Pride and authenticity in one hundred years of solitude and Anak Bajang Menggiring Angin - USD Repository

  

PRIDE AND AUTHENTICITY IN

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE AND

ANAK BAJANG MENGGIRING ANGIN

  A thesis presented to the Graduate Program in English Language Studies in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree of Magister Humaniora (M. Hum) in

  English Language Studies by Francisca Purnawijayanti

  036332006 Sanata Dharma University

  Yogyakarta 2006

STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY

  This is to certify that all the ideas, phrases, and sentences, unless otherwise stated, are the ideas, phrases, and sentences of the thesis’ writer. The writer understands the full consequences including degree cancellation if he/she takes somebody else’s ideas, phrases, or sentences without proper references.

  

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

  In the minute the committee announced that I passed the thesis defend examination, I have just realized how impossible this project for me. Right after that, the flashback of the wonderful moments with many remarkable people came to my mind. How fortunate I am that I did not only learn about intellectual things but also about love and generosity. I will always appreciate their patience in guiding me through the path.

  Because of that, my gratefulness extends to the Almighty and ever-living God, Jesus Christ, and the Virgin Mary. Thank you for never counting my infidelity and laziness, that You always bring me back to Your arms. Ibu Yustina Maria Sri Utami and Drs. R. I. Soekarni, M.Pd., my dearest parents in Malang, from whom I find the living example of faith. Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Sindhunata, my inspiration, the two of few people who tough enough to follow the rough path of authenticity. Dr. Novita Dewi, M.S., M.A. (Hons.), who has abundance love and patience and who willingly to be the advisor of me, such a stubborn student. Prof. Dr. James J. Spillane, SJ, who generously provides time and love to sharpen my English, both in writing and speaking. Dr. St. Sunardi, Dr.

  A. Sudiarja, SJ, and Drs. FX. Siswadi, MA, my great reviewers to whom I owe guidance in producing a better thesis.

  My gratitude also goes to Dr. Gabriel Possenti Sindhunata, SJ, my boss, the chairperson of BASIS, the catholic cultural magazine, Dr. Bernard Kieser, SJ and Dr. J. Haryatmoko, SJ from whom I dig up and learns about the meaning of the daily humanity. Yulianto, Slamet Riyadi, Maya, Mas Bino, Mas Budi, and the family of Pangoentji, thank you for your support!

  Yogyakarta, January 2007

  

ABSTRACT

  Francisca Purnawijayanti. 2006. Pride and Authenticity in Anak Bajang . Yogyakarta: English

  Menggiring Angin and One Hundred Years of Solitude Language Studies. Graduate Program. Sanata Dharma University.

  Based on the assumption that literary works have capability to represent human nature, this study attempts to grasp the nature of pride and authenticity by analyzing Sindhuna ta’s Anak Bajang Menggiring Angin (1983), especially the relationship between Ramawijaya and Dewi Sinta and Gabriel García Màrquez’s

  (1972), that of Jose Arcadio Buendía and Úrsula.

  One Hundred Years of Solitude

  This study employs, respectively, the Actancial Structural Analysis as a tool to figure out the grammar of the narratives that underpin the desire structure in the stories and the Triangular Desire Theory to unfold the desire mechanism behind the structure. By employing these theories, this study not only grasps the nature of pride and its illusion as shown by the tragedy of Ramawijaya and Jose Arcadio Buendía, but also points out the power of authenticity as shown by Dewi Sinta and Úrsula.

  This study concludes that authenticity conquers pride. Ramawijaya’s and Jose Arcadio Buendía ’s restless ambition was finished in the hand of their own pride, while Dewi Sinta and Úrsula successfully achieved their self-fulfillment through their authenticity.

  

ABSTRAK

  Francisca Purnawijayanti. 2006. Pride and Authenticity in Anak Bajang

  

Menggiring Angin and One Hundred Years of Solitude . Yogyakarta: English

Language Studies. Graduate Program. Sanata Dharma University.

  Studi ini secara khusus hendak menguak kekuatan destruktif yang terkandung dalam perasaan bangga yang dimiliki oleh seseorang. Dengan mendasarkan diri pada asumsi bahwa karya sastra adalah ungkapan ekspresi dan penggambaran perilaku manusia yang sesungguhnya, studi ini menelaah hakikat kebanggaan yang terkandung dalam Anak Bajang Menggiring Angin karya Sindhunata dalam kaitannya dengan relasi Ramawijaya dan Dewi Sinta, dan One karya Gabriel García Márquez terutama mengenai

  Hundred Years of Solitude hubungan Jose Arcadio Buendía dan Úrsula.

