Book Review : Java after World War II
Ranked #14,741 in Books, Poetry & Writing, #591,357 overall
IT'S NOT AN ALL NIGHT FAIR
Title : Its Not an All Night Fair.
Author : Pramoedya Ananta Toer
Pramoedya managed to use a simple story as a portrayal of social economic situation of the Indonesian people after world war II.
He used himself as the main character. He received a letter asking him to come home because his father was seriously ill. He came home to Blora, Java, by train with his wife. Along the way home he saw poor social economic condition after the war.
Got to Blora still he saw poverty and suffering. He met his father who suffered from tuberculosis in a hospital. Then he took care of his father with his brothers.
One day an uncle asked him to find a sorcerer. The sorcerer gave him an incense and told him to mix it as a drink. But it did not help. His father still suffered from tuberculosis.
Several days later he ran out of money so he said to his father that he would go back to Jakarta. His father asked him to stay one more week. One night he had a conversation with his younger brother. He told sufferings of the family. His mother died earlier. He lost his grandfather, and also a kid brother. Poverty and famine were also other suffering that they had to bear.
His father did not want to become a member of local parliament. He did not want to become an official of the department of education either. He chose to be a teacher so he could teach students. Due to his position that received very little salary he could not afford to pay a sanatorium.
One week later his father said it was time to go home. So he brought him back home. Neighbors came to see him.
One day his father said that he was a son of an ulama ( an Islamic clergyman) but he did not want to be one. He wanted to be a nationalist although he said it was hard to be one. Before long he passed away.
When mourners gathered they expressed their impressions about his father. Someone said he was a hard card player who could play for days without any rest. Another friend of his said he was a responsible party activist. Once he paid in full a set of stolen bond. Someone recalled him as an official of the Dutch colonial government but at the same time as a pro-indepedence party activist. The other friend said he was disappointed with revolutionary leaders who fought each other for power after independence.
So Pramoedya nicely used the character of father and the situation to describe people's suffering like poverty, death and sadness due to political conflict.
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Pramoedya's books on Amazon
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