1
BOOK REVIEWS 699 tic Government will perhaps be measured in the "care and quality of documentation" it brings to future eth- nographies of Yemen, especially those more broadly conceived. Telling Lives, TeUing History. Susan Rodgers, ed. and trans. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.333 PP. JANET HOSKINS Monash University A new nation is often said to "grow up" with its people, who move from a colonial education through a period of revolutionary struggle to become the citizens of an independent state. The metaphoric link between autobiographical memory and public history has, how- ever, rarely been explored through indigenous ac- counts that ground it in personal experience and a specific historical context. Susan Rodgers has trans- lated the childhood memoirs of two Sumatran men, both published just after the Indonesian revolution, and framed them with a lengthy introduction that pro- poses a model for uniting the personal and the public. She reads these stories not only as autobiographical documents but as a new form of "historical imagina- tion." Their lives are interpreted as part of a process of growing toward Indonesia, becoming aware of per- sonal responsibility and national destiny, which de- fined the generation that brought independence to the archipelago. The memoirs are authored by P. Pospos, a Toba Batak Christian and high school teacher in Jakarta, and Muhammed RadJab, a Minang Muslim employed as a newspaper editor in the capital. Each writes primar- ily about his days as a schoolboy, his respect for and conflicts with "village traditions," and his developing amorous interests. Village Sumatra in the 1920s and 1930s was a complex arena where new ideologies of nationalism and modernity were beginning to be felt, but the pull of the past and family obligations was still strong. Fathers and schoolmasters were the most im- portant figures in their lives, and each narrator com- bines criticism of their somewhat distant authority with affection for the values they represented. The autocratic discipline of the schoolroom is condemned, and the boys show a growing self-awareness and so- cial consciousness by resisting outmoded pedagogic techniques. Each 'story ends as the hero is about to leave his homeland and travel far away, and each is tinged with the nostalgia of the exile. Rodgers places their accounts in the wider con- text of Malay historical traditions, Indonesian autobio- graphic writing (most notably Soetomo's Kenung- kenangun, Kata Tehdahoeloean, 1934), new images of self and society, and especially the influence of liter- acy on knowledge and notions of time. It is here that I find her insights most provocative, but they are also problematic because of the comparative issues they raise. Both Pospos and RadJab criticize the "magical approach to language" (based on chanting religious texts or rote memorization) and preach the liberation of a "specifically modern linguistic world." Their faith in a modern, rationalized use of language is evident in their decision to write in Indonesian, the language of a new national culture, rather than in their native tongues. In growing away from the language of their fathers, they embrace a new form of speech to become part of a new history. Rodgers wonders whether writers in other Indo- nesian ethnic societies would produce the same forms of autobiography. It might have been more illuminat- ing to ask how people in other Indonesian societies would produce quite different forms of life stones when expressed through oral or visual media. Noting that "each of these writers led an extraordinarily liter- ate and even text-obsessed life," (p. 10) Rodgers shows the consequences of a newly acquired and highly valued literacy. But many Indonesians are still attached to older forms of textuality, articulated in ritual performances and narratives about heirloom ob- jects. The lives of women have not been "entextual- ized" on the printed page in the same way, and pub- lished autobiographies from other outer islands show less concern with linguistic modernism than with reli- gious change. The contrasts between these enthusiastically liter- ate citizens of the new Indonesia and their forefathers, who lived in primarily oral cultures, could be further analyzed. As someone who is also trying to "find" auto- biographical and biographical elements in ritual dis- course and folk tales, I was very happy to see someone else probing the subjective side of transformations in temporality and historical consciousness. These mod- estly written lives tell us about writing itself as a tem- poral form and place personal experiences on the stage of history. On the Subject of "Java. "John Pemberton. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994.333 pp. ROBERT W. HEFNER Boston University With the neighboring island of Bali, Java is one of the few areas in Indonesia to have been the object of an extensive orientalist literature. Over the course of the 19th and early 20th centuries, European and Java- nese scholars combed the island's literary and archae- ological debris to create an image of a mystically sub-

Telling Lives, Telling History. Susan Rodgers, ed. and trans

Embed Size (px)

Citation preview

Page 1: Telling Lives, Telling History. Susan Rodgers, ed. and trans

B O O K R E V I E W S 699

tic Government will perhaps be measured in the "care and quality of documentation" it brings to future eth- nographies of Yemen, especially those more broadly conceived.

