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“ONE AFTERNOON on a weekend in March, Dewi Ayu rose from her grave after being dead for twenty-one years.” 

This is the premises that readers are welcomed with. With this interesting opening, readers are led to a wondrous journey that one can never forget.  

The story is told in a random order – one of Kurniawan’s characteristics as a writer. Instead of telling the stories in a linear order, Kurniawan would play around with readers’ head and mess with it a little with provocative and disturbing scenes and characterizations.  

As signaled in the first sentence of the book, Dewi Ayu is the source of all troubles or stories should I say. 

Dewi Ayu is a child who was conceived by two siblings who love each other. Though Dewi Ayu’s parents were not born by the same mother, the two of them have the same father which makes their relationship incestuous. Dewi Ayu’s grandfather, a Dutchman, had Dewi Ayu’s grandmother from his mother side, who is native Indonesian, as a concubine, something that is very usual during the colonial era. When discovered that the two siblings were having forbidden love, unable to face the shame, they both ran away from the house and lived in a place that nobody knew. One day a baby was found in front of Dewi Ayu’s grandparents’ house – later known to be their incestuous children’s daughter and named Dewi Ayu. That is how Dewi Ayu came into being. 

That was just a tiny bite version of the story. Keep your stomach empty as you will be eating a lot of stories. Oftentimes you have to take a big bite because you simply can’t stop eating this delicious food created by the chef named Eka Kurniawan. 

Of course when a woman is taken as a concubine it won’t be a smooth sailing process. Ma Iyang, the concubine, was forced to become Ted Stammler’s lover even though she herself has had a lover named Ma Gedik. And ---- without any intention to spoil anything ---- this is going to be a very significant factor in the whole structure of the story. I leave it that way. If I go further I might lose control over what to say. 

The story about Dewi Ayu’s parents and grandparents – they all happened during the Dutch colonial era. Meanwhile, Dewi Ayu had to live in 3 important eras in Indonesian history, Dutch colonial era, Indonesian Independence Day, Japanese occupation, G30SPKI and many more. Each era has its own unique quality and cruelty. There is no better way of describing that era than what Kurnawan has done. 

To tell you briefly, after Dewi Ayu’s Dutch grandma escaped to Europe and Dewi Ayu refused to go along, she was made to become a prostitute for Japanese soldiers. She continued to become a prostitute even when the time has allowed her to pursue another career. For her prostitution is the only way to avoid having tragic relationship like his Indonesian grandmother had with his pathetic lover, Ma Gedik. So she continued to become a prostitute until her deathbed. 

I have been talking about Dewi Ayu so far, but this book is not a kind of book where there is only one character as the center of the story. No, that is not Kurniawan’s style. Kurniawan is a big believer that all characters have to be given an even portion of story as to avoid “black” and “white” characterization. For Kurniawan there is no one character that is good enough or bad enough. They are just human beings with all their humanbeingness – that refers to their inability to avoid making mistake and at times a very terrible one and also that does not exclude their potential to be a good person. This is the thing that I like about Kurniawan and other Postmodern writers (in whatever term that is), they avoid making black and white characterization. As a reader I hate to be made to sympathize with one single character only as it makes me more judgmental. For us to like one character we have to hate the other character. Hating is something that we should do less for it won’t bring anything good to life. Instead, it would only bring worst thing to life. 

Other important characters and very central to the story are Alamanda, Adinda, Maya Dewi and Beauty – the four of them are Dewi Ayu illegitimate daughters. Each has her own interesting life and worthy of attention. Alamanda is married to Sodancho who is a national hero. Though he is a hero to a lot of people, he is no more than a rapist to Alamanda. To know more why she thinks about her husband that way you have to read the book. Adinda, on the other hand, was married to Alamanda’s sweetheart who is a communist leader, Comrade Kliwon. There is more to the story, I promise, that is why you have to read it. Maya Dewi was married when she was still 13 to a man who used to sleep with her mother, Maman Gendeng. Why and what happens to her afterwards? Go to bookstore and read the story. Meanwhile, Beauty, whose name is the opposite of her physical appearance, was made pregnant by an invincible man. 

Apart from these characters, there are several important characters more: Rengganis, Nur Aini, Krisan and the son on the gravedigger. Who they are and what their connections when the characters whose names have been mentioned earlier and how importance they are to the story? There is only one way to find out: read the book!

Good characterization technique is not the only quality that Kurniawan has, he is also very good at fusing story with mythologies and myths. When reading this story it is inevitable not to think about familiar mythology such as the Helen of troy mythology, Sangkuriang dan Dayang Sumbi, the story of how Jesus escaped to heaven and Judas the traitor took his form and in turn got crucified by the mass, and even the recharacterization of national heroes. A friend of mine said that certain characters take the form of certain national heroes that I don’t know of, especially the male characters.

I can go on forever talking about this book. But I guess, it will be hard to go on talking without spoiling the story. So I stop it here. I hope I have done a good job to make you want to read this book. This really is a good book. It is very different from other books by Indonesian author. Bottom line, you won’t be disappointed!