Pramoedya's Tales

Pramoedya Ananta Toer's collection of short stories, Tales from Djakarta though set in the 1950s, still captures a great deal of the life and struggle for existence in present day Jakarta. This excellent tome paints vignettes that depict the existential quest for survival by individuals who are downtrodden and forced to persist on the fringes of society.

In the ruthless city of Jakarta, decimated by World War II and its ensuing struggle for independence from the Dutch, followed by the subsequent economic decline during the Sukarno years, the cast of these short stories - maids, prostititues, food sellers, soldiers and an assortment of various street people - is still a realistic representation of lower class Indonesian society today. Enter into any of the densely-packed shanty settlements that sprout between gleaming glass towers of multinational corporations, one can imagine the characters of Pramoedya's tales still reanacting their real-life wayang of hope, fear and despair within the walls of those rickety structures.

I liked the stories so much that I even bought the Indonesian version, Cerita Dari Jakarta, so that I could read some of my favourite tales in its original language. Some of the English translation could sound a bit quaint to modern ears but reading the originals allowed me the savour the cadence and imagery of Pramoedya's prose in its essence. The sardonic tone of these tales sometimes require them to be recited orally to be fully appreciated.

Pramoedya, whose works were banned for decades in his own country under Suharto's Order Baru government for allegedly being a communist sympathiser, has now slowly regained the recognition which he fully deserves. Tales from Djakarta serves as a very good introduction to Pramoedya's other works - his autobiographical Mute's Soliloquy, written during his years of imprisonment on Buru Island, is especially touching.

By reading Pramoedya, the chronicler par excellence of the miseries and sufferings of Jakarta's street people, one gains the insight of a sure hand towards understanding a bit of the cultural and social complexities of life in this fascinating city.