Map of the Invisable World is the new novel by the Malaysian writer Tash Aw. Tash Aw was born in Taipei to Malaysian-Chinese parents and grew up in Kuala Lumpar. His previous novel The Harmony Silk Factorywon the 2005 Whitbread First Novel Award and a Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Novel, and was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize.
Map of the Invisible World has been recently reviewed by Ziauddin Sardar in The Independent (Friday, 8 May 2009) and writes,
“…Gently, and ever so slowly, we are led into 1960s Indonesia and Malaysia, the two countries struggling with independence, fighting the communists and each other.
In the forefront, we have Adam’s quest to find Karl: a Dutch Indonesian artist who has stayed after independence to help rebuild the new country. He adopts the orphan Adam who is distinguished by his “neutral Indo-Malay features”. They live on the Indonesian island of Perdo, shrouded in legends and myths. Karl’s distaste for colonialism is so strong that he bans Dutch in his house: “it’s the language of oppression”. One should not grow up absorbing the culture of a country that has colonised one’s own. “We are independent now; we need our own culture.”
On one level, Map of the Invisible World is about how postcolonial culture is shaped, how histories and memories collide to produce a new synthesis. The emerging construction is not free from xenophobia or anti-colonial sentiments; both become important components of the new national culture. Karl is seized largely for his pink skin as Dutch colonial administrators are repatriated. Even Indonesia’s aggressive stance towards Malaysia, the policy of Konfrontasi, is projected as an attempt to shape a distinctive cultural identity.
But Malaysia and Indonesia, with the same language and so much of their history and customs in common, are like two siblings. Aw shows us how the two countries took different routes…”
There is the character of Din.
“…Din longs for the authentic Indonesian culture free from colonial gaze; and plans to write a “secret history” of the “lost world” of Bali. Aw handles both political upheaval and the personal trauma it generates with considerable skill and verve. However, his real talent is for description. His prose is vividly lyrical; and one can almost feel the heat and smell the sweat of Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur. But sometime the descriptions become burdensome: Jakarta is not just grey but its greyness acts as a cataract to cloud the city. Eventually, they get the better of a narrative which peters out towards the end. Adam’s quest, to our disappointment, turns out as rather insignificant.
Map of the Invisible World consciously echoes the novels of the late, great Pradoedya Ananta Toer, who chronicled Indonesia’s struggle against the Dutch and the turmoil of the emerging nation. Clearly, Aw has bags of talent. But he has some way to go before he can match the genius of the Master.”
Of course Toer is the Master but Tash Aw offers us here something new in the continuing dialog. Tash Aw is certainly finding his voice.
What was interesting to me is that Jakarta itself plays a role in the novel as stage and backdrop to Sukarno’s revolutionary Indonesia. Here there is a sense of turmoil, of working things through, a sense of the history everyone was caught up in.
Here are a few excerpts from Chapter 14.
‘No! That is the point- Malaysia does not exist!’ Din shouted suddenly, his head jerking. ‘Malaysia’ – he pronounced it as if speaking a foreign language, his voice squeaky, like a child’s… ‘Ma-lay-sia is a British construct! It is a work of pure fiction, created by the old Imperialist countries to destablise Indonesia and all the newly independent countries of the world. It was created so Britain and America and their cronies can continue to have a presence in the region, but I tell you, their time is finished, finished! We will invade them and crush them, all those Malaysian puppets. They look like us and even speak our language- but they do not know they are being used. This is why we beat them in the Thomas Cup: They are not masters of their own destiny. We are.’
Here is Jakarta (in part).
