Storytelling shines in 'Gadis Pantai'

Storytelling shines in 'Gadis Pantai'

Gadis Pantai (The Girl from the Coast); By Pramoedya
Ananta Toer; Hastra Mitra, Jakarta (April 2000); vii + 231 pp;
Rp 25,000.

JAKARTA (JP): When you read the editor's note at the beginning
of this book, you may be left pondering the same question as me:
What is it about Pramoedya's writing that provoked so much
animosity from the New Order regime?

It surely could not be his eloquent choice of wording. The
journey this story was forced to take in order for people to be
able to read it in Indonesian is enough to boggle the mind.

The novel is part of a trilogy and the only part that survived
the trashing by the regime through the Supreme Court at the time.
It was initially published in serial form in the daily newspaper
Lentera/Bintang Timur from 1962 to 1965. The last two parts of
the trilogy were irrevocably lost in what the editor called "the
1965 act of political vandalism".

The manuscript came into the hands of the publisher in 1987 in
the form of a copy of a microfilm belonging to the library of the
Australian National University, Canberra. It was published as a
book in the same year, but was immediately banned by the court on
the grounds of dispersion of Marxist-Leninist thought.
Ironically, the book has been published and reprinted six times
in Dutch and available in English (The Girl from the Coast) since
1991. This latest publication of Gadis Pantai, dubbed the
"freedom edition", is the first Indonesian version printed since
the toppling of the New Order.

The book's publication history might be enough to inspire a
John Woo movie, although the story itself is hardly as physically
oriented. It is a socioromance story about an unnamed girl, who
the author calls gadis pantai, the girl from the coast. She was
born and raised in a backward fishing village. At the age of
fourteen, she is brought by her parents to the city to be the
consort to a priyayi (an upper-class man).

She enters into life in a mansion with an unfamiliar social
order. She becomes Mas Nganten, the honored lady of the house.
Her husband is kindly although somewhat aloof to his lower-ranked
wife.

After time spent struggling to adapt to her new life, the
beach girl asks her husband's permission to visit her parents in
her home village. The drama unfolds upon her return. Her already
dubious servant-companion, Mardinah, turns out to be a real
villain. In an abortive plan of action, Mardinah tries to
manipulate the woman to return to the city with her and her
cohorts; their plan is to do away with her.

Mardinah confesses that she was hired by a relative of the
woman's husband. The husband's family was concerned and
embarrassed by the fact that he always chose women of lower
status and not a "real wife" from the same social stature. The
Mardinah affair comes to an end through a unique resolution by
the villagers. The woman returns to her husband in the city,
eventually giving birth to a baby girl. However, the novel
concludes on a sad note for the woman.

Pramoedya tells a simple storyline but it's not that simple
when one realizes he is the storyteller. Each character comes
alive in the strong validity of a well-researched story. Although
the protagonist may not be on a par with the heroine Dedes from
his novel Arok Dedes, one must consider that the book is
incomplete due to the loss of the two other parts of the trilogy.

The eminent modern novelist Emile Zola stated his view about
naturalism in his Le Roman Expirimental. He said the novelist's
task was "to undertake a social or scientific study, recording
facts, styles and systems of behavior, living conditions, the
working of institutions, and deducing the underlying processes of
environmental, genetic and historical-evolutionary development".
Without the slightest intention of classifying Pramoedya's
writing under any "ism", it is apparent that he meticulously
conformed to Zola's definition.

"She begins to comprehend, here she was not to have a soul to
befriend as a mutual being. She feels an immense distance, an
enormous space intervening her and this generous woman who hardly
sleeps so as to take care of her, always carries out her
wishes ... Her heart cries out: why I cannot be her friend? Why
does she have to be a servant to me? Who am I? What is her fault
that she has to be my servant?"

In this paragraph the author fluently formulates the essence
of the relationship among aristocrats and commoners in Java at
the time. By marrying a priyayi, she, a commoner herself, has
become part of the ruling class. A mounting identity crisis is
the price she has to pay. She does not really belong to the upper
class; after all, she was a consort who could be replaced in a
moment's whim.

Yet she could not live anymore among her fellow villagers, who
came to regard her as someone from the aristocracy. Whether or
not Pramoedya used the Marxist theory of the class struggle is
not the main issue in the discourse. As always, the need to read
Gadis Pantai arises from the superb storytelling.

-- Reita Malaon