Breakfast and Remembrance: House of Glass (Rumah Kaca)

 




This volume brings memories of a long train ride -- The uncomfortable seat, the ripped pages, the farthing of a co-passenger, and the many swirling-turbulent thoughts that came while reading the book. Yes, it left deep impressions, the torment of wanting to confront the author. etc.

In this story cycle, Pramoedya Ananta Toer introduced a character named "Minke", a young Javanese, descended from the native nobility. He reminded one of Rizal's Ibarra or even of Jose Rizal himself, the youthful native romanticist nurtured in both the native tradition and that of the West-- if l may say the "educated" of the colony with innate sophistication.

The author conducted us into the life inside the colonial society of the then Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), unmasking its uniqueness and complexities. After three decades of Indonesian independence, a native author had put the country to open discussion to the world stage, right under the nose of a repressive regime -- Suharto's "New Order".

It is said that Pramoedya Ananta Toer recited the whole four-book cycle in front of his fellow political prisoners in the infamous Buru Island prison -- They took away his rights, his liberty and forbid him to write. But they never got hold of his thoughts or his being. In the uncounted words that made up the story, lies the fact that the "Buru Quartet" was rewritten and retold through the hundred memories of those whom Pramoedya Ananta Toer shared incarceration, a communion of humans recreating a difficult narrative.

The train ride from Zurich to Napoli was almost a day. We have to stay longer in Lugano due to some rail delay. When we arrived there around noon, many shops were closed for siesta.
Lazy Latins!

Pasig City October 2021

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