House of Glass
By Pramoedya Ananta Toer
Penguin, 1992. 340 pp. $16.95
Reviewed by Stephen Robson
Those already acquainted with the previous volumes in the quartet have eagerly awaited this final novel.
Translated by Max Lane, the first of the four books, This Earth of Mankind, appeared in 1982. It now appears, together with the second novel, Child of All Nations, in one volume entitled Awakenings. Footsteps, the third novel, was published at the end of 1990.
Inspired by one of the pioneers of the Indonesian national awakening, journalist Tirto Adi Suryo, the quartet centres on the character of Minke.
When we first meet Minke, he is a young and naive student, just beginning to be aware of the country around him and its links to Dutch colonialism.
Unlike the three previous parts, House of Glass is narrated, not by Minke, but by Pangemanann, the policeman who has dogged Minke in the previous novels.
The story here begins where it ends in Footsteps — with the arrest of Minke. His newspaper is banned after his young assistants publish a biting editorial attacking the governor-general of the Netherlands Indies. The policeman, Pangemanann, takes Minke away while Princess Kasiruta, Minke's wife, is visiting her father in a village nearby. But Minke's jailing cannot stop the growth of national consciousness in what was to become Indonesia.
Max Lane comments on the strengths of this work: "To explain the reasons, the dynamics, the causes, the forces at work in pushing history forward without dehumanising or depersonalising it is Pramoedya's great achievement. These are not novels set against the background of historical events, in which the uninformed can become informed about those events while enjoying a good story, as is the case with many historical novels. History is not background to these stories, it is the primary protagonist. The most powerful historical energies are reflected in the character of Minke, in one form or another. He is history's child at a turning point in his society's history. Pramoedya has shown us how a revolutionary is born."
Readers of these books should bear in mind that these writings, while fictional in terms of the characters, reflect real developments in the rising national movement.
It is not by accident that the writings of Pramoedya have been banned in Indonesia. Today a younger generation steps forward to organise against the injustices of the Suharto dictatorship.
Pramoedya remains under town arrest, unable to publish either books or articles, his rights as a citizen denied. His publishers, Yusuf Isak and Hasyim Rahman, like Pramoedya the victims of long-term imprisonment without trial, are also banned from publishing or writing.
As you read these books its worth remembering that there is another powerful country in this region — Australia.
Today Australia is quite prepared to trade blood for oil. That relationship totally dominates Australian-Indonesian ties.
Australian foreign minister Gareth Evans rewrites the English language in his haste to step away from the reality of the massacre in Dili.
And tomorrow? What will be the march of Australia's history?