Beauty Is a Wound

I finished reading Beauty is a Wound (Cantik itu Luka translated by Annie Tucker) last week. I am stunned by how well this crazy mishmash of stories reflected the jumble that resides in an enigmatic file in my head labeled “Jawa”. All the professional reviews agree that this is an important, landmark, revolutionary, complex book. I want to explain WHY that is so true. Unless the reader understands the topic—Indonesia, it’s just another vague statement of greatness by reviewers. I would like to explain why this book is really hitting some reader’s nerves and why for others it might be inexplicable.
Kurniawan successfully put everything I know and feel about the former Dutch East Indies and today’s West Java in a blender. Then he poured out a tale that is representative of the inexplicable, tight hold Indonesia can have on someone with ties to the Mooi Indie. Reading Beauty is a Wound seemed like a visit to the homeland of my soul, and I am still struggling with just how to review this book for “non-Indonesia proficient” audiences. There is one word in Bahasa Indonesia that I keep repeating. It is “Rasa”. It means feel or taste, or sensation of. And Kurniawan has distilled the “Rasa” of Indonesia. So bear with me as I try to make sense of this momentous jumble in some logical fashion.
Translation: The translation is first rate. Nothing is lost in translation, so the book is quite easy to read. There are some Indonesian and Dutch words used for effect, but not enough to cause readers to really slow down. Some terms may confuse a western reader unfamiliar with Indonesia, but you can figure it out from context.
Story line: Like Lelaki Harimau (Man Tiger, also by Kurniawan), Beauty is Wound is really a simple ghost story, or perhaps several ghost stories! The main ghost is Dewi Ayu, (literally Goddess Pretty, and of course, an allegory for Mooi Indie, Dutch for the Beautiful Indies). Dewi Ayu, who refused to leave her Indonesian homeland when most Dutch bolted, rises from the grave years later in order to stop another ghost’s long-term curse upon her bastard progeny and their inappropriate husbands and the doomed next generation (all of whom are more allegories for sections of, or forces in, Indonesian society). The book can be read just for the story line.
Fractured Time Line: Readers need to learn the reasons for the curse and everyone’s back-story! And do they have back-stories! The interwoven Back Stories give you “The Political and Social History of Indonesia Since Colonial Times.” Kurniawan only lets you learn the important bits of the back-story as they become germane to the tale he is telling. So while the book does progress from Dutch Colonial times to contemporary Indonesia, the structure of the telling is not strictly chronological. We see the reasons for the interwoven time lines in the book when their past comes back to haunt someone. Literally.
Violence/Sex/Rape: Wow, there is plenty of sex, war and murder in this book. The violence, while graphic, seems to be exactly at the level I always imagined it to be from other sources and first person tales that I have heard from Indonesian and Dutch witnesses to these events. Indonesia is a huge, insanely diverse country that went through some extremely grim times in the last 100 years. (Watch The Year of Living Dangerously with Mel Gibson, if you want a quick primer in the feel of 1965 Indonesia.) Kurniawan is telling that multifaceted tale in the style of Indonesian folk tales and legends; the descriptions may not be factually correct, but you get the feel of the unsettled atmosphere that existed. All this happens in a coastal fictional locale called, Halimunda. (Halimun is the word for mist! So where this town actually lies is meant to be “foggy.”)
In an allegory where a country is a woman, and segments of that country other women, and “forces of evil” keep attacking that country or segments, you have many rape scenes. One could easily summarize major events in Indonesian history by saying, “Once again, Indonesia got screwed.” That’s what Kurniawan is doing. He’s not a crazy sex fiend. He is not advocating that men should treat women like that. He is using it to effect. I often want to start my own tale of Indonesia with the line, “From the day Columbus set off to locate Indonesia to steal her spices, Indonesia kept getting screwed….”
So to sum up, we have an important, epic, satirical, adult, historical fiction, ghost allegory rife with symbolism that approximates the History of the Republic of Indonesia.
Suspend all your disbelief, jettison all expectations and jump right in. The Water is Fine!
While I am screaming, “YES! I got to wallow mentally in what I have been studying for 40 years! The post-colonial period of the Republic of Indonesia,” some of you are asking, “Huh?”
To be honest, this is a book written for those familiar with (ok, really BEYOND familiar with, perhaps utterly steeped in) recent Indonesian history. Both POLITICAL and SOCIAL history during the latter half of the 20th Century and specifically those formative and determinative events that happened on the Island of Java since about 1940. The Japanese occupation, the three-way guerilla war for independence, the 1965 failed coup and its murderous anti-communist aftermath, and the perhaps less violent, but oppressive decades of the New Order, and then the 1990’s reformasi and recent history that perhaps brought an to the end of the curse…
Oh, and you might need a basic understanding of the major groups in Indonesian society. The Indos—mixed-race Dutch (or Japanese, or any other Eurasian mix). The PKI—Communist Party members or supporters (farmers, workers). Muslims—Intellectual liberals and/or fundamentalist, but rarely communist, and often protesting college students. Chinese-Indonesians—the Business Men perhaps allied to or exploited by Suharto. The Indonesian Military—was KNIL, then PETA, then ABRI, now TNI, has a “Dual Function” in that it actually created the state, and was very much involved in politics and business. And the criminal gangs or Preman—think Indonesian Mafia! Unity in Diversity! Yah!
If the last paragraph confused you, I would suggest reading a few Wikipedia pages on the Dutch East Indies and then the Republic of Indonesia from 1947 to the present before trying to read this book. Why? Because this complex book is an extended allegory for the birth of and struggle to mature of the Republic of Indonesia. If you want more understanding of recent Indonesian history, read Indonesian Politics Under Suharto: The Rise and Fall of the New Order, by Michael Vatikiotis.
There is something peculiar and cyclical in the history of Indonesia and Kurniawan maximizes that. The more you know about Indonesia and its people, the more you will understand and the more you will get the many jokes and scathing political comments in this book. But Beauty is a Wound will teach a reader new to Indonesia plenty about what really happened in Java after the Japanese invaded. And it is not a pretty picture.
Here’s the mystery about Indonesia, those people who love her, love her WITH all her faults, and she has plenty. There is still rural poverty and city slums, but there is incredible art and creativity, there are astounding natural riches, there was political suppression, but there is a high literacy rate and huge middle class, there are huge environmental issues, there is beauty beyond belief. That’s what makes Indonesia interesting and creates that “perasaan,” that weird sensation of Indonesia that Kurniawan captures. There is something addicting about Indonesia. Once you have been to Indonesia, most people want to go back. And I bet that is why Kurniawan made Dewi Ayu a prostitute that men wanted to return to. Read this book and you will also know this Beautiful Indonesia—one you will never learn about in any school.
But the real prize for reading this book is seeing just how Kurniawan actually puts all this together into a cohesive, entertaining tale!
And Yes, he does that. I read this thick book in a few days. I did not want to put it down. I am obsessed with Indonesia. I already know what Indo means, I already know what dog eater connotes, I know what Belanda and totok mean. But that’s because I had a Belanda stepfather who was born a totok in Bandung, West Java and the history of much of this book was his personal heartrending story as well. And the most significant other person is my life is a multilayered Orang Sunda from West Java. For an American, I am about as familiar with Indo-Dutch, Indos and Indonesians as I could possibly get without being born to it myself.
This book should be on the reading list at every University Asian Studies Program in the English Speaking World. This book tells all sides of these horrendous events. It is not a dry political textbook by some Western political academic looking down at Indonesia as a specimen of military oppression of democracy or as a petri dish of surprising economic development. It is not slanted toward the military, the PKI, or any one group. It is not apologizing or apologetics for any of those horrid events. It does not worry about who was right or wrong or if it was the fault of the Dutch, the Japanese, the Military, the PKI, the passive population, Sukarno, or Suharto. Indonesia and her people just struggle through 50 years of violence and social and creative suppression.
This book is important because it may mark the absolute end of the events it spears so well. The book’s existence may mean Indonesia has reached a point at which Indonesian civil society, democratic rule, and intellectual freedom and creativity are relatively safe from being screwed again.
Indonesia, and particularly for me, West Java where fictional Halimunda seems to be located, have some kind of magic power that permeates your soul and heart. Once she really gets her hooks in you, you emotionally live in that “perasaan” forever. If like Dewi Ayu, I was forced to consider leaving the “Indonesia” in my heart, I would, like her, answer, “I’m not going.”

