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 world 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.