study of Function, Content and Structure which noted poet and literary translator Sapardi Djoko Damono successfully defended at the Jakarta-based University of Indonesia in 1989, the book is a must-read for those interested in popular literature.

In this book, Sapardi explores in great depth, popular literature in Javanese published during the first decade of the second half of the 20th century, encompassing six novels published by state-owned book publisher Balai Pustaka and 14 serials published in Penyebar Semangat (Disseminator of the Spirit) magazine in Javanese.

The period of study is confined to the 1950s because the decade was important in Indonesia's history in at least two respects. Following the proclamation of Indonesia's independence on Aug. 17, 1945, Indonesians could freely be exposed to classical and modern world literature after 350 years of Dutch colonial rule during which they were practically denied any literary development; and the 1950s witnessed a lot of important social changes marked, among other things, by the promotion of democracy and literacy. As a result, there was a noticeable increase in quantity of the publication of literary works in Javanese.

In this study, Sapardi treats Javanese novels as popular literature as these works gained popularity among Javanese readers in general. Previously, Javanese literary works were mostly circulated behind the walls of Javanese palaces: they were usually penned by court writers and intended only for the Javanese nobility.

Parts of these works, usually in verse form, are familiar to the general Javanese community but this is more the result of an oral tradition than a reading habit. To most Javanese these quotations are usually taken as pieces of advice for a better life, which explains why most readers of Javanese novels wish to gain an insight into life and get useful pieces of advice. In general, they do not care much about the quality of the works. What is of paramount importance to them is that reading the novels can give them advice, a condition clearly indicating that the younger Javanese readers have simply continued the reading tradition that their predecessors had, in connection with the Javanese literature of yore.

Another interesting point Sapardi raises in the book is that most of the works are written with the point of view of an omniscient narrator, a condition closely resembling the shadow puppet play in which the puppet master knows everything and tells everything. This close resemblance with the shadow puppet world is easily understandable as the Javanese people are generally raised in this tradition. They are very familiar with popular characters in the shadow puppet plays and in many cases model their own lives upon these.

Sapardi has the following to say about this issue: In the Javanese community, the shadow puppet play is an art form which can break through social partitions; it is performed in the palace and in remote rural areas. It is no exaggeration to say that in the 1950s, the shadow puppet play was still part of the culture inherent in writers and readers of the new Javanese literature. It is also quite reasonable to say that the relation ship existing between the puppet master, the shadow puppet play and the audience was made a model for the writing of new Javanese literature, or novels.

As new Javanese literature is put in the category of popular literature, something must be said about its readers. In the 1950s, these new Javanese novels were popular among the newly literate group of people, who included the new priyayi (the upper-class). These new priyayi originally belonged to the category of commoners. They could get to a higher social class thanks to their education and position in society. These readers might find themselves reflected in the novels and periodicals published in 1950s, which explains the popularity of Javanese novels among these people. Sapardi writes that "The world created in the Javanese novels is that of the priyayi abangan (Javanese of the upper social class not adhering strictly to their Islamic precepts) and the world view expressed by the writers is also that of the priyayi abangan".

He also writes that the world created in the novels under study is dominated by the priyayi and the shadow puppet play and that even the kiai, venerated scholars or teachers of Islam, convey their knowledge about the shadow puppet play rather than about the Koran. Hence the use of the term priyayi abangan, a combination of two different concepts in the Javanese community, a member of the Javanese upper class with scant attention to religious matters and greater interest in the values inherent in the Javanese shadow puppet play with which the priyayi are usually associated.

As literature reflects the condition of a particular society in which it is created, the Javanese novels of the 1950s also present the social conditions then prevailing. These works depict the attempt made by the abangan, the Javanese commoners, to climb the social ladder in order to reach the status of a priyayi or preserve the values of the priyayi. Logically, therefore, the common thread of Javanese novels in the 1950s is the spirit of the priyayi. As Javanese commoners are depicted in the novels as attempting to reach the status of a priyayi, it can be easily seen that what prompts them to do so must be their high deference to the moral values of the priyayi. It is clear, therefore, why, as referred to earlier, the shadow puppet play assumes an important role in Javanese novels of the 1950s.