Kurniawan is definitely a magical realist. I really enjoyed that quality of the work where realistic action can take place and then the fantastic element comes in as though it was usual. The story is also a sprawling saga over a few generations, mainly focussing on one woman's family.

My greatest shock and incredible unease is that he writes about the desire men feel for the female characters as rape. His male protagonists often look at a female character and want to `rape her' and this happens with quite a few of the relationships. They start off with rape and end up as something else. I wonder if this is a Muslim concept that doesn't translate comfortably into English. Our authors don't write about natural every day desire in such a brutal and violent way. If there is rape it is then a violent and negative act.

Mindless dribble. This is not literature. It is not thoughtful, or well-crafted. It does not allow any significant insight into the human condition. It is just a very long rant, sprinkled with sex to sell.

"One afternoon on a weekend in March, Dewi Ayu rose from her grave after being dead for twenty-one years." Not your usual opening for a novel, is it? Dewi Ayu, formerly the most sought-after prostitute in the district of Halimunda, walks back to her house, takes a bath, and is reunited with her daughter Beauty, who she had prayed would be born ugly -- as indeed she most certainly was. After a few dozen pages, the action slips back in time to Dewi Ayu's childhood, her experience of being forced into a brothel by the invading Japanese, her postwar success in the business on her own, the various suitors for her hand, and so on, covering most of Indonesian history from 1940 to the present.

