Postmodernism and how Ajidarma used it

against the New Order

Andrew Charles Starr Fuller

BA, PGDip (University of Melbourne)

Melbourne Institute of Asian Languages and Societies

Arts Faculty
The University of Melbourne
January, 2004

Submitted in total fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Arts (by Thesis only).
Abstract

Seno Gumira Ajidarma is a writer of central importance to contemporary Indonesian fiction. His
writings span many genres and numerous styles. He has been a trenchant critic of the former
New Order government and continues to play a role in writing socially engaged literature. His
many publications of short stories, novels and non-fiction texts have been widely read and well
received by many critics and academics inside and outside of Indonesia. His works contain
elements or realism and surrealism. However, his works have also engaged with many
postmodern issues. The aspects of his works studied in this thesis are: micronarratives,
characterisation, self-reflexivity and the engagement with popular culture. These features are all
part of the problems posed by postmodernism. This thesis aims to understand Seno in terms of
postmodern literary practices: how has he used them in his texts and how they vary in the
different examples. The thesis argues, also, that these postmodernist devices have been used to
counter numerous aspects of New Order ideologies. Through the examples studies, this thesis
seeks to show the developments Seno has made in broadening the aesthetic scope in
contemporary Indonesian fiction as well as challenging the entrenched conventions on what
makes up public discourse. Knowledge gained of the postmodern presence in Senos fiction is
related to recent developments in Indonesian fiction, and a new understanding will be given
regarding how postmodernism has developed within the Indonesian context. The conclusions will
be able to be used as a source of comparison for traces of postmodernism in the works of other
writers. The conclusions can be used as part of the effort to establishing the existence of a
postmodern literary canon in Indonesia.

i
Authors Statement

This is to certify that the thesis comprises only my original work except where indicated in the
preface; due acknowledgment has been made in the text to all other material used; the thesis is
30,734 words in length, inclusive of footnotes, but exclusive of tables, maps, appendices and
bibliography.

Signature: ..
Name:
Date:

ii
Acknowledgements

I could not have completed this research without the generous support of many people. Firstly, I
would like to express sincere thanks to Michele Fuller, Trevor Fuller and Thomas Fuller for their
implicit and explicit expressions of support. They have all been very patient in listening to my
rantings on about whatever interests me. Also, I would like to express my sincere thanks to
Assoc. Prof. Sander Adelaar. He has given me guidance in developing my academic
independence and in also teaching me the value of a single word. In one short sentence, he has
on numerous times turned my thesis upside down and made me question my conclusions that
have been formed too easily. Prof. Harry Aveling has offered many incisive comments and his
generous support. I am indebted to him for the final structure of this work. Dr. Marshall Clark of
the University of Tasmania, has been very generous in making comments about my writings, as
well as being an engaging telephone conversationalist. Prof. Arief Budiman also helped in the
early stage of this research. I must also specifically thank Prof. Keith Foulcher of the University of
Sydney for reading earlier drafts of my writings. Conversations with Prof. Faruk H.T., Prof.
Sapardi Djoko Damono, Prof. Toeti Heraty, Shiho Sawai, Amorita and Mina Elfira have also
helped shape this document. I would also to express sincere thanks to Seno Gumira Ajidarma for
the time he gave me for interviews over two days in Jakarta. Farida Yuliani has given me
constant and loyal support.

iii
Table of Contents

Introduction ..........................................................................................................................1
An Encounter with Seno.......................................................................................................1
Chapter One........................................................................................................................ 14
Postmodernism ................................................................................................................... 14
Modernism ........................................................................................................................ 16
Postmodern Theory ........................................................................................................... 19
Postmodern Literature........................................................................................................ 25
Conclusions ...................................................................................................................... 29
Chapter Two ....................................................................................................................... 32
Cultural Politics of the New Order ...................................................................................... 32
Chapter Three..................................................................................................................... 37
Seno Gumira Ajidarma ....................................................................................................... 37
3. 1 Micronarratives........................................................................................................ 37
Micronarratives in the Indonesian Context ....................................................................... 37
Stories from the Periphery .............................................................................................. 38
Clara and the Portrayal of Ethnic Chinese........................................................................ 39
The Petrus Killings and their Narratives ........................................................................... 42
Petrus ........................................................................................................................... 43
The Penembak Misterius Trilogi ...................................................................................... 44
Historical Fiction............................................................................................................. 46
Conclusions ................................................................................................................... 48
3.2 Characterisation ..................................................................................................... 49
A Sniper and Saleh ........................................................................................................ 49
The Case of Sukab......................................................................................................... 52
Conclusions ................................................................................................................... 53
3.3 Metafiction .............................................................................................................. 55
Alina the Listener ........................................................................................................... 57
Bandana........................................................................................................................ 57
Wisanggeni, Sang Buronan; Clara; Negeri Senja.............................................................. 58
Intertextuality and Footnotes ........................................................................................... 60
Conclusions ................................................................................................................... 61
3.4 An Engagement with Popular Culture........................................................................ 62
Comics.......................................................................................................................... 62
The Comic and Seno...................................................................................................... 65
Conclusions ................................................................................................................... 67

iv
Chapter Four....................................................................................................................... 68
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................... 68
Bibliography ....................................................................................................................... 70
Appendix: Books by Seno Gumira Ajidarma ...................................................................... 79

v
Introduction

An Encounter with Seno

Shopping at Gramedia in Yogyakarta in January 1998 I came across Jazz, Parfum dan Insiden
(abbreviated as Jazz). It was by a writer I hadnt heard of: Seno Gumira Ajidarma. Curious to read
an Indonesian writers perspective on jazz, I bought it only to read it some months after I had
returned to Australia. I wasnt initially drawn to the subject of the Insiden (the Dili massacre in
1991) or to its subversive politics. Also coming from the jazz periphery, I wanted to find out how
his peripheral interpretations on the significance of jazz would differ from how I understood it. In
the novel Seno used impressionistic musings on jazz and perfume as starting points for
connecting seemingly independent subject matter. What type of music would Chick Corea
1
compose if he saw this scene? is one example where the narrator connects two of the three
2
streams that form this highly fragmented yet intriguing novel. The novels lack of plot
development and its lack of structure also resembles jazz compositions.