  Untuk tujuan tersebut, studi ini memakai dua alat analisis. Yang pertama adalah Analisis Stuktural Actancial yang digunakan untuk menemukan struktur cerita yang akan menghasilkan struktur hasrat yang merepresentasikan kebanggaan yang dikandung para pelaku. Dan yang kedua adalah Analisa Hasrat Segitiga yang akan menguak mekanisme hasrat yang terkandung dalam struktur cerita.

  Dengan langkah tersebut, studi ini hendak mengungkap hakikat kebanggaan yang diidap oleh Ramawijaya dalam Anak Bajang Menggiring Angin dan Jose Arcadio Buendía dalam One Hundred Years of Solitude yang ternyata sangat destruktif. Di samping itu, dengan metode ini, studi ini juga akan mengangkat kekuatan autentisitas Dewi Sinta sebagai istri Ramawijaya dan Úrsula sebagai Jose Arcadio Buendía yang tampaknya selalu dikalahkan.

  Bertitik tolak dari hal tersebut maka akan terlihat bahwa sebenarnya nilai autentisitas yang ramah pada realita hidup, pada hakikatnya adalah lebih kuat daripada kebanggaan yang ambisius. Hal ini tampak, betapa heroisme Ramawijaya dan Jose Arcadio Buendía berakhir dengan mengenaskan. Sementara, Dewi Sinta dan Úrsula, walau tertatih-tatih berhasil memenuhi panggilan hidupnya.

  Dari penelitian ini dapat disimpulkan bahwa kedua novel ini sebenarnya adalah kisah tentang kekuatan autentisitas Dewi Sinta dan Úrsula dan bukan kisah tentang heroisme Ramawijaya dan Jose Arcadio Buendía.

  TABLE OF CONTENT Chapter One: INTRODUCTION ………………………………………………..

  1 Chapter Two: THEORETICAL REVIEW

  10

  1. Actancial Structural Analysis………………………………………………

  25 2. Triangular Desire Theory ………………………………………………….

  33

  4. Methodology ………………………………………………………………

  39 Chapter Three:

  THE PORTRAIT OF PRIDE: Actancial Structural Analysis ………………

  41

  1. ANAK BAJANG MENGGIRING ANGIN

  1.1. Narrative Elements

  A. Synopsis ……………………………………………………………

  42 B. Exposition of Main Characters ………………………………………

  44

  1.2. First episode: Sastra Jendra Hayuningrat Pangruwating Diyu Tragedy

  48

  1.3. Second episode: Cupu Manik Astagina Tragedy ………………………

  53

  1.4. Third episode: Ayodya Throne Tragedy ………………………………

  57

  1.5. Fourth episode: Dewi Sinta Tragedy in Alengka ………………………

  60

  1.6. Conclusion ……………………………………………………………

  65

  2. ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE

  2.1. Narrative Elements

  A. Synopsis ……………………………………………………………

  68 B. Exposition of Main Characters …………………………………….

  70

  2.2. First episode: Tragedy of the Unbridled Imagination …………………

  76

  2.3. Second episode: Pride and Tragedy ……………………………………

  79

  2.4. Third episode: Macondo No More, The Third Tragedy ………………

  82

  2.5. Conc lusion ……………………………………………………………

  84

  3. CONCLUSION ……………………………………………………………

  85

  Chapter Four: THE POWER OF AUTHENTICITY: Triangular Desire Analysis

  88

  1. The World of Pride …………………………………………………………

  90

  2. The World of Authenticity ………………………………………………. 114

  3. Conclusion …………………………………………………………………. 132

  

Chapter Five: CONCLUSION ………………………………………………….. 136

BIBLIOGRAPHY ……………………………………………………………… 140

CHAPTER ONE

  

INTRODUCTION

  Although, for some people, it is still an arguable subject of discussion, inevitably, social science and literature have a worthy closed relationship.

  Imaginative utterance of literature is one contribution to the way out of social science rigidity. To some extent, literary work’s subjectivity is much more representative than the objectivity of social science in delivering and lifting up humanity’s problems. For the essential role of literature, Mario Vargas Llosa, a prominent Colombian writer as well as marginalized-sided political activist, has this to say:

  Literature is the best armor that protects human being from foolish prejudice, racism, and xenophobia, sectarianism of religion and politics and exclusive nationalism. … Literary work cultivates our critical sensitivity and fight for life. Such a thing prepares us to face the reality of life, which in fact is not as sweet

  1 as we hope.