In their attempt to live the life of a priyayi as much as possible, the characters are usually portrayed as heroes in the world of the shadow puppet play with control over their desires and a refined attitude. In relation to this, Sapardi writes that "In Javanese novels it is clearly portrayed that a shadow puppet play is an inseparable part of the life of the priyayi; an ideal priyayi is one with a good mastery of the art and the shadow puppet play is part of his main knowledge."

-- Lie Hua

Novel Tanpa Huruf R

2008-07-21T13:51:00.001+07:00

'Novel Tanpa Huruf R', local cinema new low

The Jakarta Post, Saturday, August 16, 2003

Joko Anwar, Contributor, Jakarta

Hats may be off to director/co-producer Aria Kusumadewa's efforts to get his latest movie made. But he must be asking for too much if he expects to hear any applause when the closing credits roll.

Novel Tanpa Huruf R (A Novel Without R) is a frustratingly incoherent mess with towering pretentiousness that gives freedom of artistic expression a bad name.

The filmmakers may argue they are only trying to deliver an important message of anti-violence but they only end up being backed up by their own nemesis.

These are filmmakers who think they can say something through shocks. Well, they may get our attention but certainly not our hearts. The movie is bleak, mean-spirited and completely unrewarding

In his earlier movie Beth, about life in a mental hospital, he showed a female inmate kissing a cockroach. In Novel Tanpa Huruf R, Aria seems determined to satisfy his fondness for grossness posing as art.

There are gratuitous shots of cows being slaughtered and dismembered human body parts. A close shot of dog poop being picked up is more irony than the movie can handle since it is the best way to describe the film.

The story is extremely muddled. Whatever good intention the filmmakers may try to say is lost.

The movie opens with a scene where a man and his little son wake up after being stranded on a beach. How they can be stranded there? The movie does not seem to care to tell.

However, the film does care to show an iceberg ... on an Indonesian beach. Of course the filmmakers can always argue that their movie is an art film so the iceberg is meant to be a symbol of something. But who cares?

Anyway, the movie continues with the man and his son living in a big house on the island where the man has a ritual of getting angry with God for causing him to lose his wife, presumably in an event before they were stranded on the beach. (How they can suddenly own a big house, the movie does not seem care to tell).

All we know is that the little boy, Drum (played by newcomer Agastya) is accustomed to violence since he often sees cattle being slaughtered in the slaughterhouse where his father works.

Meanwhile, his father is often engaged in a fight with government officials who come down to the island to forcefully buy his property.

Several cow slaughters later, Drum lives in the city where he works at a crime news tabloid.

In doing his job, Drum has to witness so much violence. One inventive example is where a woman who is having an affair with a married man has her face smashed in with a durian fruit by the man's wife.

What we don't get is why Drum who hates violence still works for an exploitive tabloid. He even publishes a book that contains a series of crime stories he wrote.

Oh, there is a love story, too.

Among many characters who come and go for no apparent reason is Drum's lawyer girlfriend who then becomes a victim of a mass murder. Soon, Drum becomes a God hater just like his dad, especially as he also loses two dogs.

Drum moves back to the island where he lives in a quite luxurious studio by the beach. Is he supposed to be able to afford the place from his paycheck as a journalist or do the filmmakers want us to believe that his crappy book becomes a best seller?

Meanwhile, the government officials keep coming to the island to buy Drum's old house and send people to terrorize Drum's childhood friend who now lives there.

Drum also develops a new routine on the island. Every full moon, he will pay a hooker to come to his studio where he will tie her up and sleep naked next to her.

In the meantime, there is a female post-graduate student (played by Lola Amaria who also co-executive produced with Aria) who is doing a study on Drum's book and tracks him down to the island. Too bad she comes to his house when he is in a bad mood after learning that his best friend has been arrested for murdering another hooker.