The cultural and historical distance between the writer (jazz as something foreign) did not detract
from the authors legitimate contribution to broadening the understanding of jazz. I wanted to see
how an interpretation from the periphery of its culture would differ from one that originates in the
jazz centres of America. The tension created through cultural and historical distance between
writer and subject matter is replicated in the non-linear structure of Jazz as well as the absence of
cause and effect relations throughout the novel. It was as if this mode of cultural production
broadened the scope of artistic practice and that there was no effort to assert a single meaning to
the work Seno created. A uniting essence was either absent, undefined or obscured. It seemed
to accept the death of the author and that the reader could create an interpretation of the artistic
3
product independent of any supposed intention of the author. I considered this to be a liberating
force in the process of understanding art.

My first reading of Jazz was limited by my inexperience in reading Indonesian literature and my
lack of knowledge of literary theory. I read it as a collection of essays, not as a complete novel.
My mis-reading of it is reflected in the statement on the back cover, you can call it fiction or non-
4
fiction its just a metropolitan novel. But my first reading had disregarded its stated form as a

1
The Dili massacre at Santa Cruz cemetery, on November 12, 1991.
2
Marshall Clark, Seno Gumira Ajidarma: An Indonesian Imagining East Timor in Review of Indonesian and
Malay Affairs, 33,2, 1999, p. 43.
3
Christopher Butler, Postmodernism: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002,
p.23.
4
Seno Gumira Ajidarma, Jazz, Parfum dan Insiden, Yogyakarta: Yayasan Bentang Budaya, 1996, back
cover.

1
novel (r oman) and had treated the sections independently. Ironically, this method gave the
chapters (or are they essays?) a greater sense of unity. Considered singularly the chapters were
unified, but if read as part of a whole, the work was discontinuous and confusing. However, as I
was looking for a collection of impressions and not a unified narrative, I wasnt put off by the
works discordance and its oscillation between fiction and non-fiction. I concluded that how one
evaluates a text, largely depends upon ones expectations about the conventions that the text will
follow, and thus the reading process is subjective. Interpretations of literature are recreations
the reader is not a passive subject to the dictates of the author. An interpretation of a text can be
as creative as the process of writing fiction.

Most significantly though, Senos style and insights made me remember his name. What Seno
observed and how he described it presented a new literary experience. Jazz described fleeting
moments of love, intense emotions and abrupt disconnections contrasted with brutal violence
committed by a faceless, untouchable army. Senos style was direct and he seemingly didnt
engage in overt literary effects. The work didnt appear to be positioning itself as literature. It
seemed honest. His simple descriptions and juxtaposed subjects ironically suggested little
authorial manipulation. The work seemed to have been reduced of artifice and in turn became a
work more closely connected to the ideas conveyed by the writer. His short sentences and vivid
imagery created a sense of immediacy that drew me into his narratives. These impressions
contrast with my later observations of how his works refer to their own construction.

While in Medan during 2000 I read Penembak Misterius. This book was a defining moment in my
interest in Indonesian literature. Like Jazz, several of the stories in this book were based on
human rights abuses committed during the New Order era, however the political relevance of the
stories escaped me as I read them as pure fiction. Once again, I was struck by Senos ability to
present the complexity of the experience of being in Indonesia through his characteristically lucid
language. His characters were enigmatic and often detached from their surroundings. His stories
incorporated many of the contradictory emotions, ideas and traditions that were involved in what I
imagined Indonesia to be. The characters awareness of these contradictions didnt negate the
legitimacy of their existence. They were resigned to living in a world that no longer provided them
with a stable identity or consistent meaning for existence. How Seno negotiates some of these
problems, is in essence what this thesis explores. My task is to ask how Seno has sought to
represent a world that is in a constant state of flux, something we may not be able to give
meaning to beyond the surface or perception. Senos short stories made Indonesia make more
sense to me, even when his stories avoided linear plots and deferred conclusions. Indeed, it may
have been these features of his literature that contributed to my making sense of Indonesia.

2
It was only when I discovered the link between my first impressions of Senos work and
postmodernism that inspired my deeper curiosity into the dynamics of his fiction. Postmodern
ideas seemed to provide a source for exploring Senos work. I wanted to understand how Senos
works were postmodern. But, to see Senos postmodernism separately from his social
commentary would be to neglect the broader significance of his literature. As indicated by the
title, in this thesis, I have tried to explore how Seno has used postmodern literary devices and
philosophies against the pervasive authoritarianism of the New Order.

5
Senos writings include journalism, short stories, film criticism , poetry, and novels. The themes
6
and styles of his works are diverse and complex, often combining traditionally separated genres.
Or, as Pam Allen writes, Senos style oscillates between realism, fantasy and reportage, often, in
7
the best tradition of postmodernism, incorporating a variety of styles within one work.
Knowledge of the elements that unite Senos varied output, will provide a more thorough
framework for understanding his literature as a whole. I will do this through using postmodernist
thought and literary practices as a set of references to apply to examples of Senos fiction.
Throughout this research, I will show examples of how Seno has used postmodern cultural
practices to oppose the cultural and political ideologies of the New Order.

