Greatly Reviewed!

I used to think that Modzila Firefox would be my final choice of web browser. I just realized that in this unlimited cyber world, making just a final judgment is silly. Yeah, I just converted to a new web browser that calls itself Flock Social Web Browser.

At first, I thought I would be another light and stable browser the way modzila firefox is, although I was still wondering why it labels itself “social web browser”. I was also quite excited with the skin and some add-ons. Sooner, I found that the label social turned out to be related with cyberly social forums and activities, such as RSS-ing, blogging, facebook-ing and all.

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Nagabonar (Jadi) 2 or Nagabonar (becomes) 2. It’s a unique sort of sequel naming. It brought to my mind the smartness of such titles as Too Fast and Too Furious (which plays the sound /tu:/ meant to mean “too” with the fact that it is the sequel or the “two-th” (2nd) movie to Fast and Furious) or Unforgiven II (which, again, uses the play of the sound /tu:/ of the word ‘too,’ meaning ‘also,’ and ‘two’). Well, I hope you don’t find it confusing. Essentially, this kind of naming is cool.

Anyway, in this very dream, I’d like to talk about some issues concerning the novel version of Nagabonar (Jadi) 2 (henceforth, NJ2). I think I need to talk first about Nagabonar itself, the movie as well as the character. Nagabonar is one of few greatest movies in the history of Indonesian movies. It was published in 1987, starred by Mr. Deddy Mizwar (a senior Indonesian actor), scriptwritten by the late Mr. Asrul Sani (an author, movie director, and cultural thinker). The first movie made headlines and took Deddy Mizwar to win Citra Award (a prestigious movie award) somewhere around 1987 or 1988. Almost all adults (who live in cities or have access to TV networks) Continue reading »

Alright, brothers and sisters anywhere on Earth, listen up. I’ve got something to say here. I’ll play scholar now. Hehehe…And you, you and you, the shy one, please be nice. If you wanna go to the john, I’ll give you a minute. Okey then if you’re all ready. Lo and behold!

I just read a cool book by Dr. DJoko Saryono. This guy is a Doctor in Indonesian literature in the State University of Malang. The book is Pergulatan Estetika dalam Sastra Indonesia (or, let’s say, Twists and Turns in the Esthetics of Indonesian Literature). It could be that you, who live in Euro-austro-merican countries, have no ideas about how unique Indonesian people were in the past. I bet you don’t.

Look, Indonesian people were categorized as the so-termed ‘Oral Society’. By this term, Djoko wants to say that Indonesian people–or, archipelagic people, since the name Indonesia was not used until around the second decade of the twentieth century, hehehe…–lived with sense of literature kept alert in their mind. They were closely related with literature. In that age, the kind of literature which was pervasive was oral literature. People knew shadow puppet–the stories of which were commonly only written in the head of its puppeters–or parikan–a kind of poetry created, uttered, and modified by rural communities. Both kinds of literature, along with several other kinds, were created by some people, and then uttered by firsthand Continue reading »

Saratchandra Chattopadyay’s Devdas is a culturally weighted love story. With its broken hearted, sullen, distressed male protagonist, it’s so strong as a love story—well, what captivates us readers more than our hero’s suffering. With its prearranged marriage with someone the female protagonist doesn’t know initially but honors later, Devdas can be seen as a strongly cultural story. Yeah, it might be quite strange for you who live in Euro-american countries to find how some woman who initially marries some man without knowing even his face turns into a very loyal wife who would serve her husband. Yeah, unimaginable for you, right? In fact, it is NOT for Asian people.

Beginning from the second third part of the novel, you’ll find how the male protagonist, Devdas, gets rejected by the female protagonist’s, Parvati’s, parents just because he is a caste lower than them. Along with this rejection, you’ll “enjoy” the intense exploration of pain, sadness, and tears. Continue reading »

The Kreutzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy really digs out what is there in the relation of a man and a woman, especially in a flawed matrimonial one. Tolstoy frankly shows, through his protagonist, that in the flawed matrimonial relationship, the wife can no longer respect the husband because of his past—in the past, he’s the kind of men who always had fun with women, even the married ones, and always avoided serious relationship. The wife can easily be attracted to a handsome man and the husband is too jealous.

One time, the husband invites the man to whom his wife is attracted to play music at his home with his wife, to play “The Kreutzer Sonata”. Unexpectedly, the wife and the protagonist’s wife played very well and it even made the man thinks that they internalized the music too much that the music itself sounds lustful. Later, when the husband’s out of town, Continue reading »