Novelist Ayu finds writing a labor of love

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.