8 9
Whether Senos stories are metaphysical explorations (re: Negeri Kabut , Manusia Kamar ) or
10 11
socially engaged criticisms of contemporary Indonesia (Saksi Mata , Iblis Tidak Pernah Mati ,
Jakarta 2039) they provide excellent starting points to the understanding of contemporary
Indonesian literature. His work is well received by many critics and is published in numerous
national newspapers, magazines and journals. Marshall Clark has recognized how Seno has
12
been able to include incisive social commentary in both realist and anti-realist short stories. He
has a wild surrealist imagination, the ability to draw equally skillfully from indigenous traditions
and from foreign popular culture, and (most importantly?) the ability to criticize a former
authoritarian regime using language that is at times strident and at other times more subtle and
indirect.

5
Seno Gumira Ajidarma, Layar Kata: Menengok 20 Skenario Pemenang Citra Festival Film Indonesia 1973
1992, Yogyakarta: Yayasan Bentang Budaya, 2000, and several essays on Garin Nugroho in, Philip
Cheah et al, Membaca Film Garin, Yogyakarta: Pustaka Pelajar, 2002.
6
Senos essays often complement his fictions, providing different perspectives on similar themes. For
example Jazz Mazhab Frankfurt: Sebuah Improvisasi, in Kompas, June 27, 1999 or Palestine atawa
Jurnalisme Komik in Aikon, February 2002.
7
P.M.Allen, Seno Gumira Ajidarma: Conscience of the People, in New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies,
Volume 2, Number 2,December 2002, p. 177.
8
Seno Gumira Ajidarma, Negeri Kabut, Jakarta: Gramedia Widiasarana Indonesia, 1996.
9
Seno Gumira Ajidarma, Manusia Kamar, Jakarta: Haji Masagung, 1988.
10
Seno Gumira Ajidarma, Saksi Mata, Yogyakarta: Yayasan Bentang Budaya, second edition, 2002.
11
Seno Gumira Ajidarma, Iblis Tidak Pernah Mati, Yogyakarta: Galang Press, 1999

3
Seno has been a critic of the New Order since the 1980s. It is true that many of his stories
confronting the culture of the New Order came during its decline, but during this period (from the
onset of the monetary crisis, 1997), Seno proved to be a vital witness to contemporary
Indonesian history. His most famous short story collection Saksi Mata was published, though,
before the decline of the New Order. He has covered subjects typically considered to be taboo:
race, ethnicity, corruption and class identity. The necessary re-emergence of these subjects in
Indonesian literature is an integral part of the current struggle to re-determine a national
Indonesian identity, which for so long had been dominated by a regime which attempted to curb
the spread of dissenting ideologies. Sapardi Djoko Damono writes that it is the function of
literature to discuss issues of identity (religion, class, ethnicity); it is these elements that forge
13
human experiences.

However, to see Seno only as an oppositional figure outside of the New Order cultural milieu is
not entirely accurate. As much as Seno has criticized the centralized New Order government and
its authoritarian practices, he has been part of the mainstream of Indonesian literature for at least
ten years. His employment at Jakarta Jakarta and Citra and his relative popularity allows for his
articles to be frequently published in newspapers, tabloids, magazines and journals. His books
14
frequently sell out and get republished in new editions. Matinya Penari Telanjang and Saksi
Mata are two examples, which have been republished with minor alterations. Two short stories
(Jakarta 2039 and Taxi Blues) have been published in comic form, which have provided the
comic artists with a potentially new and wider audience. But Senos stability in the journalistic and
literary fields does not necessarily diminish the validity of his criticisms of New Order cultural and
political authoritarianism. His involvement in the centre of these fields may have assisted him in
publishing articles that consistently condemned authoritarian practices. That he has been able to
reach a broad audience strengthens the case for the study of his literature.

There are strong grounds for considering Senos role as a socially engaged writer. Many of his
works have addressed issues that are (or were) a part of Indonesian life during the social and
political crisis during 1997 and 1998. What is the scope of features from New Order culture that
Seno has criticized? Elements that have been opposed, whether it be through metaphor, ridicule
or sarcasm vary in degree of seriousness. That is if, in this sense, seriousness is taken to mean
the closeness to which something is connected to violence. However, the problem is that
determining where violence begins and ends is not definite. In his literature Seno has focused on
the plight of the Acehnese (Telpon dari Aceh), the East Timorese (Saksi Mata, Jazz, Parfum dan
Insiden), the ethnic Chinese (Jakarta 2039, Clara) and those who suffer from poverty (Seorang

12
Clark, 1999, p. 35.
13
Sapardi Djoko Damono, Politik, Ideologi dan Sastra Hibrida, Jakarta: Pustaka Firdaus, 1999. p. 87.

4
Wanita di Halte Bis, Loket). His stories have confronted mob violence (Jakarta, Suatu Ketika),
corruption (Darah itu Merah, Jenderal,Telpon dari Aceh), conformism and financial greed
(Sarman, Helikopter) and the troubles with romantic relationships (Sebuah Pertanyaan Untuk
Cinta, Atas Nama Malam). Corruption, conformism, the suppression of ethnic or regional identity
and financial greed all have an direct connection to the state violence that was prevalent
throughout the New Order.

