A rare book with sexy topic

'The Romance of K'tut Tantri and Indonesia' By Timothy Lindsey Oxford University Press, 1997 Hardback 362 pp AU$65

MELBOURNE (JP): There are many a doctorate thesis that have been spruced up and published as books but one dealing with such a sexy topic as Timothy Lindsey's The Romance of K'tut Tantri and Indonesia is rare indeed.

First, any topic that touches on Bali will always hold the reader's fascination. Lindsey's book not only paints Bali against the backdrop of Western concept of orientalism, it also explores the origins of that concept, with its flaws and other drawbacks.

Second, it attempts to place K'tut Tantri, celebrated author of Revolt in Paradise under a cultural and historical microscope.

Any writer whose autobiography becomes a bestseller, is translated into over a dozen languages and receives numerous glowing reviews internationally, is bound to be subject to a great deal of attention.

K'tut Tantri's Revolt in Paradise is not an ordinary autobiography. It is a war novel, set largely in romantic Bali and claims to tell first-hand, the story of Indonesia's struggle for independence from a participant's point of view. It is understandable that some people have disputed the veracity of the events recounted, hence the historical value of the book.

For the satisfaction of separating the fabricated truth from the real truth, Lindsey may have set out to dissect the image created by K'tut Tantri but what he eventually achieved is far more spectacular. He places this image in multiple contexts: historical, artistic, cultural and psychological.

He describes the phenomenon among artists and other romantics in the West to regard Bali as an oriental Utopia, uncorrupt by the trappings of Western capitalism and rampant consumerism.

It is into this image of Bali that Muriel Pearson escaped in 1932 from materialism-saturated Hollywood. She did not seek war or revolution-type adventure, she was, rather, swept into it. And it soon became obvious that the role of a revolutionary heroine agreed with her psyche. And it seems, as a romantic, she romanticized her version of events.

Lindsey's investigations reveal that there was a great deal more than mere romanticism that made Pearson -- who later adopted the name Mrs. Manx and numerous others, nicknamed Surabaya Sue and Yankee Mata Hari -- present her preferred version in Revolt in Paradise.

Muriel Pearson, nee Walker, sought to recreate herself and her place in the world from a less than happy childhood. And she had the good fortune of possessing imagination, resourcefulness, courage and get-up-and-go, that many in her situation lacked.

There is no doubt also, that the core of Revolt in Paradise is true. What critics found doubtful is her role in this core story. It appears from Lindsey's research that K'tut Tantri may have reshuffled the chronology of events to make herself more prominent in the picture.

I have yet to read an autobiography, especially one that is as gripping as hers, that remains 100 percent faithful to the chronology of events. Deliberate rebuilding aside, the autobiographer's memory does play tricks during the denouement of the whole story.

Most of the official documentation paints Pearson-Manx-Tantri as eccentric and prone to telling lies. Curiously, this impression is reinforced by those, mostly fellow Westerners, who knew her in Bali.

Even the more generous ones were disparaging in their description of her. However, Lindsey sought to explain this away by painting her and her situation against the cultural perception and prejudice prevalent at that time.

In the latter part of her life in the Dutch East Indies, swept into the middle of the people's struggle for independence against the Dutch, the Japanese and the Allies, K'tut Tantri suffered a great deal.

Accused of being an American spy, she was imprisoned by the Japanese and continuously tortured for eighteen months. Suspected of being a communist, the Allies made her life as difficult as possible. Recognized as a sympathizer, the independence fighters coopted her.

All this happened in a relatively short span of time. Yet out of this turbulence her sympathies for the Indonesians transpired. For this there was sufficient documentation and personal testimony, despite her obvious attempts at self-aggrandizement in her autobiography.

This book is the most comprehensive so far in painting K'tut Tantri in the wider landscape of her own native hometown in Scotland, her brief life in the U.S., her attempts at building her own Utopia in Bali and her major involvement in Indonesia's struggle for independence.

Lindsey achieved this without appearing voyeuristic. Her physical attributes reach the reader's consciousness without the author having to paint her deliberately and her various emotions come through without him describing her biological anxieties in detail.

Lindsey also succeeded in painting the woman as wholesomely as was possible by his cultural forensic skills. The product is a three dimensional person, not stripped of her romantic side, yet revealing her guiles and her attempts at glossing over the aspects of her life that she liked least.

It is a very human K'tut Tantri that comes across from this book, deserving of fascination, if not admiration, and in many ways endearing.

-- Dewi Anggraeni