Drum kidnaps the student and ties her up to the bed just like he does to the hooker and keeps her for several days while he is writing his new novel.

After an incident, Drum loses his left middle finger, which makes him unable to type the letter r in his novel. This is just plain ridiculous.

If Drum can not type the letter r because he does not have a middle finger, this means that he decides to stick to the 10-finger typing rule. This also means that he shouldn't be able to type the letters d, e and c.

However, after endless absurdity this last goof seems negligible.

Chances are you will never see this movie in the multiplexes since the film producers plan to show it in an event they call a "movie road show" where they will play the movie in colleges and art centers across the country.

Aria also applied the same distribution strategy to his earlier movie, Beth.

It is quite inspiring to see these young filmmakers' determination to get their movie made. Too bad in the end, their energy is wallowed in sensationalism and they drown in ultra-pretentiousness.

I-BOX:

Novel Tanpa Huruf R (A Novel Without R) Drama, zero stars out of four Starring Agastya, Lola Amaria Directed by Aria Kusumadewa

Si Kabayan 1

2008-07-18T14:26:00.002+07:00

SI KABAYAN TRAPS A DEER

For a long time Si Kabayan and his father-in-law had entertained the idea of making a deer trap, but nothing had ever come of their intention. One day Kabayan called his father in-law.

"Come, Pa," he said. "Let's dig a ditch. A deer is sure to fall into it, and then we'll slaughter it together."

"No," replied Kabayan's father-in-law. "You dig the ditch, Kabayan. I'd rather snare a bird."

"Good," said Kabayan. "But when I catch my deer, I won't give you any part of it."

"Never mind," replied the father-in-law. "When I catch my bird, you'll get no part of it either."

The next morning, very, very early, Kabayan's father-in-law went outside to have a look at the trap he had set up. It was just as-he had left it the night before. He walked over to Kabayan's trap and there he saw a fine, large deer. He looked about him stealthily and seeing no one, he tied a rope around the deer's neck, which he then fastened to his own trap. He quickly returned to the house and called his son-in-law.

"Kabayan, Kabayan, wake up!" he shouted. "Let's go out and see whether there's anything in our traps."

Kabayan yawned and stretched and joined his father-in-law.

"Alhamdullillah! The Lord be praised!" exclaimed Kabayan's father-in-law. "Look at that!" He pointed to the deen next to his trap.

Si Kabayan walked away without saying a word.

A little later, when Si Kabayan's wife called her father and husband for breakfast Kabayan did not appear. Kabayan's wife was worried. "Where is he?" she asked her father. They waited, but he did not come. Kabayan's wife began to cry.

"He's been eaten by a tiger," she sobbed, "Or choked by a devil in the forest - or kidnapped!"

Her father tried to console her and said he would go out immediately to search for Kabayan.

It was not long before he found him, sitting by the bank of a river in an attitude of meditation, watching the water flow by.

"Kabayan!" called his father-in-law. "What are you doing? Why didn't you come to breakfast?"

"Look, Pa!" said Kabayan, glancing up at his father-in-law, but leaving his questions unanswered. "Look at this water. If this isn't the strangest thing! ........"

"What's the matter?"

"Just look! The river is flowing upstream!"

"Ah, Kabayan, impossible, Kabayan! Water doesn't flow up stream. It has to flow downstream!"

"Why does it have to?" said Kabayan, if a deer can be caught in a trap for a bird?"

Kabayan's father-in-law looked very sheepish. He admitted that he had deceived Kabayan and he returned the deer to his son-in-law. But Kabayan took revenge, and when the deer was slaughtered his father-in-law got nothing but its bones.***

Critics in Djenar's novel 'Nayla'

2008-07-15T13:39:00.002+07:00

Djenar confronts societal taboos, critics in first novel 'Nayla'

cited from The Jakarta Post, Sunday, July 10, 2005

A. Junaidi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Nayla
Djenar Maesa Ayu
Gramedia Pustaka Utama, May 2005
180 pp
in Bahasa Indonesia

Djenar Maesa Ayu's first novel is a testament to her unchanging courage in defending women's sexuality and rejecting taboos. Through Nayla, she also rejects the criticism of certain reviewers that her writing is "titillating".

