Nothing lost in translation of Mangunwijaya's 'Durga/Umayi'

Jennifer Lindsay Contributor Jakarta

------------------------------------ Durga/Umayi Y.B. Mangunwijaya, translated by Ward Keeler. University of Washington Press, in association with Singapore University Press, 2004 212 pp. ISBN 0-295-98392-2 Rp 220,000 ----------------------------

Mangunwijaya's novel Durga Umayi, published in 1991, is a remarkable work for many reasons, not least of which its fiendish language play and experimentation with form. It took a brave person to translate this work into English, and Ward Keeler was undoubtedly the right person to do it.

Rama Mangun, an activist, architect, engineer, writer and Catholic priest who died in 1999, would have loved this translation of his work.

The novel tells the life story of a multinamed, multifaceted, multilingual and multipurpose woman whose most intimate name is Iin; a larger-than-life character whose life journey parallels and symbolizes the story of the Indonesian nation.

Iin and her twin brother are the Javanese children of a mother who is for a time the mistress of a Japanese officer, and a father who was a soldier in the Dutch KNIL army, then a heiho (paramilitary units set up by the Japanese army), and who luckily falls in with the fighters for the Great Indonesian Revolution. Their lives, like those of all the characters in the book, are shaped by accident.

As the great events that turn into history swirl about them, they do the best they can, and if they are lucky they are on the right side at the right time. Mangunwijaya's own voice, while deeply scathing of Indonesia's history, is totally nonjudgemental of ordinary people just trying to get on with their lives.

The story of Iin herself is a story of youthful ideals whittled away into pure opportunism, told as comic allegory. Major events in her life coincide with dates in Indonesia's history, as her life moves from that of a young idealist working as a servant for the soon-to-be president Sukarno, to that of a morally-challenged "career woman" wheeling and dealing in arms and drugs and living a life of totally absurd opulence.

As a young girl she joins Bung (brother) Karno's household in Jakarta where she is in charge of making sure the bathrooms are spotless on the day her boss proclaims Indonesia's independence. She then serves the revolutionary cause as a cook, leaves the camp disenchanted, and is captured and raped by the soldiers fighting on the Dutch side.

She later becomes involved with the Indonesian Communist Party's organizations Lekra and Gerwani, but is fortunately out of the country as the cadres are rounded up after Sept. 30, 1965. Her first plastic surgery to change her identity takes place on 11 March, 1966, which is the day of "Supersemar" when Sukarno was made to hand over power to Soeharto.

Her second restorative plastic surgery, before she returns to Indonesia hoping to be reunited with her brother, happens on Harkitnas (National Resurgence) day,

Throughout the novel, Mangunwijaya plays wickedly with the sacred icons of Indonesian nationalism. Taking a woman as the main character is part of this "anti-epic" strategy (but no heroic Sarinah type woman, either). Inserted like riddles into the text is the "sacred" date 17-8-45, with different combinations of these magic figures appearing in hilarious ways.

The story is at times gleefully absurd, particularly in the descriptions of over-the-top extravagance in the second part of the book. The portrayal of time is fluid, ranging back and forth and even into the future (the last event is set in 1999, eight years after the book was originally published).

There is no point in trying to make any chronological sense of Iin's life through matching her age to the years, and there are many instances where times just don't match up.

But this book is, above all, storytelling, and in storytelling, focus often moves fluidly in this way. Mangunwijaya also experiments with fluid linguistic techniques of storytelling.

One of the most remarkable aspects of the book is the language and style. The language is very oral, Javanese-Indonesian in feel with a liberal sprinkling of all kinds of foreign words, rich in alliteration and vivid word play. The prose is written as long, rarely-punctuated sentences that can roam over more than a page. The phrases move the reader's attention along in all kinds of unexpected directions; gliding from the narrator's story to the thoughts of the character to some kind of reported speech back to comments and thoughts of the narrator in a free-flow. It works well when read aloud.

But this fluid storytelling makes the language fiendishly difficult to translate. It is not surprising that Keeler, who is also expert in Javanese (as well as Balinese and Burmese), and has spent years researching Javanese wayang kulit (shadow puppetry), should have found the right balance of seriousness and fun, as well as distance and intimacy to translate this work into English.

He experiments too with sound, alliteration and rhythm in English, coining his own compound words and phrases Mangunwijaya style, but still remaining true to the spirit of the original Indonesian in his creative use of English.

Apart from the body of the novel itself, with the brilliant translation of Mangunwijaya's exuberant Indonesian-Javanese poem at the beginning, Keeler has also written both an introduction and an afterword in the English translation, which are excellent essays about the work and its comparative place in Indonesian literature, and provide basic historical and cultural information to guide those who are not Indonesian specialists. There are also translator's notes at the back of the book, explaining terms in the text that might be obscure to the reader, and a list of further reading.

This is only the second of Mangunwijaya's works to be translated into English, the other being The Weaverbirds, translated by Tom Hunter (Lontar Foundation, 1991), a work of very different tone and style.

The Indonesian text of Durga Umayi has long been out of print. It is hoped that this English translation might inspire a reprint of the original. Meanwhile, even Indonesian speakers/readers will enjoy the different language play of Keeler's English translation.