However, it should be noted that concern for these issues is not unique to Senos literature. The
fiction that confronted these issues was part of a broader shift to strengthening civil society. This
included the proliferation of NGOs and student based groups that had grown disenchanted with
the standard of national governance. Seno is also not the only writer to have discussed sensitive
political issues. Damono states that it is difficult to find an Indonesian author who has not
confronted these issues in their work and that sympathy for the underdog is an important feature
15
of many Indonesian writers creative process. Writers Damono cites include Gerson Poyk, Idrus,
16
Rendra, Taufiq Ismail and Arifin C. Noer. These are writers who belong to an older generation
of writers whom may have influenced Senos careers. They shouldnt be considered as the avant-
garde of contemporary writers, which Seno may be. The interpretation of Senos fiction requires
awareness of two main features: what are the ideologies that he has confronted in his fiction, and
how has he used new literary devices in his fiction?

Senos fiction has been the source for research by various scholars. Michael Bodden and
Marshall Clark have both cleared some space for how Senos fiction can be understood.
However, the general lack of research published on him is one of the challenges that this
research presents. This thesis sees Senos postmodernist practices in four categories. Clark has
addressed Senos micronarratives and social engagement in Seno Gumira Ajidarma: An
17
Indonesian Imagining East Timor as well as the significance of metafiction and the character
18
Wisanggeni in, Too Many Wisanggenis.

19
J. Joseph Errington has described Senos opposition to the New Order based on the story,
20
Semangkin d/h semakin . In this story Seno lampoons an accent similar to Suhartos. As this
particular speech impediment is associated with the New Order political elite, the story is a direct

14
Seno Gumira Ajidarma, Matinya Seorang Penari Telanjang, Yogyakarta: Galang Press, 2000.
15
Damono, 1999, p. 87.
16
Damono, 1999, p. 87.
17
Clark, 1999.
18
Marshall Clark, Too Many Wisanggenis to be published in Indonesia and the Malay World, Vol. 32, No.
92, March 2004.
19
J.Joseph Errington, His Masters Voice: Listening to Powers Dialect in Suhartos Indonesia, in Crossroads
15 (1): 1-8, Illinois: Center for Southeast Asian Studies, 2001.
20
Seno Gumira Ajidarma, Penembak Misterius, Jakarta: Pustaka Utama Grafiti, 1993.

5
affront to Indonesias political authorities. Senos willingness to openly ridicule Suharto and
figures connected to him, indicates the strength of his commitment to the establishment of
democracy, as well as the strength of his perception and wit. A humorous story is used to convey
a politically critical message. Errington describes the story as being an example of trenchant
political satire built on a minor matter of dialect variation in the Indonesian language and that it
should be used to aid discussion about the legitimacy of public, authoritative voices in Suhartos
21
Indonesia. However, Erringtons analysis is a concise description of the short story in which
Seno mocks the language of government officials. Errington does not connect this story with
other developments and social criticisms made in Senos fiction. The strength of the essay is also
its weakness, as it does not position the story in a broader context.

My argument that Seno used postmodernism to oppose New Order ideologies is evident both in
the writings of Michael Bodden and Marshall Clark. Both have made the connection between
postmodernism in Indonesia and how it provided critical commentary on the dominant cultural
practices. For example, Clark has written
During the heated debates on postmodernism in 1993 and 1994 in the Indonesian mass media,
postmodernism was perceived by many to contain the potential for politically subversive discourse.
In the context of the New Order regimes history of cultural and political totalitarianism in the name
of development, stability and modernization, postmodernism with its attack on
authoritarianism, elitism and hierarchy promised to be an intellectual movement with clear
political undertones.22

While Bodden has argued:

among New Order Indonesian postmodernists, there was indeed a parallel tendency to envision
some system of universal values or form of community as an alternative to the more particularistic
visions of society that underlay the ideological foundations of the New Order state.23

Recently Bodden has written about Seno in terms of postmodernism, in which he questions its
role in the establishment of democracy in Indonesia. This essay, published in Keith Foulcher and
Tony Days Clearing a Space: Postcolonial Readings of Modern Indonesian Literature, will form
one of the specific points of reference in the latter discussion of Seno and postmodernity. Bodden
24
has also recently published the third collection of English translations of stories by Seno. The
book focuses on Senos writing from the time of the collapse of the New Order and its aftermath.

21
Errington, 2001, p. 1.
22
Marshall Clark Smells of something like postmodernism in Keith Foulcher, Tony Day (eds), Clearing a
Space: Postcolonial Readings of Contemporary Indonesian Literature, Leiden: KITLV Press, 2002. p. 284.
23
Michael Bodden, Satuan-Satuan Kecil and uncomfortable improvisations in the late night of the New
Order in Foulcher, Day (eds), 2002, p. 294.

6
The novel Jazz, Parfum dan Insiden has been translated by Greg Harris and published through
Lontar, while Saksi Mata was the first work of Senos to be translated into English by Jan Lingard
25
with Bibi Lanker and Suzan Piper.

Bodden has written that Seno should not be merely understood in terms of his opposition to the
26
New Order and his engagement with social and political issues. This stresses the importance of
a new publication featuring translated stories that are not specifically political in content. The
three books available in English are all connected to the political context at the time of their
writing: Eyewitness and Jazz, Perfume and the Incident (East Timor, 1991-2) and Jakarta at a
Certain Point in Time (1997-now). Without questioning the importance of these translations, it
should be pointed out that Seno himself has sought to emphasize the equal importance of his
more surrealist and abstract stories to those of explicit political content. He has also stated that it
may be possible to see his efforts in outing the stories of the Dili massacre as a personal conflict
27
between himself and those that tried to censor him at Jakarta Jakarta. It is a moot point whether
his most significant works are those that are relatively independent of the social and political
context, or those that delve into political problems. However, the focus of this thesis is to touch
upon his works which show traces of postmodernism and how he has used postmodernist
practice as part of his opposition to New Order ideologies.

