Good books, bad books, banned books : literatures , politics and the pre-war Indonesian novel

Abstract

This thesis contests the validity and substance of certain judgements conventionally passed on pre-war Indonesian-Malay prose writing. As a result of these judgements and through a system of related classifications, clear distinctions are made between kesusastraan (good literature) and bacaan (reading matter). The validity of this distinction is all too often taken as a fact. Its basis in substance is all too readily assumed. In both explicit but more often implicit ways it is claimed that the bases of such classifications lie in the internal, purely literary qualities of a text. Good literature is technically better than reading matter. Such a truism begs the question: What makes the so and the inferior so bad? If nothing else it does suggest that kesusastraan and bacaan are different. In order to confront these claims on their own terms - in terms of structure - the body of this work concentrates on the structural qualities of pre-war fiction. Three particular aspects of technique are highlighted: plot, character and language, and three different novels are presented as representative of different streams in Indonesian fiction writing. Abdul Muis' Salah Asuhan (A Wrong Upbringing, hereafter SA)(1928) is representative of good literature. In pre-war Indonesian fiction the literature stream is represented almost exclusively, though not totally, by material published by the Netherlands Indies colonial publisher, Balai Pustaka (BP). 1 In most conventional views of modern Indonesian literature this stream is modern Indonesian literature. The other two examples represent a and a commercial stream in pre-war Indonesian fiction: banned and bad writing respectively. At worst the very existence of these other streams is denied. At best they are with little or no evidence depicted as inherently inferior and subliterary. The stream is represented here by Mas Marco Kartodikromo 1 s Student Hidjo (Hidjo, a Student, hereafter SH)(1919). Where this stream is recognized it is rejected because of political contamination. Political overtones were, and still are, taken as sufficient in themselves to justify the subliterary label. In the mainstream of Indonesian literature, a-political writing has come to be equated with literature, writing with subliterature. The commercial stream is represented here by Jousouf Souyb's Bibir Jang Mengandung Ratjun (Poisonous Lips, hereafter BJMR) (1938). BJMR is representative of roman picisan, a commercially published, magazine fiction that first appeared in the late 1930s in regional centres like Medan in northern Sumatra. Conventional literature rejects this material for its trivia and its often unashamed commercial motives. Some attempt has also been made to first of all place these works in a more specific historic and context. It will be ultimately suggested that this context is more significant than just passive background, in that it directly impinges on the form of each stream. Apart from this physical context, an attempt has been made to trace the broad outlines of Indonesian criticism. The three streams of Indonesian fiction owe their existence or at the very least their definition to this discourse and by examining the assum_ptions that give form to Indonesian-literary criticism, some light may be shed on the processes of value and distinction. The detailed analysis of the structural norms of the thr~e novels is followed in the final chapters by a more politically oriented examination of Indonesian literature. Structural norms can point to what is valued, but they in no way say why certain techniques are of value. Technique may show that good literature is better than literature, bu~ says little about the processes at work in determining why is and bad is bad in literature. A purely approach is inconclusive in that it is unable to explain the basis of such values in anything but idealist and unprovable terms. What is suggested in the concluding part of this thesis is the view that literature is a material process and as such is significant and valuable only in terms of the environment and conditions of its production.