Multitalented Remy takes pick of artistic avenues

Multitalented Remy takes pick of artistic avenues

David Kennedy, Contributor, Jakarta, d_kenn@yahoo.com

Remy Sylado does not stay in one place for long -- that is,
unless he is acting, writing or painting there. Depending on what
he is doing, he divides his time between Bandung, Bogor and
Jakarta.

Better known for his novels and essays and as an actor, the
58-year-old South Sulawesi-born artist recently displayed his
paintings at an exhibition at a five-star hotel in Jakarta.

For those familiar with his novels like Cau Bau Kan (1991) and
Kerudung Merah Kirmizi (Kirmizi Red Headscarf), which won him the
2002 Khatulistiwa literary award, the themes of his paintings
come as little surprise.

Women tend to take center stage in Remy's work. The titles of
his paintings -- Moulin Rouge, Biru di Boulevard de Clichy (Blue
at Boulevard de Clichy) and Kasih Ibu (Mother's Love) -- as well
as their female subjects -- holding children or caught in
vulnerable poses, evoke the words of his award-winning novels
dealing with the many roles women play in society, "mistress-
woman-lady-wife-female-mother".

The number of words in Indonesian related to women is
significant in his view.

"In the Indonesian language, the fact that there are so many
terms used to describe women and associated with women is, I
believe, a mark of respect," he said.

"We do not use the word 'Bapak' (father) in the same way as
'Ibu' (mother, woman). We do not say 'fatherland', we say
'motherland', our capital city is our Ibu Kota meaning 'mother
city' and," he said, pointing at his thumb, "we call this Ibu
Jari".

A religious aspect is apparent in Remy's paintings of mother
and child, hardly surprising given that his father was a Baptist
priest and his mother a theologian.

In fact, a career in the priesthood could have been in store
for him as he studied theology in Semarang, Central Java, in the
early 1960s, where he said he "learned how to preach".

At that time he traveled regularly to the Central Java town of
Surakarta and followed courses in art and theater, incorporating
the oratory and musical skills from theology school in his
repertoire. At 18 years of age, he was active in drama groups, a
musical band and had begun to write novels which he admits were
not very good.

Following graduation, Remy went on to work as a reporter for
Harian Tempo daily in Semarang and as editor for the music
magazine Actual from 1972 to 1975, continuing to write novels.
Today he estimates the number of books he has written at over 60,
not counting plays.

While lesser writers would shudder at the thought of producing
a story every five days, serializing books in daily newspapers is
Remy's preferred approach to writing novels.

"Writing is like an obligation for me. I want to tell a lot so
that's why I don't write short stories. With novels I can tell a
lot about my thoughts, my philosophy," he said, adding that his
current novel, called San Po Kong, serialized in a daily
newspaper in Semarang, has run to over 1,000 pages.

However, when you see from where his inspiration comes you
being to understand why his novels need to be long.

"I love to go to archive centers in Indonesia and abroad. This
is how I do my research," he said.

The use of firsthand archival material gives Remy's novels a
very thoroughly researched feel and it allows him to reveal new
perspectives on the past.

His latest published novel, Parijs Van Java (the name the
Dutch gave to Bandung), originally serialized by Koran Tempo
daily, is set in Bandung in the 1920s and tells the story of
Dutch colonialism through the lives of a fictional young Dutch
couple.

"In the era of Dutch colonial rule, Jakarta was the seat of
the Governor General but all the colonial departments were in
Bandung, making it the second city with a big European
community," he explained. "This led to the development of a major
prostitute community. That's what I wanted to uncover and
investigate and it proved very interesting."

An evil Dutch character in the novel wants to turn Bandung
into a red-light city and many of the colonialists in the novel
are decadent individuals, although by no means all of them. Some
of the characters want to give Indonesia back to the Indonesians,
and this is another aspect of history that Remy wanted to
highlight with this novel -- that colonialism was not "black and
white".

Nonetheless, the novel suggests the corruption inherent in
colonial society played a key role in the subsequent development
of the country.

"Formally the VOC (Dutch East Indies Company) was a trading
company so why was it staffed by soldiers who worked as
businessmen and governed the territory at the same time? This
meant that corruption was inevitable," said Remy.

In his previous award-winning novel Kerudung Merah Kirmizi,
set in the period immediately following the fall of president
Soeharto's New Order government, Remy dealt with the chaos of
Jakarta which he suggested had become almost ungovernable due to
the gulf between the poor and the elites. It was, he said, a
metro-kesetanan (a demonic city).

Remy delights in revealing unexpected historical anecdotes he
has gleaned from the archives.

"Do you know why we call the mobile vendors kaki lima (five
legs)?" he said with a grin.

While the popular explanation is that the stalls have three
legs and the vendor two, he explained that in fact the real
reason is because the colonial authorities authorized the dealers
to sell their goods from five feet away from the shops.

"The kaki lima vendors paid a tax or retribusi to the local
government so it was very difficult to move them on from the
sidewalk," he said, adding that in the post-New Order period
rules of this kind, if they were still applied at all, were no
longer in effect leading him to conclude that Jakarta had become
a metro-kesetanan instead of a metropolitan city.

Given that Remy has just finished acting in a film for
television about drug abuse, is preparing another art exhibition
later this month at the Theological Academy of Jakarta (where he
also teaches) and is writing a new novel and preparing a musical
play for the New Year, one wonders where he finds time any time
to sleep.

When asked how he fits everything in he laughs.

"I sleep very little, from one to four in the morning," he
said. "That's enough!"