  This is how literature shapes life, in term of enlightening and softening human being’s heart in order to be ready as a praiseworthy part of life. On the one hand, life’s harshness might be too much to bear. On the other hand, life is too worthy to be neglected. Through literary works, it is possible to appreciate life from both sides.

  Moreover, it gives learning that humanity’s problems are not merely about scientific matter and literature has the potent ial to enlighten social science. Even, the most ₁ preeminent figures of social science from Ferdinand de Saussure to Edward Said

Vargas Llosa, Mario, “And That’s The Way Literature …,” Georgetown Magazine, Summer 2001, p.

  12 come from or have a profound literary background. St. Sunardi highlights that literary works have the potential to enrich and enlighten social science when he says the following:

  Social science’s duty is no longer at the quest of the most possible society structure. On the other hand, social science has to solve the problem of how the structure serves society in defining their identity. In such context, narration is a versatile tool since it is capable of bearing subjectivity and identity to its most

  2 intense and wholesome stage.

  In the light of this notion, this study attempts to see how literary works represent and articulate a petite realm of society’s problem of identity construction, the entanglement of pride and authenticity. Such problem is latent but the influence is a certainty. Pride provides illusion, which is able to elevate people’s honor as high as they want which within second drags them out from their own life. Whereas authenticity on the other side, invites and teaches people to be loyal to their ordinary life which might be without surprise and praise.

  One of the most legendary models of this problem is the life of the beautiful

3 Hollywood star Marilyn Monroe . She died at her thirty-six when she was at her peak

  of outstanding popularity because of drugs about forty years ago. During her career, her charming beauty transformed her from an unwanted girl to be the most desired woman that men ever wanted to sleep with. Moreover it seems that that is the very ₂ quest of her life when she said, “I am not interested in money. I just want to be

  

St. Sunardi, “Ilmu Sosial Berbasis Sastra. Catatan Awal,” BASIS, no. 11-12, November – Desember

₃ 2002, p. 8-17.

  Review of Marylin Monroe is based on Sindhunata, “Yang Cantik dan Yang Mati,” BASIS, no. 09- 10, September – Oktober 2002, p. 64 – 80. wonderful.” And that was how the story went; she was the most wanted as well as the most hated because of her beauty. Even today, never ending stories about her go on being written.

  She gained her pride through her fame, which had been constructed by her society. She was a kind of devout artist in following such construction for the sake of fame and taking a risk for losing her authenticity. And she really realized that fact when she said, “[Hollywood is] a place where they'll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul.” Monroe remained committed with her choice and gave her life totally to fulfill the condition of being a star. As Richard Dyer, an expert of celebrity says,

  Someone who wants to be a star has to posses something which is worth for the most people of his/her period. Moreover, for being a great star someone has to surrender his/her own identity to the constructed imagined personality of the

  4 society.

  That is how people treated her as they wanted which in fact raised a million dollars. They put her in an unreachable pedestal for them and for herself. As a result, she had to face that her friends and family, even her beloved husband rejected her real ordinary personality. Before the ending of her life, she admitted how fame that had given her pride trapped her into unbearable sorrow:

  For me, fame is only a matter of a little tiny temporary luck. Fame never satisfies my self-fulfillment. Fame gives me warmth for only a second and

  5 ₄ leaves me behind in a desolate loneliness for the rest. ₅ Ibid. p. 72 Ibid. p. 79 That is a confession of a woman who had achieved the kind of life dreamed about by most people but losing her own authentic life that she herself wanted. From such social phenomena, this study attempts to explore pride and authenticity from the point of view of literary works.

  As such, this study will use two novels, Gabriel García Márquez’s One (henceforth OHYS) and Sindhunata’s Anak Bajang

  Hundred Years of Solitude

Menggiring Angin (henceforth ABMA) which, at a certain point are assumed to have

  similarity in theme. Despite of the similarity, in fact, these novels have differences as well, which will not be in the account of analysis since this study is textual-based.

  However, the differences of the rest of the novels’ elements might be enrichment and complementary elements that this textual-based study attempts to draw the line of the theme among such differences.

  As such, it is necessary to look at the following brief review of those novels as well as the background of the authors from where the differences and similarities lay but indeed have nothing to do with the analysis since this study does not intend to be comparative study.

  At some point in their lives, both Sindhunata and Gabriel García Márquez were journalists who always took side of the poor and the marginalized. Henceforth, they continually write to give voice to the voiceless people, both in their literary and

  6

  journalistic writings. As a matter of fact, being the weak and the voiceless is part of their life, both during their career and in their private lives.