Yes, she uses words like vagina -- at least 15 times -- and penis in her novel, as she does in her short stories). But who classified these terms as "dirty"?

Djenar said she tried to be honest with herself and write about a reality she really knows and feels about (p. 121). The 32-year-old writer thus talked about women's orgasm and the issue of sexual harassment without any intention to arouse desire.

Nayla should probably be viewed from a different perspective.

For a long time, woman has been categorized (by men) as a soft and lovely creature, and a description of what makes a "good" and "bad" woman has been established over the years in many novels. In many cultures, women are often forbidden from speaking "dirty words" -- which restriction typically does not apply to men -- so that, women writers in these cultures who explore sensitive issues such as sexuality are often considered to be less intellectual and unwomanly.

For years, leading feminist literary critics, such as Helene Cixous, Julia Kristeva and Luce Irigaray, encouraged women writers worldwide to reject the taboos and bans set for women.

These feminist thinkers repudiated categorizations based on a binary opposition -- yin and yang -- which, in the end, marginalized women's works. According to this polar classification, the soul is valuable and the body less so; white is separated from black; as are men and women.

Women are often viewed through her body first and then performance, and men vice-versa.

Some local critics even included Djenar among female writers arbitrarily grouped together in the so-called Sastra Wangi, or fragrant literature, which implied that their work lacked substance. She, of course, renounced the patronizing industry categorization.

The idea of binary opposition also does not admit to other sexual orientations, such as lesbian, gay and bisexual, that have "come out of the closet" in the modern day and age.

In Nayla, Djenar continues her exploration of identity through sexuality, and goes beyond the "vagina" to a consenting, positive lesbian relationship.

The title character is an abused teenage girl. In a departure from the common theme of parental abuse by a father or father figure, Nayla's abuse is committed by her mother, who punctures her genitalia with a pin as punishment for wetting the bed. In addition, Nayla is raped by one of her mother's boyfriends in a blatant example of the failure of maternal protection.

Nayla finds happiness when she leaves home and moves in with her father, a well-known writer. But the joy does not last long, and the theme of abuse by a mother figure is extended through Nayla's stepmother.

Nayla's journey of self-discovery is facilitated through Juli, a lesbian she meets on the streets, and through an exploration of her sexual orientation, including bisexuality. As she matures and eventually becomes a writer herself, she decides she is of no singular "orientation", but a lover of humanity.

Meanwhile, Djenar also questions the age-old theory that happiness and self-satisfaction are to be found in a single partner or a single love relationship as she follows Nayla's entry and acceptance into the literary circle.

For first-time readers of Djenar's work, it may not be easy to track the flow of the story. Like her short stories, the plot jumps forwards and backwards throughout the book, with intermittent flashbacks. Others may find Djenar's characteristic style of repeating sentences and paragraphs to stress her intentions to be tiring or disruptive.

Even so, Nayla is a valuable work for both men and women to understand the pluralism of women and to look at women, femininity, perhaps even humanity, as viewed through the eyes of a woman and a woman writer -- better yet, just call Djenar a writer of contemporary humanity.

Her critics say the popularity of Djenar's work is due to her use of profanity and themes of sexual exploration -- both "unwomanly" traits -- and because there is a market for arousal. Most likely, they would say the same for Nayla.

But such criticism will fall on deaf ears.

A literary force in her own right, the mother of two has published two short story anthologies, Mereka Bilang Saya Monyet (They say I'm a monkey) and Jangan Main-Main (dengan kelaminmu) [Don't play (with your genitals)], while Waktu Nayla (Nayla's time) and Menyusu Ayah (Suckling father) received best short story awards by the largest national newspaper Kompas and feminist publication Jurnal Perempuan (Women's Journal).

Her books have gone through several reprints and have been nominated for the best book category by the prestigious Khatulistiwa Literary Award.