Faruk, a critic who has written much on postmodernism in Indonesia, has observed how Seno
has questioned notions about textual stability. Faruk writes that it is the self-awareness of Senos
28
texts (sifat dasar-diri) that is their most distinctive feature. He has compared Senos stories
against others, which describe something that exists beyond the story, the imaginary world in
29
short stories exist independently, without any mediation. Faruk gives the example of Writing
30
Lesson to show where Seno has explored the difference between reality and representations of
it. Faruk argues that Senos stories show the text to be not a neutral tool which is subordinate to
the strengths outside of itself, whether it be the subjective demands of the author or the objective

24
Seno Gumira Ajidarma, Jakarta at a Certain Point in Time: Fiction, Essays and a Play from the Post-
Suharto Era in Indonesia (translated and introduced by Michael H. Bodden) British Columbia: Centre for
Asia-Pacific Initiatives, 2002.
25
Ron Witton, History with the Right and Left Brain in Inside Indonesia, 46.
26
Michael Bodden, Seno Gumira Ajidarma and Fictional Resistance to an Authoritarian State in 1990s
Indonesia, Indonesia 68 (October 1999). p. 154.
27
Seno Gumira Ajidarma, Fiction, Journalism, History: A Process of Self-Correction in Indonesia, 68,
October 1999, p. 169.
28
Faruk H.T., Cerpen-cerpen pilihan Kompas 1992-1996, in Kompas, Pistol Perdamaian, Jakarta: Kompas,
1996, p.159.
29
Faruk, 1996, p. 159.
30
Seno Gumira Ajidarma, Pelajaran Mengarang, in Pelajaran Mengarang, Cerpen Pilihan Kompas 1993,
Jakarta: Kompas, 1993. p. 9.

7
 31
demands that are outside of the text and the authors subjectivity. Faruk concludes by saying
that other authors tend to accept the supposed transparency of the text.

Without stating it explicitly Faruk also suggests the subversive power of Senos questioning of a
texts ability to represent reality. He writes that because the text is problematized, so too is our
understanding of reality: reality itself is shown to be something that is constructed from a certain
32
perspective, from a certain ideological point of view. This is part of Senos awareness of plural
truths and plural lies (kesemuan yang jamak ). The stories (Writing Lesson, Clandestine and
Sukab and a Pair of Shoes) that Faruk links to metafiction, are not connected to their politically
subversive powers. It is as if the literature is divorced from its social context. The novelty of
Senos fiction, in this case, is limited to its new literary practices rather than their ability to confront
oppressive ideologies. This is one difference which separates the criticism of Clark and Bodden
with that of Faruk.

Another leading critic of postmodernism in Indonesia, Nirwan Dewanto has also written of the
instability within Senos texts. According to Dewanto, Seno does not objectify or engineer a
[independent and stable] world in his short stories. The world itself is something that is truly living,
moving and breathing. That world is not complete and certain at the time the writing process
33
begins, but a world which is created, and develops with the flow of Senos thoughts. In chapter
three, I discuss how Seno shows the authors interference to intrude upon the text and upon the
stability of the representation. Dewanto has also referred to Senos combination of different styles
34
present in his work. For example, he cites the surrealism of A Slice of Sunset for my Girlfriend
or Ears and the realism of Maria (all three of which are from Saksi Mata). Dewanto considers
Senos fiction to be important as the purpose of fiction is not to affirm, but to doubt what we
35
consider to be the truth of an event.

Senos stories on East Timor have attracted the most frequent academic attention. Important
essays include those written by Marshall Clark, Michael Bodden and Rudiawan. Both Clark and
Rudiawan discuss Senos works (Saksi Mata and Jazz, Parfum dan Insiden) in terms of how his
stories represent the voices of the silenced and oppressed East Timorese. Bodden, in his
chapter, Satuan-satuan Kecil and uncomfortable improvisations in the late night of the New
36
Order , sees Jazz, Parfum dan Insiden, in terms of its postmodern literary features. Bodden

31
Faruk, 1996, p. 160.
32
Faruk, 1996, p. 161.
33
Nirwan Dewanto, Cerpen-cerpen terbaik Kompas 1992 in Pelajaran Mengarang, Cerpen Pilihan Kompas
1993, Jakarta: Kompas, 1993, p.5.
34
Seno Gumira Ajidarma, Sepotong Senja Untuk Pacarku, Jakarta: Gramedia Pustaka Utama, 2002.
35
Dewanto, 1993, p. 5.
36
Bodden, in Foulcher and Day, 2002.

8
positions Seno alongside other postmodernists such as Afrizal Malna and Nirwan Dewanto. He
explains, this [emergence of] Indonesian postmodernism was both an effort to produce new
discourses and practices of resistance to the pervasive social and cultural manifestations of
37
President Suhartos authoritarian regime.

Michael Bodden, in the introduction to the latest collection of translated stories by Seno, writes
that part of Senos oeuvre to date can be viewed as a register of middle-class artistic modes of
38
resistance to the NO and that he is a writer of virtuosity and diverse talents. Elsewhere, J.J.
Errington has noted that Seno is widely known for his amusing and often pointed short stories
39
about politics and society during Indonesias New Order era.