  To discuss first Gabriel José García Márquez, he was born on March 6, 1928 in Aracataca, a town in Northern Colombia. He is the eldest sibling of Luisa Santiaga Márquez Iguáran’s and Gabriel Eligio García’s eleven children. Because of his parents’ poverty, until the age of eight, he was raised by his grandparents. García Márquez has witnessed his mother’s greatness. He knew how Luisa Santiaga’s love to her family was unconditional. She accepted the four illegitimate children of her husband and raised them like her own children. She even faced harsh reality patiently and worked very hard to earn money when her husband left her and neglected the family. He wrote in Living to Tell the Tale (2003), the greatness of his mother during many difficult times as follows:

  It was not difficult to carry out his charge to me. My mother was becoming accustomed to inopportune and uncertain times alone, and she managed them with reluctance, but with great facility. Cooking and keeping the house in order made it necessary for even the youngest children to help in domestic duties, which they did well. During this time I felt like an adult for the first time when

  7 I realized that my brothers and sisters had begun to treat me like an uncle.

  His mother’s virtues stayed so strongly in his memory that in his memoirs his mother is the pivotal figure described in such a way that we can easily refer to Úrsula.

  Besides her mother’s love and virtue, solitude is also familiar in Márquez’s life. He ₆ says the following while reflecting on his family’s life:

  

On 15 February 2006, Sindhunata received Lifetime Achievement Award from Persatuan Wartawan

₇ Indonesia (Indonesian Journalist Association) for his thirty – years – dedication.

  García Márquez, Living to Tell The Tale, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003) p. 134.

  That was the state of the world when I began to be aware of my family environment, and I cannot evoke it in any other way: sorrows, grieves, uncertainties in the solitude of an immense house. For years it seems to me that this period had become a recurrent nightmare that I had almost every night, because I would wake in the morning feeling the same terror I had felt in the room with the saints. During my adolescence, when I was a student at an icy boarding school in the Andes, I would wake up crying in the middle of the night. I need this old age without remorse to understand that the misfortune of my grandparents in the house of Cataca was that they were always mired in their nostalgic memories, and the more they insisted on conjuring them the deeper they sank.

8 Nicknamed Gabito or “little Gabriel”, Márquez confessed in his biography that

  his family’s experience inspired his writings. He said, “I feel that all my writing has been about the experiences of the time I spent with my grandparents.”

  9 His novel No

One Writes to the Colonel , for example, is based on the experience of his grandfather,

  Colonel Nicolás Ricardo Márquez Mejía, as a Liberal veteran of the War of a Thousand Days. Also, Love in the Time of Cholera is based on his parents’ tragic love story.

  It is worth noting that Márquez’s eagerness to be a writer was firmly cultivated when he was a law student at the Universidad Nacional in Bogotá. One day, he was given a copy of Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, which profoundly affected him. Since then he could not deny that he had absolutely no interest in his formal studies.

  Eventually, he decided to leave college. This decision was his parents’ regret, especially his father for being the oldest son, he was the ultimate hope of the family ₈ García Márquez, Living to Tell The Tale, p. 66. ₉ Allen B. Ruch, “The uncertain Old Man Whose Real Existence was the Simplest of His Enigmas”, ( http://www.themodernword.com/gabo/gabo_biography ), 25 October 2005.

  for a better future, in terms of dignity as well as prosperity. But Gabito insisted on his choice even arguing his mother when she came to him to talk about the matter over.

  “Your papá is very sad,” she said. […] “And why’s that?” “Because you’ve left your studies.” “I didn’t leave them. I only changed careers.” […] “Your papa says it amounts to the same thing,” she said.

  “He stopped studying too, to play the violin.” […] “I earn a living too, writing for newspaper,” I said.

  “You say that so as not to mortify me,” she said. “But even from a distance anybody can see the state you’re in. So bad I didn’t even recognize you when I saw you in the bookstore.” “I didn’t recognize you either,” I told her. “But not for the same reason,” she said. “I thought you were a beggar.” She looked at my worn sandals and added: “Not even any socks.” “It’s more comfortable,” I said.”Two shirts and two pairs of undershorts: you wear one while the other’s drying. What else does anyone need?”

  10 “A little dignity,” she said.