As Djenar once said in an earlier interview with The Jakarta Post and which she reiterates in Nayla: "I just want to write what I want to write and what I know about. I want to be honest... I don't care what people might think about me."

From such a woman, Nayla is no surprise, as the novel is ultimately about finding -- and accepting -- one's identity, no matter how it is viewed from the outside.

Novel Review

2008-07-11T13:34:00.002+07:00

Novel gives knowing peek into dirty oil business

cited from The Jakarta Post, Sunday, March 05, 2006

Kornelius Purba, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Cinta di Marindo Oil
Puti Lenggo
Djambatan, 2005
328 pp.

Writing under the pen name Puti Lenggo, the author of Cinta di Marindo Oil (Love at Marindo Oil) originally wrote this novel in English, titled Down with The Oil, and finished it in October 2004. Puti thought at the time that, if she wrote in Bahasa Indonesia, it would be difficult for her to find an Indonesian publisher who would dare to publish the book.

Cinta di Marindo Oil covers in detail the "mega corruption practices" of Indonesia's oil industry under Soeharto's 32-year reign until 1998, and even few years after that.

On reading the English version, readers will soon find that the writer's mastery of that language is quite decent. Puti worked at two English-language newspapers in Jakarta, including The Jakarta Post in the 1980s -- a fact that is mentioned on the back cover -- before entering the oil business, which she describes as "another field". She has also experienced living abroad, such as in London.

Although Puti does not explicitly identify the oil company that is central to Cinta di Marindo Oil, as the story reveals her knowledge about the "deep secrets" of the "slick oil business" -- for instance, how Army generals and Soeharto's cronies milked the company, and about the system "ala mafia" of importing crude oil and distributing fuel oil to the domestic market -- it is clear she worked for a major oil company.

When Puti offered her manuscript to a major bookstore and publisher in Jakarta that mostly sells English books, apparently its editor rejected it, saying her novel was uninteresting.

Then she visited another major publishing company, PT Grasindo, which asked her to translate the book into Bahasa Indonesia.

"However, after reading the translated version, the editor told me they couldn't publish the book because its content was controversial, especially as regards the 'mafia' of the fuel oil business in our country," the writer recently told a friend.

She eventually found a publishing company, PT Penerbit Djambatan, which specializes in publishing works of literature; as a result, Cinta di Marindo Oil has been available in major bookstores in Indonesia since January 2006.

Cinta di Marindo Oil tells the story of Ratna, a senior public relations officer at the Marindo Oil company, and the ups and downs of her relationship with husband Burhan, a proud Minang man who cares more about his status within Minang society than the fact that Ratna must support not just their family but also her husband's "generosity" toward his relatives in West Sumatra.

Ratna becomes involved in complex internal intrigue while she also has an affair with Hassan, a young technocrat who naively tries to clean up the company from its dirty practices.

The most interesting parts of the novel concern the scheming among the elite to dip their fingers in the lucrative oil industry. Powerful generals, politicians and those with close ties to Soeharto can easily force the oil company to grant them a large concession for their introduction to oil contractors and procurement companies.

Smuggling oil to neighboring countries is rampant and the company often pretends ignorance of this, because the illicit trade involves the military or even "hoodlum" politicians. No special skills are necessary to qualify for enjoying the lucrative oil business when people have strong political connections to the First Family.

"Much collusion existed in the past between powerful officials at the state oil company, Marindo Oil management and government officials. There is even strong suspicion over money manipulation," Ratna writes in her diary (p. 68).

The writer, however, is often hesitant about revealing the darker side of the oil industry -- apparently because she is worried about her own safety. So she punishes corruptors in the business by declaring them "impotent".

Just a few days ago, British-based Author House reportedly expressed an interest in publishing an English version of her novel, and a production company has indicated it would like to make a film adaptation.

When the English-language version of Cinta di Marindo Oil is realized, foreign readers will get a chance to take a peek -- albeit from a distance -- into the corrupt oil industry of Indonesia. ***

Korrie Layun Rampan

2008-07-08T13:26:00.002+07:00

Death

by Korrie Layun Rampan

Cited from The Jakarta Post, Sunday, November 02, 2003

I had not been back to enjoy the beauty of this river for 40 years.

