This is a condensed book that provides a thorough biography of Pramoedya Ananta Toer in the first half of the book, and an intimate conversation with the great man himself in the other half that dived deeper into his past.
What stands out about this book compared to other Pramoedya biographies is that this book focuses on some of his selected books alongside the story of the man, which gives a more complete picture about his journey as a writer.
The book reveals, for example, the raw chaos in the transition period between Revolution and Independence, Pramoedya’s conversation with Soekarno, addressing his encounter with PKI (and his argument with D. N. Aidit), his role in nation building as a writer, how he sees his books as an individual with its own life, how he never reads his finished works, his favourite writers (John Steinbeck, William Saroyan, Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Lode Zielens, Maxim Gorki, Multatuli), and his hope for his readers.
The book also blatantly shows the criticisms, the imprisonments, the book banning (and destroying), his hunger in exile, and multiple tortures launched against him after Suharto took over power, including the financial difficulties during the many arrests where he’s unable to sell any of his work and had to live from honorarium grant from overseas. All of them give an added weigh to the title of the book, that comes from his expression “I want to see all of this to end.”
You know that phrase by Ernest Hemingway “In order to write about life first you need to live it”? It is only after reading this book that it becomes clear where his brilliant writing comes from, how the struggles contributed to his way of thinking, how the mood of the stories reflected the mood of his own circumstance during the time of writing, how the harsh occurrences in the books were the same occasions that he experienced or witnessed, and how the characters in the stories reflect his personal opinion.
This added a more complete picture towards Pramoedya, which complements the brilliant biographies by his English translator Max Lane (about the making of the Buru Quartet), and a close family account by his brother Koesalah Soebagyo Toer (which provide an angle on his human side from the family perspective).
And if I learn anything from this book it is that ideas are powerful, ideas are feared by the status quo wanting to preserve a propaganda. That’s why Pramoedya was grossly mistreated due to his nature as truth-teller. And as much as I want to see justice served to those who tortured him, Pramoedya eventually got the last laugh when he got his revenge through what he knows best: by writing about them through his fictionalized stories, and let the world knows.
Because bones can break and heal, criminals can even get killed and still amount to nothing, but revealing the truth is much more dangerous for the perpetrators, because it can enlighten the masses and create a spark of change.
THE CHAOS THEORY 