  Actually, dignity is also something of his quest through writing. Since he was a child, he felt a deep inferiority. He was a shy boy and had difficulties in studying, on the other hand, being a writer was a premonition for him. He narrated his experience as follows:

  It was very hard for me to learn how to read. It did not seem logical for the letter m to be called em, and yet with some vowel following it you did not say but ma. It was impossible for me to read that way. At last, when I went to

  ema

  the Montessori school, the teacher did not teach me the names of the consonants but their sounds. In this way I could read the first book (The ) I found in a dusty chest in the storeroom of the

  Thousand and One Night

  house. It was tattered and incomplete, but it involved me in so intense a way that Sara’s fiancé had a terrifying premonition as he walked by: “Damn! This ₁₀ kids’s going to be a writer.”

  Living to Tell the Tale, p. 8-9

  Other than his little interest to study he was really a coy boy. When he had to take over his wandering father’s responsibility as the bread winner of the family, he had to struggle against his timidity. Very often, he lost the chance to get a credit because of his shyness. He says,

  I never could overcome my shyness. When I had to comfort the raw responsibility our wandering father had left with us, I learned that shyness is an invincible phantom. Each time I had to ask for credit, even when it had been agreed to ahead of time in store owned by friends, I put it off for hours in the vicinity of the house, repressing my desire to cry and the cramps in my stomach, until at last I dared to go in with my jaws clenched so tight I could not speak. There was always some heartless shopkeeper who would leave me in utter confusion, “You moronic kid, you can’t talk with your mouth sho ut.” More than once I returned home with empty hands and some excuse I had

  11 invented.

  Moreover, timidity was a phantom that haunted him restlessly, even when he had been adult and being a member of Barranquilla Group, a prestigious group of artists in Barranquilla city. Marquez tended to talk to his imaginary person rather than to his friends. His reflection is as follows:

  I had the impression that when the group talked, each one brought his grain of sand to the disorder, and the virtues and defect of each person were confused with those of the others, but it never occurred to me that I could talk alone about art and glory with a man who had lived for years in an encyclopedia. Often, late at night, when I was reading in the solitude of my room, I imagined exciting conversations I would have liked to have with him about my literary doubts, but they melted away without a trace in the light of the sun. My shyness grew even worse when Alfonso erupted with one of his extraordinary ideas; Germán condemned one of the maestro’s hurried opinions, or Álvaro shouted

  12 out a project that drove us out of our minds.

  11 ₁₂ Living to Tell the Tale, 134 Ibid. 113

  Instead of being a looser, Marquez’s determined dream of being a writer made him go through his flaw. Nothing could stop him, neither poverty nor timidity. Since he was young he has been known as talented and prolific writer that in 1946, the editor of El Espectador hailed him as “the new genius of Colombian letters”. He read a lot of books and wrote many articles while building consultative relationship with many prominent writers and improving his writing skill diligently. Some of his efforts did not result very well but it did not depress him. Even the fatal failure of publishing Crónica magazine strengthened his spirit to be a devout writer for the rest of his life. More to the point, he has been familiar with poverty for along time thus the unpredictable material earning of being writers did not discourage him. In a brief passage, he illustrated his devotion as follows:

  I was not disheartened. The trip to Cataca with my mother, my historic conversation with Don Ramón Vinyes, and my deep connection to the Barranquilla Group had filled me with an encouragement that lasted for the rest of my life. From then on I did not earn a centavo except with the typewriter, and this seems more meritorious to me than one might think, because the first royalties that allowed me to live on my stories and novels were paid to me when I was in my forties, after I had published four books with the most abject earnings. Before that, my life was always agitated by a tangle of tricks, feints, and illusions intended to outwit the countless lures that tried to turn me into anything but a writer.

  He risked his life to begin his career as a writer through many hungry years. Finally, on January 1965, the epiphany which would bring his triumphant moment as a writer happened. When he was driving to Acapulco for a vacation with his family, he grasped the inspiration for his future outstanding novel. Since then, he wrote everyday for eighteen months, consuming up to six packs of cigarettes a day. As a result, his wife, Mercedes became the one who had to think about surviving the family and supporting her husband. She was looking for credit, sold the car and all of the household appliance to feed the family and keeping up paper supplies for her husband. And when he finished the novel, he was almost poisoned from nicotine, and got a mental and physical breakdown. That’s the entire price he had to pay when he wrote One Hundred Years of Solitude which won the Nobel Prize in 1982.

  Editorial Sudamericanos in Buenos Aires, Argentina, firstly published this novel under the original title Cien Años de Soledad in June, 1967. OHYS had been widely reprinted and published in English and other languages all over the world. Indonesia, this novel had been translated under the title Seratus Tahun Kesunyian, published by Benteng Press, Yogyakarta, 2001. This study used the English edition of

  th

  the 7 edition of the Penguin Books, which has published this novel several times since 1972.