As a child, I took pride in Nyuatan River, where I first learned to swim, went fishing and paddled a boat against a strong current.

I was able catch bigger baung and belida fish, tortoises, even jelawat and patin fish, turtles and crocodiles.
Crocodiles?

Along with my elder brother Tingang, I was almost dragged down under a heap of wood caught on a fallen tree trunk, with its branches blocking the flow of flotsam from upstream. It happened when a crocodile pulled the rope tied to a long rattan stem floating in the stream.

With a dead monkey as bait, the crocodile trap was set afloat near the upper side of Nyomit Bay. Tingang immediately paddled toward the tip of the drifting stem and yanked the rope to make its iron hook become entangled in the reptile's guts. Perhaps out of fright or pain from its snagged belly, it quickly dove into the riverbed, going downstream under the scrap.

Our boat nearly tipped over as it hit the drooping log, which hampered river traffic with its top end lying halfway across. If my brother had not promptly released the rattan rope that he held, the boat might have slipped down under the sinking tree top.

I reversed the boat at once. The rattan tip of the trap sank for a while, drifting downstream. The crocodile was apparently trying to hide itself under the scrap to evade the hunt. But it had swallowed the monkey with the hook sticking inside. Wherever it went, the stem would show its floating tip to signal its whereabouts to my brother.

With his previous crocodile hunting experience on the river, he was certainly aware that hooked crocodiles were easy to haul onto the water surface. Yet it's on this surface that anglers should be particularly alert, because the powerful tail of this reptile could even smash down the large proboscis ape monkey native to this area of Kalimantan.

Jerking the rope he'd grabbed in the downstream current, he asked me to paddle to the bank. The boat was rocking slightly as the crocodile struggled hard and tried to swim further down. Tingang gripped the rope and the boat was tugged along by the crocodile, gliding fast downstream.

But when it was approaching the bay, the rope he clasped loosened. Then he drew the cord to reduce the distance between the crocodile and the boat. My heart was pounding for fear of those sharp-toothed long jaws snatching and devouring us both.

My brother already displayed the courage of a man. Showing no bewilderment or dread, he kept pulling the rope so that he got even closer to the crocodile. Now and again, it hit the boat with its tail, but Tingang deftly blocked the attack with the paddle blade. Another harder strike broke the blade and he was almost knocked off-balance.

Fortunately, he retained the handle to keep guard and save himself in case it smashed again. Meanwhile, the boat continued to cruise down the river and my brother tried to tie up its jaws. When he managed to lasso the jaws with the noose he had prepared, he jerked the rope to tighten the loop. He twisted the cord round and round to render the animal hopeless.

We so wanted to declare that we were top crocodile catchers. The next morning we would proudly tell our local villagers that we were no longer children thanks to our feat. So we tied the strapped reptile with a long rope to a robust wild mango tree to prevent it from escaping while allowing it to submerge. When people gathered, we would show them how two kids were the real conquerors of the "river king".

But before we had the opportunity to boast about our catch in the village, uncle Kojajanga found the crocodile dead at dawn.

"I went to the bay to lift a fish trap and when I returned I found it lifeless," I remembered him telling us.

But we got a good price for its skin. A Chinese trader from the city visiting the village bought our crocodile skin and Tingang deposited the money in a bank, enabling him to go to secondary school.

He told me later that the money left in his account was spent on his college tuition until graduation. He knew crocodile hunting was risky but he loved it. "Some day," he said wistfully, "nobody will catch crocodiles because they will no longer be found in this river."

I had no idea of the truth of his words at that time. But after my long absence from my ancestral village to study in the city -- and brought back by a desperate note from my mother about my father's sickness -- I realized that everything had changed.

When I went back to the stream where I had grown up, I felt something was missing. The shady rengas trees known for their fine timber, from which honeycombs hung in the past, no longer covered river plains.

