“Drama Mangir” by Pramoedya Ananta Toer
This is an incredible story about the fall of Majapahit in 1527, and the proceeding game of thrones in the vacuum of power for decades.
In the middle of this utter chaos, Penembahan Senopati, the king of Mataram in 1575-1607, became the main vocal point of the story. He was the descendant of the last Majapahit king Brawijaya V and a vicious man who employed some of the nasties strategies to conquer the villages, including an attempt to capture a small area called Mangir.
It is in this village that he eventually met his match, their ruler named Wanabaya (or more commonly known as Ki Ageng Mangir or the leader of Mangir) who possessed a powerful mystical spear called Klinting. Wanabaya was also the descendant of Brawijaya V (making him and Senopati distant cousins), hence he felt entitled to control Mangir independently and not to succumbed to the rule of Mataram, which Senopati did not take very well. And the resulting mind games and battle tactics are what this book is all about, the drama that happened in Mangir.
The introduction of the book is especially exquisite, providing the grand context of the historical event. It covers all the mysticisms and local beliefs, the prophecies, the political propaganda, the origins of words (that last until today), the impressive contextual background for the weaponry, disproving false narratives in history books (like what ended up happen with Wanabaya – no spoiler), the analysis of war tactics, and describing the background story of various different kind of people such as Tumenggung Mandaraka whom Pramoedya dubbed as a Machiavellian before Niccolo Machiavelli was known to the world.
Different from the rest of Pramoedya’s books, however, is the format of the story where Pramoedya decided not to use the usual novel format, but instead use a stage play format in order to tell the story more authentically. And this is where the book stands out, the gripping conversations and stage drama that incredibly told in detail that can be a minute-by-minute guide to actually perform the play live in theatre.
I sincerely hope that one day I can get to see it performed live.
THE CHAOS THEORY 