  Since the first day of publication, within a week, all of 8,000 copies of this novel were sold out and within three years, half a million copies were sold as well.

  Before the Nobel Prize in 1982, this novel had achieved at least three prestigious international awards. In 1969, OHYS gained the Chianchiano Prize in Italy. In the same year it was declared as the Best Foreign Book in France. In 1970, OHYS was published in English and chosen as one of the best twelve books of the year in the

  13 ₁₃ United States.

  

Allen B. Ruch, “The Uncertain Old Man Whose Real Existence was The Simplest of His Enigmas”, ( http://www.themodernword.com/gabo/gabo_biography.html .). 25 November 2005 is a long narrative fiction with a huge scope. It covers particular

  OHYS

  moments in the history of the Latin American people with their own nature so that it is sometimes called magical realism literature. Actually such literature is not magic.

  Its aim is to express emotions, not to evoke them. More than anything else, it is an attitude toward reality that can be expressed in popular or cultured forms, in elaborate

  14

  or rustic styles, in a closed or open structure. Beside One Hundred Years of

  

Solitude , the members of this genre are Milan Kundera’s The Book of Laughter and

Forgetting (1979), Salman Rusdhie’s Midnight’s Children (1980), and Carlos

  Fuentes’s Distant Relations (1980). And the others precursors are Franz Kafka, Jorge

  15 Luis Borges, Alejo Carpentier, Octavio Paz, and Julio Cortazar.

  On his account about his choice of such genre instead of realism, Márquez maintains that, “Realism is a kind of premeditated literature that offers too static and exclusive a vision of reality. However good or bad they may be, they are books which finish on the last page.” Further, he contends, “Disproportion is part of our reality too.

  Our reality is in itself out of all proportion.” For that reason, a “realistic” text is hardly a satisfactory mode, much less an accurate presentation of the thing in itself. It means that for Márquez such a “magic” text is, paradoxically, more realistic than a

  16 ₁₄ “realistic” text . In fact, by employing magical realism, Márquez articulates people’s Leal, Luis, “Magical Realism in Spanish American Literature,” in Magical Realism. Theory, ₁₅ History, Community, Durham & London: Duke University Press, 1995, p. 212.

B. Faris, Wendy, “Scheherazade’s Children: Magical Realism and Postmodern Fiction,” in Magical

16 Realism. Theory, History, Community, Durham & London: Duke University Press, 1995, p. 167.

  Simpkins, Scott, ‘Source of Magic Realism/Supplements to Realism in Comtemporary Latin American Literature,” in Magical Realism. Theory, History, Community, Durham & London: Duke University Press, 1995, p. 148. painful reality and vanity from the bottom of their heart vividly. As a result, in his appreciation of this novel, Prof. Lars Gyllensten of Swedish Academy has this to say: “With his stories García Márquez has created a world of his own which is a micro-cosmos. In its tumultuous, bewildering yet graphically convincing authenticity it reflects a continent and its human riches and poverty. Perhaps more than that it reflects a cosmos in which the human heart and the combined forces of history time again burst the bounds of chaos-killing and

  17

  procreation.” Besides gaining high appreciation from literary societies, this novel has also attained a remarkably pre-eminent place in a variety of professional interests, for instance the South American critics, who appreciated this novel as a cultural document of the greatest significance, and North American critics, who considered it as the high point of early postmodernism. This novel is taught widely and in a variety of circular context, from courses on civilization and Latin America literature to

  18

  seminars on comparative literature and women’s study. One of criticisms on this novel is found the article “Voices of Patriarchy: Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude” written by Susanne Kappeler in Teaching the Text, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983. Those are the evidences that OHYS is a magnificent

17 Lars Gyllensten, Press Release: The Nobel Prize for Literature 1982 Nobel Lectures ,

  ₁₈ ( http://www.themodernword.com/gabo/gabo_nobel.html ). 10 December 2005

De Valdés, Maria Elena and Mario J. Valdés, eds., Approaches to Teaching García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude , New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 1990, p. x story that has captivated the heart of the readers and had the capacity to support many

  19 kinds of interpretation.

  Next, it the account of the author of Anak Bajang Menggiring Angin, Gabriel Possenti Sindhunata. He was born on May 12, 1952 in Batu, a small mountainous

  20

  town in East Java as the fourth of the eight siblings . At that time, the family of Sindhunata or Liem Tiong Sien was marginalized because they were poor Chinese.