Even nangka air, a kind of jackfruit formerly used as bait for catching baung and jelawat fish, was gone without a trace. Only some dahuq trees were left, with their yellow fruit dangling in clusters. The giant trees of the past were nowhere to be found, as if they had been uprooted by tornadoes and flown to realms of the hereafter! Puti and bilas trees, also the habitat of honeybees, vanished, probably due to long droughts or widespread forest fires several years ago.

I took a motorcycle taxi from Mencimai and Pucak Lomuq crossroads till I reached the riverbank to go by boat to Rinding village.

"So you're a native of Rinding?" asked the young man paddling the boat. "I've never seen you here so far."

"I'm a native here indeed," I affirmed. "But I was away for 40 years. This place has changed a lot."

"You left 40 years ago?" he responded with surprise. "It means you're 21 years older than me. Are you working in Jakarta?"

"I've been working there since I graduated in Yogyakarta," was my reply. "Do you go to college?"

"I can't afford to. Rattan is now worthless. Lakes are drying up and abandoned by fish because of the spread of water hyacinth. Our land has been stripped of logs, only forest products can be collected. But only a few have such permits. My father just cultivates dry fields..."

"Who's your father?"

"Upo Solai Puaq."

I remembered who his father was. He was my cousin.

"Your dad was my playmate. I used to go downstream myself by boat to school in Damai, but once it almost sank. Later I went to secondary and high school in Samarinda, before attending college in Yogyakarta and settling in Jakarta."

"You must be Pelanuk Muntih Jelo," the other youth at the bow said. "Only bapak Pelanuk Muntih Jelo has not returned. The others have been back, so we recognize them."

"You're right. You are brothers?"

"Yes, we are."

"Where's your dad's school?"

"Dad never attended school. Neither did mom. Rinding has no school. Only two houses are now left, or three with Usmaha Tinga's home, which nearly collapsed because it had been left abandoned for so long."

I could not express my emotions. When the boat was moored at the spot where villagers bathed, I suddenly remembered how Tingang and I had caught uncle Kojajanga stepping out of the house of a woman, Mileuwaq, during that foggy dawn when we went to check on the crocodile.

Perhaps in an attempt to avert suspicion, Kojajanga said he was checking that crocodile we had tied to the wild mango tree was dead.

Now, I jumped onto the shore. As I looked in the direction of downstream, a river extended to the east, seemingly penetrating a marshy forest.

"The bay has been cut off," said the one at the stern. "There were big floods and the family graves by the bay were washed away, because its plains were shattered by mighty flows of flood water."

I felt apprehensive. So the graves of my ancestors had vanished along with the broken bay that turned into a river?

Suddenly there was the sound of a gong struck repeatedly, signaling a death. In whose home? In my parents'? Or in Upo Solai Puaq's? I started going up the hill as fast as possible.

I was no stranger here but I was confused that there were only two houses. Where were the hundreds of homes from the past? It was like those deserted mining towns after workers sought new sources of livelihood in other places.

I knew in my heart that the sound came from my parents' home.

As I hurried into the house, I saw six or seven unfamiliar faces in the packed room.

An old man looked up and called me. "You're back home, Pelanuk Muntih Jelo?"

His voice was unchanged though his face and body were different. He was my father.

I was suddenly swept by an intense feeling of alienation. Why had my mom been taken and not my father? I had left for 40 years, never believing I would return for one day, and now the smell of death and decay pervaded my village.

I looked for my brother among the faces. Had death taken him to? And would it now take me as well, like it had taken my mom, the forests, the crocodiles and what had once been my beautiful home.

Translated by Aris Prawira

The Sublime Truth

2008-07-05T13:21:00.002+07:00

Short story: The Sublime Truth

The Jakarta Post, Sunday, April 27, 2008

By Garniasih

It was a Sunday afternoon and no one would blame the day for being so cold, after all winter had arrived just on time.

Silence ruled every path covered by snow, one could hardly hear the breeze rustling in the leaves.

