Novelist Ayu finds writing a labor of love

By Mehru Jaffer

JAKARTA (JP): The women in Ayu Utami's first novel Saman may seem preoccupied with sex, but the author does not consider them to be out of the ordinary.

"Since 90 percent of the brunt is borne by women in any sexual relationship it is only natural that they should want to talk about it and to give it a lot of thought," she said.

Ayu said if the crime and punishment of indulging in sex or fantasizing about it were removed, many of the psychological and social risks would also be lessened, although the physical risk faced by women would always remain. She also takes exception at society's fixation with women's virginity.

She believes nature meant sex as an act of survival for the continuation of life. However, since nature is not known to be just and the chemistry of each human being is different, often making one more passionate than the other, problems arise.

"When one is passionately in love, surely the topmost thought is not survival," she laughed. It is to temper high passion and extreme desire from getting out of control that society imposes restrictions, some of which unfairly demoralize some members of society while seeming to favor others.

Ayu is not through with the exploration of sex in her works. It is expected to reappear in her next book, the second part in the trilogy which began with Saman. Do not ask Ayu when her magnum opus will be completed as the author herself has no clue, caught up as she is in also editing Kalam, a literary magazine of Teater Utan Kayu, a job that is her major source of income.

In a country where the short story is more of a tradition than the novel, Ayu has given rise to great expectations. She argues the atmosphere in the country does not encourage activities like reading and writing. She holds the mediocre education standard and the pressing need of most people to simply survive as two main stumbling blocks to literary development.

Every day she prays for inspiration to liven up the pages of Kalam, but the scene is most depressing. Often it is impossible to fill the pages. Few people want to invest in writing as a full-time career because it does not pay. She cited the example of her own publishers who took her first novel to press only after it won critical approval and bagged the first prize at a competition. She feels that for both women and men here to sit down and just write will remain a dream as long as they must work at other jobs to keep food on the table.

"Our literary history is such that most Indonesian writers in the past have worked either from jail or through receiving grants from abroad," said the author who plays the tabla and enjoys humming songs from Indian films.

Born 31 years ago in a middle-class family that was horrified at participation in antigovernment activities since 1994, Ayu is the youngest of five children. While older siblings happily joined the civil service and the Navy, Ayu insisted on being a painter. She wrote her first novel for children while still in high school; her writer aunt took the manuscript to a publisher but it was rejected.

Afraid that his youngest child might starve her way through life as a painter and writer, Ayu's father hastily chose to enroll her in a literature course at the University of Indonesia. Today her father is quite curious about all the hullabaloo over Saman but due to poor eyesight is unable to read the novel.

"He asked my mother to read it out to him but she has refused, saying that the book is not meant for those of their generation," Ayu said with a smile.

Ayu enjoys some of the works of Pramoedya Ananta Toer, but she finds the great writer uses language from another era.

"His is the kind of language used in socialist realism writings, when the writer stoops to the level of the man on the street and speaks in the language of the masses."

Ayu wants to use language not to be understood so much as to share an experience. She finds nothing wrong with a reader feeling something without really understanding the meaning of each and every word. She describes her foray into the literary world as a step in such an exercise.

For the same reason, the English translation of her novel (still to be published) makes her unhappy. "So much has been explained. The writing has lost all its sensuality in the translation," she said.

The publication of Saman in early 1998 so startled the sleepy literary scene in Jakarta that apart from providing instant fame, it also left a pile of controversy at Ayu's doorstep. She was particularly hurt that the local media seemed more interested in her than her book -- and whether she was the actual author.

The gossip was too much, she said, adding that it was academics, mainly outside the country, who gave a critical appreciation of the work.

"I wish I could write the kind of prose which Ayu uses," Tempo newsweekly senior editor Goenawan Mohamad said about rumors that he was the actual author of Saman.

Ayu has now taken it upon herself to explore an entire language which is indeed a monumental task. It is no wonder that she has little time to indulge in many other aspects of life, including domesticity.

"I don't think I will have children. But one day if I can afford to maybe I will adopt a child."

Her ardent wish is to do little more than continue her writing, without having to care about who approves and who does not.

"I only hope that one day I am not stoned to death," she said.