  They lived in a crowded neighborhood, called Kampung Hendrik. Sindhunata will always remember how they had to work hard to make a living to his family. Although all family members made an effort to earn money, they still lived on the edge of poverty.

  Sindhunata’s father, Liem Swie Bie, was a vegetables farm supervisor. He used to ride his motorcycle to the farm early each morning for years. Finally his lung ailment betrayed him so that he had to change his profession. He needed capital to start with. The decision was to sell the house inherited from his parents, which was then rented out without proper legal documentation. The occupants of the house refused to let go of the house and only agreed to pay a low price for the house.

  Desperately in need of money to start his new business, Swie Bie accepted the deal and used that small amount of money to buy a run down van. Then again, too poor to ₁₉ obtain a driving license and necessary legal papers, he operated the van illegally

  

Maria Elena De Valdés,”The Novel and Its Author”, in Approaches to Teaching García Márquez’s

One Hundred Years of Solitude , (New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 1990) ₂₀ p.3.

  My interview with Sindhunata, Yogyakarta, November 25, 2005. around the limited areas in his neighborhood with his sons in turn assisted him. Consequently, he did not earn sufficient amount of money to support the family.

  Some years later, Swie Bie’s health was getting worse until he was too weak to do his job. In the end of 1979, he was collapsed. At that time, Sindhunata, who had been a journalist in Jakarta, wanted to visit his father to bring him a second-hand tape recorder as a gift for it was a luxurious thing for him. Sindhunata came just in time on the day before his father passed away. Regretfully, the second-hand tape recorder, which was sent by a courier, was still on the way. Nevertheless, the brokenhearted Sindhunata turned the tape recorder on in front of his deceased father before the funeral, wishing that his late father were listening his favorite music through “the brand new” second-hand tape recorder.

  After Swie Bie’s death, Sindhunata’s mother, Koo Soen Ling was completely alone, she lost her beloved husband but she never lost her spirit of life. She was always tough in taking care of her children by herself. Since she was young, Soen Ling was a hard working housewife. She did many kinds of job to support his husband, such as running a stall in her house, sewing, and cooking bakpao. Every day, early in the morning, Soen Ling used to walk along mountainous path to the traditional market to purchase various goods to sell again in her stall. To reduce the overhead cost, she used no pub lic transportation, but carried the heavy load of her purchase only in her two small hands. Sindhunata, who sometimes accompanied her, recalls how slowly they could reach their home again because they had to make several stops given the heavy load.

  As if the family burden was not enough, Soen Ling too had to sell her only sewing machine to make both ends meet. Since then, she took orders of sewing such as putting on the badges of karate uniform by doing it in the customer’s place. In her seventies when she has a chance to enjoy her life, the trace of her hard work, her aching knee, continues to disturb her. She died recently at her seventy seven.

  Not only did Swie Bie and Soen Ling work extremely hard, but their children did too. The sons of the family tried to become salesmen of lottery tickets. Of course they realized the risk but that was all they could do. Even, they once almost got caught by the police for so doing.

  Such was the hardship that the family of Sindhunata a.k.a Tiong Sien, had to endure during his childhood. His family might be poor yet from them he not only learned about poverty and being marginalized but also about love, struggle, creativity, and ingenuity. In the middle of poverty, young Tiong Sien never lost his happiness.

  He was a remarkably active child. With his peers, he was used to wandering around the neighborhood to have fun with themselves in a simple way, such as just walking along rivers and going to many kinds of neighborhood where they learned poverty in a wider horizon. No wonder his experience of wandering around not only gave him happy times with his friends but also nourished his empathy for people’s suffering which in the future was poured out in his writings.

  Moreover, his passion of books and art was also promoted after his childhood. He was a kind of child who was always curious about many things and he knew that books was the source where he would find the answers. Unfortunately, his parents could not afford to buy him books. But, as if inherited ingenuity from his parents, he found the solution. When he really wanted to read a certain book, he would “steal” the book from the shelf of the store and put it back on the shelf when he finished it.

  The same is true with his love of ludruk. By then ludruk, a traditional east Java play, had become one of his favorites and is still so today. At that time, for the sake of ludruk, he would enthusiastically walk everywhere with his friends to watch the play. Ismail was one of his most loyal childhood friends with whom he used to share his only one sarung when they watched ludruk. Of course they watched it without paying money for the tickets. How could he do that? As he recalls his childhood, he writes how he, as a poor child who wanted to watch ludruk, found a way without buying a ticket:

  I never had money to buy a ticket when a Ludruk group such as Putra Bakti or Wijaya Kusuma performed in Gedung Kesenian Seni Sono, Batu, but I wanted to see it then. I always became a trespasser. Or, if I failed to trespass I would listen to the play from outside and wait patiently at the front gate until

  21 intermission. After that, the gate was opened for free.