Korrie Layun Rampan, in his anthology of contemporary Indonesian fiction, regards Seno as
being a significant part of the group known as the generation of 200 (angkatan 2000). The
choices of Senos work used in the anthology do not really reflect the issues that Seno is most
acclaimed for. In the introduction to Angkatan 2000, Rampan connects postmodern aspects of
Senos work with Indonesias oral literary tradition. For example, in reference presumably to the
Cerita untuk Alina (Stories for Alina) section of Penembak Misterius, Rampan has written: in
40
several stories, the words of a troubadour start the story as a story teller. Rampan has claimed
that, after placing Seno at the forefront of contemporary short story writers, that he has renewed
41
the aesthetic field of his forbears with a new mode of expression. He writes that a strength of
Senos work is that his characters are realistic (although, he doesnt give examples or a
comparison), that they are ordinary people involved in ordinary events: even though the reality
that he creates is occasionally surrealistic and absurd, his characters feel realistic, because they
42
are created from reality. Rampan cites the presence of humour in his fictions: Senos fiction
43
interprets events with satire and irony. Again, no example is given, but there are humorous
elements in stories such as Helikopter or Semangkin d/h Semakin. Rampan argues that Seno
has returned to a to a purer kind of literary form, that he has developed a new aesthetic in an
interesting way by returning to pure literature, which does not differentiate between prose and
44
poetry. This reflects with Senos own statement that he has tried to incorporate poetry into his

37
Bodden, 2002, p. 293.
38
Ajidarma, 2002, p.2.
39
Errington, 2001, p.1.
40
Korrie Layun Rampan, Angkatan 2000 dalam Sastra indonesia, Jakarta: Pustaka Populer Gramedia,
2001. p. 23.
41
Rampan, 2001, p.23.
42
Rampan, 2001, p. 23.
43
Rampan, 2001, p. 24.
44
Rampan, 2001p. 26.

9
short stories, that is, even though the final form is a short story, he had the aesthetics of poetry
45
in mind, while writing.

Until recently, one aspect of Senos literature that had not been discussed is the graphics and
typography of his books. However, Marshall Clark discusses the presence of drawings in his
46
essay, Too Many Wisanggenis. In this essay, Clark discusses the drawings by Danarto in
Wisanggeni, Sang Buronan. In the final part of chapter three, I discuss the drawings in works
such as Jakarta 2039 and Kematian Donny Osmond. The page layout of Seorang Wanita
47 48
Memetik Gitar and the comic style graphics of Jakarta, 2039 are an essential part of Senos
attempt to renew the form and contents of what is accepted as Indonesian literature. The style of
graphics and typography (the re-orientation of focus point, the disturbance of the eyes path), the
presence of literary collage and Senos avoidance of linear plot development and specific
conclusions are features that have been identified with postmodern literature. My thesis will argue
that through using aspects of postmodern literary practices, Seno has been able to oppose New
Order ideologies and cultural politics. My thesis will focus on his works that are, for one reason or
another, are postmodern. These works include Kematian Donny Osmond, Jakarta 2039 and
some stories in the Penembak Misterius collection. I will place Senos work against the backdrop
of developments in literature since 1966, as well as in terms of the dominant features of New
Order ideology and cultural politics. Although arguing that Senos work shares features of
postmodern literary practice, it will also acknowledge aspects of his work that diverge from
common features of postmodern literature.

If postmodern fiction has removed itself from having any didactic function, is Senos social
commentary a break away from typical postmodern forms, found in European and American
cultures? Is Senos use of postmodern practices a means of opposition towards rigid
authoritarianism at not only an abstract and philosophical level, but also at an immediate
politically confrontational level? The difference between Western and Indonesian postmodern
practices has been recognised by Marshall Clark, who writes: it should come as no surprise to
find that the similarities between Western postmodernism and the late New Order cultural
49
practice are often partial and incomplete. Do postmodern practices enhance the literary
aesthetics in contemporary Indonesian literature? Does Senos literature represent a type of
postmodernism with social agency? Does it contribute to the destabilizing of the ideologies

45
Interview with Ajidarma, Jakarta, 4.6.03
46
Marshall Clark, Too Many Wisanggenis: Reinventing The Wayang at the Turn of the Century, to be
published in Indonesia and the Malay World, Vol. 32, No. 92, March 2004.
47
Seno Gumira Ajidarma, Kematian Donny Osmond, Jakarta: Gramedia Pustaka Utama, 2001, p. 114.
48
Seno Gumira Ajidarma, Jakarta 2039: 40 tahun, 9 bulan sesudah 13-14 Mei 1998, Yogyakarta: Galang
Press, 2001.
49
Clark, in Foulcher and Day, 2002, p. 285.

10
(metanarratives) that has subordinated certain ethnic, religious or social groups? What are the
opportunities his literature presents for aesthetic and ideological disturbances in Indonesian
literature? What are the unique features to Senos literature?

Seno has used traditional themes in several of his works. He is one author amongst others, who
50
have included Emha Ainun Nadjib and Agusta Wibisono to have used wayang themes. The
dichotomies of traditional and modern established in the New Order context are also challenged
through Senos writings. His engagement with traditional stories rejects the New Order ideology
assigned to indigenous traditions within Indonesia. Senos interest in the wayang is most evident
through his exploration of Kosasihs comics, the Surat Dari Palmerah editorials and Wisanggeni,
Sang Buronan. In numerous editorials published in Jakarta-Jakarta, Seno borrows stories from
the Javanese wayang interpretations of the Mahabharata and Ramayana. In the letters
addressed to a man known as Bung, Seno indirectly criticizes the ethics and behavior of current
politicians. These wayang-based editorials include: Politik dan Wayang, Politik Kresna and Dua
51
Wajah Kresna. Also drawing on wayang, Seno has written a novel with its central character as
52
Wisanggeni, a native Indonesian character of the wayang. Senos letters published in Jakarta-
Jakarta and his novel Wisanggeni, Sang Buronan are one example of the reinvigoration of
traditional methods for conveying political criticism.

