James' novel tells of gentle clashes of culture

James' novel tells of gentle clashes of culture

Briony Kidd, Contributor/Jakarta

The Java Man

Jamie James, Metafor Publishing, 2004

400 pp

Indonesia is "as exotic as one could possibly wish," finds the
middle-aged director of an historic mansion in rural England upon
ending up unexpectedly in Yogyakarta. "Indeed, they [do] nothing
the same here, not one thing."

Tildy Dowling is probably just thinking that people have a lot
of sugar in their tea and so forth, but her innocent response is
what The Java Man is all about. This second novel from Indonesia-
based American Jamie James points out that it is possible to meet
someone -- a quite ordinary person like oneself -- and find that
their understanding of life is completely different.

And, as is the case for many of the characters in this story,
this realization can have a profound impact.

The Java Man is odd and highly readable. Though light and
witty, it is also sharply perceptive and, occasionally,
mysterious. The plot centers around Thistlethwaite, built by a
famous 19th century writer and explorer of the Orient (which is
where the Indonesian connection comes in), and maintained for
posterity by a wealthy estate.

The invention of John Dunstable is an example of James' gift
for revealing humor in detail: Dunstable is known for a rather
infuriating book of Gothic short stories and a blank verse epic
poem he wrote at 14.

Tildy is under attack from all sides: impetuous young people,
vulgar local businessmen, those pesky tourists she's supposed to
be trying to attract, crazy poets and infuriating Americans. But
despite all this, she lives in a world all her own. She has
carved a comfortable niche for herself at Thistlethwaite and
forgotten all ambition.

She's even forgotten how to smile; they tend to come out as
grimaces.

Tildy is reminiscent of the women written about by Jane
Gardham and AS Byatt -- one of those eccentric virgin scholar
types. She is appealingly flawed and lacking in self-awareness,
old-fashioned and unreasonable at times. The Java Man poses the
question of what would happen to the Tildys of the word when they
meet a charismatic young Indonesian man with little education,
and no knowledge of "the way" to do things.

James is not afraid of slightly off-the-wall ideas and, once
setting them in play, follows through to find out where they will
lead.

Thistethwaite is open to the public, but also must live up to
its charter of "advancing learning and literature". This is a
matter of interpretation for the bewildered staff, seeming to
consist largely of granting fellowships to suitably promising
writers.

One of them is Noor, a young Javanese poet with a romantic
past and glorious eyes. Arriving unexpectedly one day, Noor
immediately makes himself useful, first by giving a soothing
massage to a visiting Scottish poet suffering a nasty hangover
(along with a tonic brought from home in a suitcase filled with
packets of noodles and Indonesian soap videos).

Later, realizing the extent of his hostess' ineptitude, Noor
even starts doing housework.

But Noor remains an enigma to the resident staff of
Thistletwaite. A nice enough chap, no doubt, but what is his
game? His writing is brilliant and yet he does not act like any
writer they have ever met. The combination of innocence and
wisdom is compelling.

The Java Man is teeming with such incongruities. The focus is
on Tildy's journey to a new life but she is surrounded by an
ensemble of friends and co-workers, such as red-headed Guyle, a
poet-in-residence of the "angry young man" variety; an American
bicycle millionaire called Skip and his good-looking son Byron
(he has a sister called Shelley); and Julia, a beauty in the pre-
Raphaelite manner with a temperament to match.

This is the story of a family of sorts. There is a screwball
comedy feeling to events: chaotic activity broken by moments of
quiet solidarity.

The Java Man is about culture clash, and not just East versus
West: the American and English seem to find each other equally
absurd. It is also about letting go of the past, as the old is
hounded by the new and romantic notions tested against
experience. Finally, perhaps most intriguingly, The Java Man is a
discussion of literature itself. Poetry, no less.

There's not a lot of poetry being published these days, let
alone novels about it. The characters in this book are all
concerned with poetry in one way or another. In fact, it is their
poetry preferences that draw the clearest ideological lines
between them: Eliot, Frost or Ginsberg?

In one scene, Tildy, at a party in London, makes a clever but
rather pompous remark about Eliot. A young woman responds with a
withering, "Eliot is totally middlebrow". Stunned, Tildy realizes
how much the world has changed, that the literary life she was
part of has disappeared forever while she wasn't paying
attention. Surely, these are the sort of details that define our
lives -- a comment at a party that makes us feel foolish.

There is a refreshing sense of possibility about James'
writing. Though he spends many pages musing affectionately about
the English tendency toward stagnation, James does not seem to
think this is a chronic condition. Change is possible; and there
is hope for even the most lost of causes.

This is a book with something to say, a love of literature and
characters who don't behave. There is an idiosyncrasy of style
as well as of subject matter.

Some will suspect that James is dabbling in notions of
oriental mysticism (in the vein of EM Forster) and that the
character of Noor is a cultural stereotype. Certainly, the clash
of East and West depicted here has echoes of this approach but
the angle is new.

In the global village a lot of the magic can be explained
away. But the magic is still there, this book seems to say, in
the strange ways people behave, in the stories they tell each
other and in what they try to become.