This is a very intimate biography of Pramoedya Ananta Toer; told from the perspectives of his closest little brother, Koesalah Soebagyo Toer, the person who Pramoedya tells almost everything to.
The book consist of short chapters that provide many new angles for Pramoedya’s life story, his everyday personality, his hopes and worries, and his rants over many things. It shows, above all things, that Pramoedya is a strong-headed, principled, and eccentric character full of passion and emotions.
Indeed he can be difficult at times, but overall he’s a kind hearted person who likes to have snarky comments and the occasional dad jokes. He’s also stubborn over health issues too, which is endearing and reminds me of my late dad.
The book shows all of this through stories about his family structure, his name changes, his two marriages, the difficulties during his many times in prison, suicide thoughts during exile, money matters, family affairs that make him look like a normal family person, or what he’s like as the oldest brother that took care of his siblings after their parents died.
Moreover, the book also discusses about his difficult relationship with his father, the fact that it took him 10 years to finish elementary school, his youth era when he was in a military fighting against the Dutch and allied forces (which inspired several of his books), or many other random stories like his bizarre experience with black magic.
And of course it discusses his many books, where he got the inspirations from, a glimpse of his research process, his diligent habit of reading historical books and documents, on government censorship towards his work, the stressfulness of publishing books, that one time he was being cheated by his publisher, on being nominated for a Nobel Prize, and many others, including his story with fellow writers like Sandjaja, A. K. Hadi, and Asrul Sani.
It is truly a side of Pramoedya that I haven’t seen before, the human side. And it is a great addition to the puzzle piece of knowledge about Pramoedya the sage and the legendary Indonesian writer.
THE CHAOS THEORY 