'Beautiful Eyes' offers a glimpse into Indonesian short stories

'Beautiful Eyes' offers a glimpse into Indonesian short stories

Beautiful Eyes - Kompas Best Short Stories 2001;
Translated by Rebecca Fanany;
Kompas Book Publisher, 2001;
pp xli + 191;
Rp 35,000

JAKARTA (JP): For the ninth time since 1992, with an absence
in 1998, Kompas has published an annual selection of its "best"
stories printed in its Sunday edition.

This year's collection is special as it comes out along with
its English translation. A wise decision indeed because, as the
selection committee has put it, "In an increasingly global
society, in the face of the declining reputation of our people
and nation in the international community, we need something we
can 'sell' to the rest of the world other than sensationalized
news people 'read' in the print and electronic media."

As much as stories are taken as the reflection of a society,
this will be an effective way to introduce a particular nation to
the outside world.

A short story, or any story for that matter, may be
interesting to read because of its plot, its characters, its
theme or its setting. When we read a good story, we feel as if we
were in a certain place, meeting certain people with certain
traits of character. It is this feeling of going into another
world, the imagined world created by the author, that makes
reading a story a fascinating activity.

It is interesting to note that except for one story, which is
written by a Balinese writer, the other 15 short stories in
Beautiful Eyes have been written by writers from either Sumatra
or Java.

This may reflect the taste of the selection committee or,
perhaps, the fact that stories by writers in the east of
Indonesia are few and far between. In the case of the former, it
would be a good idea if the introduction, which dwells lengthily
on the selection process, also includes the selection criteria so
that the readers may also be convinced of the choice made by the
selection committee.

Of all the 16 short stories in this collection, 10 have a
clear reference to the places in which they are set, eight
domestically and two abroad, in Kathmandu, Nepal and the foot of
Mt. Fuji in Japan. The other six present only events and people.
Unfortunately, even when a setting of place is mentioned in a
story, it does not lend any local color to the story. Names of
places appear without much effect on the story.

It seems that the writers are more interested in people and
what they do rather than where something takes place. As a matter
of fact, a proper setting of place would have created a
particular atmosphere and made the theme of a story more easily
understood. After all, events need a specific place to occur and
specific events occur only in specific places and involve
specific people. This is what is generally lacking in Indonesian
short stories and in this regard the stories in Beautiful Eyes
are unfortunately no exception.

Beautiful Eyes contain translated stories. Translated stories
may be read with or without reference to the original texts. In
the case of the former, a reader may hope to get not only the
content but also the spirit of the stories in the original
language. In this regard, the translation's skill plays a key
role because a misunderstanding or misrepresentation of a
sentence or a phrase may be misleading.

Read through as a translation piece, Beautiful Eyes, despite
the generic shortcomings of Indonesian short stories, is a
pleasure to read in that it presents a slice of contemporary
Indonesian life that allows foreign readers to have a glimpse of
what prevails in today's Indonesian society.

Unfortunately, again, when this collection is read against the
original version, there are some disturbing points that a more
careful translation process may have avoided. The following are a
few examples of these disturbing points in some of the translated
stories:

In Budi Darma Beautiful Eyes the last sentence reads: "I am
sure mother heard my final words." (p. 8). Compare this with the
original :Saya yakin ibu tidak sempat mendengar kalimat saya
terakhir., which reads in English:" I'm sure mother did not have
time to hear my final words."

Then in Jujur Prananto's Jakarta is Silent in the Middle of
the Night, the last sentence reads: "My God! I never told father
we were moving to Tanahabang." (p. 19) Originally this part
reads: "Ya Allah! Saya belum pernah kirim kabar ke bapak kalau
kita sudah pindah dari Tanah Abang!" (My God! I never told father
we had moved from Tanahabang.)

Another example is in Yanusa Nugroho's Umairah. The original
sentence "Seorang ibu dengan kelembutannya menggendong si Umi"
has the English equivalent of "A woman gently picked Umi up." (p.
28). What is lost here is the writer's attempt to show that Umi,
who has just lost her mother, receives the gentleness of a mother
from an unknown, yet kind lady. The sentence could have read "A
woman, with the gentleness of a mother, picked Umi up."

In another story, a certificate of patriotism is chosen for
"sertifikat perintis kemerdekaan", which may better be translated
as "an independence struggle pioneer certificate." A certificate
of patriotism does not tell as much about what one has done to
one's country as the latter certificate. Unless the reader
understands what being a pioneer in a struggle for independence
is, the message in Elegy for Anwar Saeedy will be missed.

It is a pity that this collection of translated short stories,
which actually shows good translation in general, should be
flawed by some inappropriately translated sentences or phrases,
which in some stories are found at important parts and may
therefore lead to a different interpretation and understanding of
the stories concerned. Perhaps, an Indonesian editor with a good
mastery of english should have been hired in the first place to
ensure that an embarrassing blooper like Translator by Rebecca
Fanany on the inside title page could have been avoided.

-- Lie Huais a lecturer in the English Dept., School of
Letters, at the National University, Jakarta.