The traditional elements (in this case, wayang kulit, Ramayana, Mahabharata) are no longer a
benda mati (an inanimate object). Borrowing from this important part of Javanese culture
53
criticises a culture that has promoted Javanese-ness as a kind of Indonesian orthodoxy. Using
the wayang as a source for contemporary political criticism, also implies a criticism of how we
define modern. That is, there are no clearly defined boundaries between what is modern and
what is traditional. In Wisanggeni, Seno takes his appropriation of wayang further: he does not
merely draw on its morals, he recreates aspects of the story, rather than merely repeating the
established roles given to Ramayana/Mahabharata characters. The Surat dari Palmerah, act as
explicit opinion pieces, the philosophical aspects are subordinated in priority of a political
message. Wayang stories develop in an often surrealist and absurdist world, where strict
correlation of cause and effect are irrelevant, while the modern world is one based on logic,
reason and rationality. This significance of drawing upon tradition is to do with how Seno has
made it relevant to the contemporary situation. Faruk H.T. explains that currently:

50
Marshall Clark, Shadow Boxing: Indonesian Writers and the Ramayana in the New Order in Indonesia,
72, October 2001, p. 160.
51
Seno Gumira Ajidarma, Surat Dari Palmerah: Indonesia dalam Politik Mehong 1996-1999, Jakarta:
Kepustakaan Populer Gramedia, 2002.
52
Seno Gumira Ajidarma, Wisanggeni, Sang Buronan, Yogyakarta: Yayasan Bentang Budaya, 2000.
53
Clark, 2004, p. 2.

11
 tradition is generally understood and treated as an inanimate object, originating from the past, that
is no longer relevant in the contemporary era. Thus it needs to be protected or exhibited in various
forms of ceremonies. On the other hand, modernity is understood to be a living cultural process,
which moves, and is shaped and developed.54

It is this dichotomy that the traditional stories seek to break. It might well be witty to use Javanese
tradition as a means to criticise the Javanesed New Order, however it could be more subversive if
Seno was able to make non-Javanese traditions more pertinent to the contemporary Indonesian
condition. Through relying on Javanese traditions, in a way, he helps emphasise its cultural
dominance on Indonesian intellectual activity.

My interest in Senos works rests not only with his postmodernness, but also with his
involvement with issues which are apposite to contemporary Indonesia. I regard his activism as
being essential to developing the current political discourse in order to generate a more critical
and self-aware dialogue that may lead to a resolution of current political and cultural crises
affecting Indonesia. Throughout this section, in particular, I frequently use the terms social
commitment or socially critical. These terms sound a little awkward, abstract, and even
outdated, however it is my argument that Senos interest in the suffering of those around him and
those who have been neglected by the dominant political paradigm, gives added validity to his
consistent and accomplished writing style. I use the term social commitment with full recognition
55
that it was in Keith Foulchers book, Lekra and Social Commitment in the Arts that the term has
become mainly associated with Indonesian literature. Generally, I use the term to refer to his
works which rely on an understanding of the context they were produced in for a fuller
comprehension. That is, there is a strong degree of external dependence. The socially
committed stories engage in a dialogue that pits the broad and dominant cultural values against
the ideas and ethics of an individuals who seeks to promote the aspirations of the neglected
masses.

I am claiming that Senos work has a postmodern dominant. My argument is based around
proving the presence of four distinct aspect of postmodernism which appear throughout various
examples of Senos fiction over a number of years. These four aspects are the representation of
micronarratives, characterisation, references to the texts fictionality and finally an engagement
with popular culture. In the first chapter, I discuss the ideas of postmodernism, modernism and
postmodern literature. In the second, I give the social and cultural background of the New Order.

54
Faruk H.T., Beyond Imagination: Sastra Mutakhir dan Ideologi, Yogyakarta: Gama Media, 2001., p. 16-
17.
55
Keith Foulcher, Social Commitment in Literature and the Arts: The Indonesian Institute of Peoples
Culture, 1950-1965, Clayton: Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, Monash University, 1986.

12
Then, in chapter three, I use the ideas from the first chapter to show how they appear in Senos
fiction and how they oppose the ideologies of the New Order government. Finally, the conclusion
makes some statements about the presence of postmodernism in Indonesian literature.

13
Chapter One
Postmodernism

This chapter introduces some aspects of postmodern discourse. I will outline how various
prominent figures in the debate on postmodern theory have applied different meanings to it, over
different periods. Theorists have characterised postmodernism by its varying features and thus
definitions often have different emphases. Although the term postmodern existed before the
1960s, my introduction focuses on debates that developed in the 1960s and have persisted until
the 1980s and 1990s. I will undoubtedly exclude some key players in the debate; however, this is
due to an emphasis on extracting the dominant trends in postmodern thought, rather than
outlining all of the dynamics of an often-perplexing debate. My aim is to provide a working
definition which can then be applied to the example of Indonesian literature I have chosen as
reflecting the postmodern condition or works that use postmodern literary practices.

Postmodernity is marked by mass incoherence, general discontinuity and self-acknowledged

discordance. It is a time when theorists, writers and artists have doubted the ambitions of
modernity. Postmodernist thought seeks to deny the false and elitist ambitions of modernism
arguing that their claims to logic, rationale and universality are instead subjective. Literature is
one medium through which these doubts have been expressed. Some traits of the postmodern
literature include, the foregrounding of the writing process, negating the stability of its characters,
absorbing historical information into fictional forms and appropriating popular culture genres.
These features and others will be discussed in the third part of this chapter.