“There were a dozen people in the wood-and-tin shack that stood at the far end of the collection of flimsy structures that formed a courtyard. They were on the edge of a sprawling shantytown bordering Kebon Jeruk, where the houses seemed solid and at least semi-permanent, built more from timber than pieces of rusty corrugated iron: they would at least weather this rainy season, and maybe also the next one. Deeper in this labyrinth, away from the tarmac roads and running water, the houses were a patchwork of salvaged scrap: flatted oil drums, biscuit tins, fragments of tarpaulin, splintered lengths of wood, torn mosquito nets- anything that would bring momentary respite from the rain and the sun. But even here, on the fringes of the kampung, Adam had seen a tiny house with walls made from bits of advertising boards. In front of this house a young woman was fanning a wood-fire that refused to light properly. Next to her was a small child, a girl, no more than three or four years old, naked except for a dirty ribbon in her hair; she looked up at Adam as he walked past and retreated shyly into the shade of the house. There was no front door, just a gap in the walls that read
…KES YOU TEN TIMES STRON …MOUS ALL OVER THE WORLD, NOW AVAI…
‘Of course these houses will not last very long’, Din shrugged, ‘but they can be quickly rebuilt. We are a strong, practical people, remember’, he said.”
Sukarno Speaks… The Revolutionary Z
“…There was a moment of near-complete silence; they could not hear even the faintest crackle of static from the radio. In the distance there was a baby’s cry, a thin wail that started and then stopped; there was no other noise from the slums around them… …No one moved. And then the voice began speaking in a tone that at once was urgent and measured. He had never heard a voice like this before: rich with calm strength and intonations that seemed both foreign and familiar. He felt a hot surge running through his body, filling his head with a sudden, giddy excitement he could not explain…
‘…fellow country men and revolutionaries, the twentieth century has been a time of terrific dynamism, but also great fear. Yes, we are living in a world of fear. The life of man is corroded and made bitter by fear- fear of the future, of the hydrogen bomb, of ideologies, of everything, but especially of the loss of man’s safety and morality. Perhaps this fear is a greater danger than the danger itself, because it is fear which drives men to act foolishly, to act thoughtlessly…’
‘…nowadays to hear people say, “Colonialism is dead.” Let us not be soothed or deceived by this. I say to you, friends and fellow revolutionaries, that colonialism is NOT dead. How can it be, so long as vast areas of Asiaand Africa are not yet free? I beg you no to think of colonialism only in the classic form which we in Indonesia have known- it is a skillful and determined enemy that warps, virus-like, into its modern form of economic and intellectual control…’
‘…the Indonesian Revolution has become a rocky mountain shooting fire amidst the ocean of mankind’s struggle to build a new world free of explotation of man by man, free of exploitation of nation by nation. My fellow revolutionaries, there is a phrase in Italian, Vivere Pericoloso. This mean, To Live Dangerously. Yes, my brothers! You have understood me. For Indonesia and every other country that strives to be free, this is the Year of Living Dangerously. It is our duty a revolutionaries to do so.’
…I will not allow the enemy’s foot to step upon the proud rampaging Indonesian Bull. It is no longer time to be conciliatory. Our revolution has foes everywhere. We have a duty to attack, to destroy every power, whether foreign no not, native or not, that endangers the security and the continuation of the revolution.’
Z shifted in her seat. ‘I don’t like the tone of this’, she said. Her brow was only troubled by a frown, but it was enough of a signal for the other to start a debate:
‘The country is starving – let’s fight expensive wars with the Americans!’
‘What a convenient excuse to suppress anyone who dares to oppose him!’
‘Revolution? What Revolution? He has no ideology. Listen, listen…’
‘…I know a science that is efficacious, namely Marxism. As you know, I am a friend of communists because communists are revolutionary people, and I am a friend of all revolutionary people, whatever their cause, be it religion or ideology…’
Z spoke again, more firmly this time. ‘This man is unbelievable. He has no idea what Marxism is. It’s just a word he’s heard. He wants to keep everyone happy but he can’t do so any longer. He shouldn’t be allowed.’
‘As I wrote in my satirical epic poem in last month’s Z’, said the long haired poet. ‘our dear President has supplanted the State in controlling the means of production in a classless society.’
‘It makes me so angry’ someone else added, ‘because the economics and demographics of Indonesia would make it an ideal communist state. That’s what my thesis is all about.’
So, Tash Aw has in Map of the Invisible World, written a novel well worth exploring. In part it asks: Indonesia, where is your history?
I think Indonesia needs a novelist like Tash Aw to answer that question.
Indonesia, where is your history? In Suharto’s mass graves of East Java, Bali, and Sumatra? In this darkness is your history shut out from your own eyes?