Eka Kurniawan is a good storyteller, and most of the episodes are interesting in their own ways. Apart from Dewi Ayu herself, we meet a variety of characters who are each a little larger than life, such as the strongest man in the community, or the young former guerilla leader who wants only to retire to a cave and meditate. We learn folk tales such as that of the beautiful Princess Rengganis who, tired of all the men seeking her in marriage, decided one day to throw open her shutters and we'd the first person that she sees. Some of the stories, such as the girls' suffering in the Japanese prison camp, are truly horrible. But the vaguely comic tone of the whole, whether influenced by the folklore tradition or magical realism, makes it difficult to take it all seriously, or even to sustain much interest after a certain point.

A pity, because I genuinely wanted to know more about Indonesia, and also enjoyed the fabulous tone of many of the chapters. But for me, those two elements worked against one another instead of combining.

Totally beyond me. I normally don't disagree with Kirkus starred reviews, but I'm surprised I got through it.

A killer first line, and the story kept me engaged all the way through to the end. A great blend of history and magic while introducing this western reader to a place I'll never have the opportunity to visit. I wouldn't describe the cast of characters as lovable, but they are definitely interesting and complex. I couldn't put the book down, and am extremely glad it fell into my hands.

The winding story with its magical elements is difficult enough to gain a hold of, but the horrific acts of sexual violence prove an even more formidable obstacle, though perseverance shows that the narrator’s unflinching honesty rather than perverseness unearths these acts (still, survivors should tread lightly). Kurniawan’s point seems to be to show what many in the third-world know well: how rape of land and nation is inextricably linked to rape of women. Further, rape is commonplace and ignored and cannot be ignored and must end. And even more, nations and women can survive their rapists, even these wounds so deep.
Considering that this book was first published in the world’s largest Muslim country, the inclusion of this content speaks to immense commitment to art and message—and no doubt the writer paid for it. It is thus probably a secondary concern that his work will be compared to Marquez’s, but hopefully it is a balm that he has succeeded in making an epic worthy of the Colombian’s tradition. Kurniawan shows the rare ability to make readers bemoan every one of the hundredfold digressions only to be engrossed in the newly unfurling story within sentences; more than that, he has the genius to pull it all together at the end. He skillfully balances humor in the midst of horror, and he wields unexpected images and languages breathtakingly.

Comparisons to Garcia Marquez and One Hundred Years of Solitude Well-Deserved

If you enjoy allegorical tales; yearn to learn and think as you read without being overly challenged; delight in discovering (or trying to) the metaphorical meaning of actions, characters and things within a story; and/or relished "Animal Farm" and/or "One Hundred Years of Solitude,"

You should definitely read this novel which reflects and criticizes the turbulent history of the world's 4th most populous country Indonesia, a country of more than 14,000 islands and of terrible tsunamis. Indonesia's native citizens suffered under three and a half centuries of Dutch rule, Japanese occupation for 3 years during WWII, the mass slaughter of possibly a million citizens after the failed Communist coup in 1965, followed by the despotic rule of Suharto for 3 decades.

Kurniawan tells this tempestuous history by the epic story, by turns ridiculous, magical and hilarious but always captivating, of Dewi Ayu, the 3/4 Dutch and 1/4 Malaysian girl forced into prostitution in her late teens upon Japanese occupation, her four daughters (each with different fathers), their lovers and husbands, Dewi Ayu's 3 grandchildren, and the village of Halimundo, which is very reminiscent of the village of Macondo in One Hundred Years of Solitude. Kurniawan also weaves in colorful, intriguing local folklore to make his points.

While the novel contains some scenes of the grotesque and of rapes, they did not seem gratuitous and I can't say they weren't needed to reflect the tragedies that have befallen Indonesia and its residents.

I'll go out on a limb to say this fascinating, sordid and intellectually stimulating novel is destined to be deemed a classic written by the young Indonesian author Eka Kurniawan, for whom the comparisons to Gabriel Garcia Marquez are well-deserved.

I read the Indonesian version, perhaps a bit late since this was originally published early last decade. I enjoyed the book very much. Although many reviewers compare Eka Kurniawan with Pramoedya Ananta Toer, I think the two are quite different. Pramoedya's historical novels are devoid of magicism. In fact they are more strongly political. Eka's book is less political and deals with the consequences of history on a family. I am not sure if the raping of women can be seen as common place, but then I wouldn't know how it was during the war or periods of political repression, when this could've been more widespread than during normal time. A good representation of Indonesian literature.

Audible. Sorry I paid for it. The accolades suggest that reviewers just want to sell books, and that readers' capacity to recognize literature has fallen to a new low. It may be by an Indonesian writer, but its connection to Indonesia is at best a glancing blow. Trash under the labels of "magical realism" or "historical fiction." I don't think the author can even spell "empathy." Feh!