Ayu cheers up gloomy literature scene
By Prasetyohadi
JAKARTA (JP): A young writer has provided solace for the Indonesian literary scene, which has been in the shadow of prevailing gloom, with a unique novel.
Deep, mesmerizing chains of reflection-imbibed prose combined with a prolific mastery of the Indonesian language earned Ayu Utami the Chairil Anwar Literary Award organized by the Jakarta Arts Council.
Having read Ayu's novel, Saman, noted poet and literatus Sapardi Djoko Damono, who was a member of the jury, said the work astonished him.
"Spellbinding! Where might this woman have learned the language," he said, adding that he felt compelled to take a refresher course in Indonesian to remedy the protracted literary drought he may be suffering as a result.
Sapardi said the jury was relieved that Indonesian could still be written in a "well-defined, efficient, flexible yet elegant manner".
The general public has expressed concern over the poor state of literature, as reflected in the small number of literary works published. There has been a shortfall in the teaching of literature to students in most schools. And the lack of freedom of expression has discouraged those in literary circles from penning quality, creative work.
The writing contest itself was a victim. It was suspended for more than 10 years due to financial problems.
Ayu, 30, beat 68 other contestants with her story which traces the experiences of three young, urban, middle-class women wrestling with self-identity and whose lives become entwined in love affairs and social issues.
The complex story develops gracefully around the life choice made by a Catholic priest, Wisanggeni, nicknamed Saman, who the women met while he was a school teacher.
The priest experiences inner turmoil over his religious pursuit and decides to promote social justice through his involvement in a labor struggle at a plantation owned by tycoons in South Sumatra.
The priest plays a large role and, during the novel's creation, he came to life and occupied more pages than Ayu had initially planned.
Ayu conveys the priest's agony when he is arrested and tortured by company-paid security personnel.
"... He woke up feeling as small as a bodiless head. He was confined within his head. No fingers, no heart. Blurred. 'Is it night am I in my mother's womb? For I feel warm and wet'. Then came the glow of a meteor. That was the first vision he had. But the light did not come from an asteroid, or a meteor, but the roof as the fetal membrane parted. He was sucked into the whirlpool along with the uterus bubble. Then, as the sky completely ripped apart, the first thing he saw was his mother's face behind a pair of mountainous breasts. Snow on the nipples ..."
Ayu employed a new storytelling technique, using literary gaps to enhance suspense and enrich it.
The result: it makes readers gasp as the story's irregular sequence unfolds with skillful maneuvering, including its erotic e-mail correspondence.
Ayu, who had been preoccupied with journalism, never imagined herself writing a literary work until she found the somewhat bohemian, learned community of Teater Utan Kayu in East Jakarta.
Inspired and managed by poet and journalist Goenawan Mohamad, the community provides an atmosphere where people can discuss issues ranging from Indonesian affairs, recent political and economic issues to philosophical questions and rare, quality films to diverse art performances.
Goenawan characterized Ayu as a "quick-learning" and sometime pensive writer.
Her closeness to the Utan Kayu community, and particularly with Goenawan, has prompted accusations in journalistic and literary circles that Goenawan wrote the novel for Ayu.
"The accusation is irrelevant," she replied bitterly.
Ayu said the novel itself employs at least five different language styles, that could not have come only from Goenawan, for instance.
She admitted there were people who assisted her in the creation stage by casting an eye over her drafts. But, they did no more than comment whether it was all right or not, she said.
Writing a good novel involves other people, an undertaking seldom exercised by Indonesian story writers, because an author himself/herself is not able to have a detailed knowledge on all the issues an extended story requires, she added.
The novel was submitted under the pen name Jambu Air and Sapardi said that regardless of the writer's identity, the story itself was fascinating.
Besides Ayu's innovative writing style, which the jury described as ahead of its time, he said, the author had yet to define where the trend was heading in Indonesian literature.
The literary circle awaits critiques on the story.
Ayu has written four short stories which were published in magazines such as the women's weekly Femina and the men's monthly Matra, where Ayu had worked for some months as a stringer.
She was a journalist at Forum Keadilan and D&R news weeklies before she recently joined the local cultural journal Kalam.
While studying at the School of Russian Linguistics at the University of Indonesia, Ayu was more interested in modeling. Her exotic face has appeared on the cover of some popular, Jakarta- based magazines.
A Jakartan from a traditional family -- she grew up in the prestigious Kebayoran Baru quarters of a government attorney -- Ayu forced herself to get close to "the origin of language consciousness".
"I learn Indonesian from anything I encounter," she quipped. "I like to hear and listen to sounds including music, putting aside all school material."
While listening to the world around her for inspiration, Ayu also found her voice by reading one of the world's renowned literary achievements.
"At one time I was reading nothing but the Bible, from which I learned a lot about literature," she said, adding that the Old Testament had a great influence on her literary ability.
Her novel is couched in the persistent eloquence of women seeking justice in a patriarchal world but it does not hinder the protagonists from revealing their character and allowing the tangibility of various daily problems to arise.
"Women shall themselves interpret what sex is all about. It definitely does not belong merely to men," Ayu said, adding that some had criticized her description of sex as being "sometimes indecent".
Such criticism is not surprising as a similar comment was made when people first read Belenggu by distinguished author Sutan Takdir Alisjahbana in 1933.
Ayu selectively adopted biblical symbols to assert sexual imagination which offer new perspectives on sexual life. She twisted, for instance, the patriarchal myopia of a Genesis story then indulged in the graphic celebration of the Salomon Canticle and fearsome yet mysterious dream of apocalyptic revelation.
At one point, her novel says the imbalance of intimate relationships could definitely be repaired if one living in a society where sex is taboo dares to take the spiritual fruits by piercing through outrageous thoughts.
And the novel is not the end of Ayu's storytelling as she is now working on the second part of the novel.
For those who have not read her prose, the following is the opening, a description of Laila Gagarina's feelings while in Central Park, New York, 1996:
"In this park, I am a bird.
Having flown a thousand miles from a country not knowing the seasons, migrating to find spring, where the grass' fragrance evaporates, also trees, of which we do not know the names or the age.
Wood fragrance, stone coldness, the smell of bushes, do they have names or ages?
Humans name them, as parents name children, though the plants are older. Rafflesia Arnoldi does not grow in Central Park but in tropical forest on the Malay highland, but we know the English later fathered the flower.
People are talking about anything that grows, either cultivated or wild, as if they know them more than the tree trunks feel the cold and the scorching sun, or the earth's warmth. But animals did not learn them by their names, as mothers or mates do not call their hatched and suckled by names. They know without words."