  That is his confession about his poverty and ingenuity as well in his book Ilmu (2004) which is about ludruk’s value of life. He dedicates

  Ngglethek Prabu Minohek

  this book which consists of not only documentation but also philosophical discussion ₂₁ by all committed players of ludruk. For Sindhunata, ludruk is his prominent part of

  

“Saya tak punya uang untuk beli karcis, ketika mereka main dalam grup Ludruk Putra Bakti atau

Wijaya Kusuma di Gedung Seni Sono, Kota Batu, yang waktu itu masih kecamatan. Saking inginnya

nonton, saya memberanikan diri untuk nrombol. Atau jika main siang pada hari Minggu, dengan sabar saya menunggu sampai saya bisa masuk setelah setengah mainan di manna gedung dibuka bagi siapapun yang ingin menonton sisa pertunjukkan.” See Sindhunata, Ilmu Ngglethek Prabu Minohek , (Yogyakarta: Penerbit Tjap Petroek, 2004) p. XIV. his life because in an unique and funny way, ludruk is his companion which has advised and strengthened his faith during difficult times. Therefore, he is very glad that in his fifties, he finally fulfilled his dream to write a book about ludruk.

  Those are the experiences of Sindhunata which may be important factors that cultivated his sense of art, culture, and empathy as a writer. Although brief, these background circumstances of Sindhunata’s life provide a description of how profound the communion between his writings and his own personal life is. That fact can be the reason why it seems very clear that all of Sindhunata’s writings are overwhelmed with theme of the struggle of the marginalized. Sindhunata had given birth also many kinds of writings about his option for the weak, whether academic, jour nalistic, religious, or in other literary genres. For example, he wrote about the movement of

  th th

  the poor peasants and their life struggle in Java during 19 -20 century which earned him first class degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Hochschule für Philisophische

22 Fakultät SJ München, Germany . His Waton Urip (2005) is about the virtues of

  riders in Yogyakarta, while Nggayuh Gesang Tentrem (2004) is a prosaic

  becak

  Javanese Catholic prayer book. His concern about the merits of the marginalized is poured out in his collection of poems, published under the title Air Kata Kata (2003).

  As such, it is clear that Sindhunata writes in many kinds of genres, from journalistic writings to poetry. Before being published as a novel in 1983 by ₂₂ Gramedia Pustaka Utama, Jakarta, ABMA appeared as a Sunday weekly serial story in

  Sindhunata, Hoffen auf den Ratu Adil-Das eschatologische Motiv des “Gerechten Königs” im Bauernprotest auf Java während des 19 und zu Beginn des 20 Jahrhunderts , (Hamburg: Dr. Kovac verlag, 1993). the KOMPAS daily newspaper during 1981. This eight-chapter novel is based on the

  23 Ramayana epic with its distinctive feature on highly lyrical prose style and the Javanese philosophy of life.

  Besides, ABMA has inspired several artists. For example, Landung Simatupang, a famous “king of monolog” theater worker performed his theatrical monolog of “Anak Bajang Menggiring Angin” at Lembaga Indonesia Prancis (LIP), Yogyakarta

  th

  24

  on 17 and 18 July 2001 . ABMA also inspired Retno Maruti, a senior Javanese traditional dancer, to perform “Alap-Alapan Sukesi” at the Graha Bakti Taman Ismail

  th

  25 Marzuki, Jakarta on 25 and 26 July 2004 . Neng Peking, a dancer and

  choreographer of Akademi Seni Tari Indonesia (ASTI) Bandung and Sekolah Tinggi Seni Indonesia (STSI) Solo, also performed “Wanci Ratri” at Komunitas Azan,

26 Bandung on 19 September 2003 .

  Few studies on ABMA include “Shadow Boxing: Indonesian Writers and the Ramayana in the New Order”, a journal article by Marshal Clark (2001); “Estetika Struktur Novel Anak Bajang Menggiring Angin karya Sindhunata” by M.

  Christinawati (1997); “Pandangan Hidup Masyarakat Jawa dalam Roman Anak

Bajang Menggiring Angin : Suatu Tinjauan Sosiologis” by Wiwin Yarniatun (1996).