Telling Lives, TeUing History. Susan Rodgers, ed. and trans. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.333 PP.

JANET HOSKINS Monash University

A new nation is often said to "grow up" with its people, who move from a colonial education through a period of revolutionary struggle to become the citizens of an independent state. The metaphoric link between autobiographical memory and public history has, how- ever, rarely been explored through indigenous ac- counts that ground it in personal experience and a specific historical context. Susan Rodgers has trans- lated the childhood memoirs of two Sumatran men, both published just after the Indonesian revolution, and framed them with a lengthy introduction that pro- poses a model for uniting the personal and the public. She reads these stories not only as autobiographical documents but as a new form of "historical imagina- tion." Their lives are interpreted as part of a process of growing toward Indonesia, becoming aware of per- sonal responsibility and national destiny, which de- fined the generation that brought independence to the archipelago.

The memoirs are authored by P. Pospos, a Toba Batak Christian and high school teacher in Jakarta, and Muhammed RadJab, a Minang Muslim employed as a newspaper editor in the capital. Each writes primar- ily about his days as a schoolboy, his respect for and conflicts with "village traditions," and his developing amorous interests. Village Sumatra in the 1920s and 1930s was a complex arena where new ideologies of nationalism and modernity were beginning to be felt, but the pull of the past and family obligations was still strong. Fathers and schoolmasters were the most im- portant figures in their lives, and each narrator com- bines criticism of their somewhat distant authority with affection for the values they represented. The autocratic discipline of the schoolroom is condemned, and the boys show a growing self-awareness and so- cial consciousness by resisting outmoded pedagogic techniques. Each 'story ends as the hero is about to leave his homeland and travel far away, and each is tinged with the nostalgia of the exile.

Rodgers places their accounts in the wider con- text of Malay historical traditions, Indonesian autobio- graphic writing (most notably Soetomo's Kenung- kenangun, Kata Tehdahoeloean, 1934), new images of

self and society, and especially the influence of liter- acy on knowledge and notions of time. It is here that I find her insights most provocative, but they are also problematic because of the comparative issues they raise. Both Pospos and RadJab criticize the "magical approach to language" (based on chanting religious texts or rote memorization) and preach the liberation of a "specifically modern linguistic world." Their faith in a modern, rationalized use of language is evident in their decision to write in Indonesian, the language of a new national culture, rather than in their native tongues. In growing away from the language of their fathers, they embrace a new form of speech to become part of a new history.

Rodgers wonders whether writers in other Indo- nesian ethnic societies would produce the same forms of autobiography. It might have been more illuminat- ing to ask how people in other Indonesian societies would produce quite different forms of life stones when expressed through oral or visual media. Noting that "each of these writers led an extraordinarily liter- ate and even text-obsessed life," (p. 10) Rodgers shows the consequences of a newly acquired and highly valued literacy. But many Indonesians are still attached to older forms of textuality, articulated in ritual performances and narratives about heirloom ob- jects. The lives of women have not been "entextual- ized" on the printed page in the same way, and pub- lished autobiographies from other outer islands show less concern with linguistic modernism than with reli- gious change.

The contrasts between these enthusiastically liter- ate citizens of the new Indonesia and their forefathers, who lived in primarily oral cultures, could be further analyzed. As someone who is also trying to "find" auto- biographical and biographical elements in ritual dis- course and folk tales, I was very happy to see someone else probing the subjective side of transformations in temporality and historical consciousness. These mod- estly written lives tell us about writing itself as a tem- poral form and place personal experiences on the stage of history.

On the Subject of "Java. "John Pemberton. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994.333 pp.

ROBERT W. HEFNER Boston University

With the neighboring island of Bali, Java is one of the few areas in Indonesia to have been the object of an extensive orientalist literature. Over the course of the 19th and early 20th centuries, European and Java- nese scholars combed the island's literary and archae- ological debris to create an image of a mystically sub-