Why would anyone be plodding along outside at this hour when they could be inside, having a hot cup of coffee rather than the surge of chill that seemed to freeze the blood? But this man with his head buried beneath an ebony hood kept walking, though his feet were literally dying.

Not far from here ... I'm sure of it. Come on ... a few more steps. You won't let it go this time ...

Something was waiting for him, and through the darkening day he tried to move his feet a bit faster, as if time were the only challenge he would have to defeat.

Suddenly he stopped, trying to remember how the cottage looked the last time he saw it. Closing his eyes, he had not intended to get the memories back in his head.

Then, moving slightly toward the "standing wooden box", his feet were heavier than ever, hundreds of tons it seemed. He was not afraid though, since by then he had more than five years to come to a final decision in doing this. But as he came closer to the door, he knew he was more than just terrified.

Trembling and shivering not merely for the cold, his left hand reached for the handle of the rickety door.

Have faith in what you're doing ...

Every second from then on counted the time he had left to live a normal life.

"Enjoy the moment Richard," his wife would always say. "You will regret every single moment you skipped just to avoid the sad part of this world ...."

How he desperately wanted the presence of his late wife, and not only her, there were two more parts taken away from him. Sassy, the eldest and the only one who was always able to bring him back from work late at night to make sure he got enough rest. Just 17, she would have had a lot of new experiences in high school, but it was gone in vain.

Randy, an extraordinary boy. How he had always loved the jokes that slipped out from his tiny 8-year-old hero. Three people out of thousands, who made his life perfect, were gone, and it surely took another important thing: his life.

Grasping the handle, he slowly pushed the door until it opened a creak. Squinting through the dusty air, he once again smelled the typical wooden odor. He took a deep breath and stood there for several minutes.

This was where the whole family spent most of their holidays. A nice little cottage perfect for the four of them. But there were not going to be any more family holidays, not after the terrible incident that had left him all alone. And since, he had left all the sweet memories locked up in that place, forbidden for others, hoping not to ever have to open the door again. Perhaps he was just wishing, from the moment he lost everything, that something would remain, something that would keep him alive, love that was lost for good.

He had no time to turn and run away. After all these years of living more like a fugitive of an unforgivable crime. But what he was seeing now was supposed to be the healing spring for all those buried pains. The dim light was turned on, and gently he stepped in. Nothing had moved an inch. Pictures of smiling faces filled the living room; one would think they were retelling the exact feelings they experienced.

Coming up here was a challenge, he had to face things that once brought him happiness. If only they still could do it, if only they could still build some castles in the sky high above, if only ... suddenly he spotted something, there was a case under the dining table, perfectly wrapped by brown leather.

Is it? Can it be? Yes, this is it ...

Moving gently, he first leaned forward and had a long look at the case while trying to figure out what it might contain. Then he squatted and began to touch the edges, his soul was suddenly filled with feelings he could barely understand. Brushing off the dust, he made a decision to open the forgotten case.

There were so much to see, books, pieces of scattered papers, some sort of silhouettes and more pictures. A tiny notepad caught his attention not because of its bright scarlet color, but rather the fine handwritten words that ran across the cover:

Collected Poems & Quotations of the Reynalds

He carefully opened the notepad and started reading the first quotation that appeared, so familiar, "The greatest pleasure I know, is to do a good action by stealth, and to have it found out by accident." (Table Talk by the late Elia. The Athenaeum, 4 Jan., 1834) This was one of his late wife's favorite things to say while she gave a big smile to her beloved husband, expecting that one day he would find out what it meant. Below that was another quotation, this time from the Bible: "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed; for the Lord thy God is with thee, whithersoever thou goest." (Joshua 1:9)

Silence and loneliness had always accompanied him, but this last sentence started to fill his soul, emerging as his new best friend. He touched every single word, trying to hear it repeating again and again in him.

He shut his eyes and there came three smiling faces, the people he loved most. Those words were waiting right there to be read one day by a desperate and lonely man hungry for love. Struck by the sudden truth, he realized that all this time he was never alone nor left alone, because He was there, and forever will He be with him.***