Discordance, confusion and irregularity, some have argued, are the dominant traits of the
contemporary world. There is an inability to reach an all-consuming narrative to make sense of
the world. The modern world has been stripped of what is given and predictable. Nothing can be
taken for granted. Also, nothing is beyond ridicule: nothing is sacred every value system and all
types of social mores are susceptible to being turned on their head. It is these traits that mark the
postmodern condition, from which the postmodern arts are born. Broad declarations about the
impossibility of consistency and the redundancy of transcendental truths may be a safeguard to
ensuring postmodernisms defence against its critics. If it does not make claims to asserting a
positive alternative to what it seeks to bring down, postmodernism cannot be criticised for not
doing what it did not set out to do. Postmodernism plays by its own rules and its own conventions.
Part of the purpose of this thesis is to find out whether the conventions of postmodernism and
whatever its ambitions may be, are useful in understanding contemporary Indonesian fiction and
whether these rules make sense in the Indonesian context.

14
The technological developments brought on by modernism may not have provided the solutions it
was hoped to. Access to all kinds of information has made so much information available, making
sense of it all is extremely difficult. There is now no excuse for not knowing something. So, in a
sense problems lie with the critics rather than artists. Critics have to adapt their criticisms in a
response to the redefinitions of creative possibilities. Critics have to be a generalist and have
mastered a specific subject as well. There are no limits to what can or should be known. Interest
in a subject requires full interest in it. There is no longer any option of taking a passing interest in
something, or having a hobby. Also, anyone can become a filmmaker and everyone can be a
photographer, anyone can have his or her writings published on the Internet. The barriers posed
by production have withered, but the end result is possibly even more confusing for critics of the
arts. The advances in technology allow for any photograph to be manipulated into something
appealing and apparently artistic. Everybody can become an artist, but at the same time no one is
because the sense of craft and aesthetic training has been wiped out via the ease of creating a
final watchable, viewable product. The mass spreading of instant artists is not necessarily a bad
thing. And I do not seek to assert that making art should be the realm of a select and privileged
avant-garde. What needs to be pointed out though is that things have changed. The easing of the
effort required to create art is also a reflection of the postmodern condition. Viewers, listeners,
readers and any sort of connoisseurs are faced with an imaginably immense task of ordering it
and giving meaning to it.

Postmodern works refer to past art forms and styles without a sense of sentimentality. The past is
forced upon the viewer disrupting their expectation that what one sees should be something new
and should distance itself from previous aesthetic achievements. Some examples of visual
postmodern works are decidedly simple: it is as if they are reduced of their artistic interference or
adaptation. The viewer may feel the need to ask, what is there to appreciate? In certain works,
viewers are challenged by the presence of an un-altered everyday object before them. Viewers
may become dismayed or disappointed by the non-creativeness of the artists creation. Different
from modernism, postmodernism is marked by the shock of the past, the shock of repetition
and the shock of the kitsch.

Should all of the principles of postmodernism be accepted or just a few? Who are the antagonists
of the postmodern debate? What are the main contested ideas? Is a recognition or acceptance of
certain basic precepts of postmodernism essential to our intellectual liberation? Is postmodernism
mere artistic, aesthetic and intellectual escapism?

15
An introduction to postmodernism first requires identifying some main features of modernism.
This definition is essential to decide whether postmodernism is a break from or an engagement
with modernism. However, the definition is nothing more than introductory. This definition gives
the main features of modernism which I consider postmodernism to be rejecting or acting against.
I acknowledge that further research should be done to understand the modern-postmodern split
(or continuation) in Indonesian literature. This inquiry into the modern-postmodern divide should
include a comparison between an exemplary modern and postmodern text.

Modernism

The key concepts of this section are modernity, modernism and modernist literature. These
concepts will form the basis of my discussion which outlines the changes from the modern to
the postmodern.

The initial meaning of modern was close to the current use of contemporary. Raymond Williams
th th
writes that in the 19 and 20 centuries the word became almost exclusively favourable. It was a
term connected with the ideas of scientific and technological progress. To modernize something
became a synonym for improve. Williams writes: modernism and modernist have become more
specialized, to particular tendencies, notably to the experimental art and writing of c.1890 c.
56
1940, which allows a subsequent distinction between the modernist and the newly modern. To
be a modernist, is to be an advocate of the tendencies and implications of modernism as positive
and beneficial to contemporary life. Being a modernist goes beyond mere acceptance and
comfort within the modern world.

th
Modernity is evident in the new technologies available to mankind. In the beginning of the 20
century and earlier, man obtained many new ways of travelling: the car, train and airplane. The
production of these vehicles was made possible through the availability of new materials to be
used in construction. These included steel, reinforced concrete and plate glass which could be
used to aid mass production to serve mass-consumerism. Taylor and Ford became the founders
of new ways of organizing large numbers of workers, through the ideas of applying scientific
57
principles to the workplace and the production line, respectively. The time it took to produce
large quantities of goods was drastically reduced. Through the developments in modes of travel
and production, modernity was associated with speed and progress. These changes were
considered positive. Aside from speed and progress, modernity is connected to the rise of
capitalism. A new type of mega-entrepreneur sponsored technological developments figures

56
Raymond Williams, Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society, Suffolk: Flamingo, 1976, p. 208.
57
Chris Rodriguez and Chris Garratt, Introducing Modernism , London: Icon Books, 2001, p. 18.

16
 58
such as Henry Rockefeller and John Pierpont Morgan. Modernity not only aided new
experiences in the world through easier travel, but also created new opportunities for
extraordinary levels of money making. Modernitys positive status was sealed: it was conducive to
both intellectual and material satisfaction.

Modern art and literature is marked by its difficulty, by its confrontation with the expectations of
59
viewers or readers. As the art critic, Robert Hughes, puts it, it is the shock of the new. A
modernist work asserts its novelty through creating something unfamiliar and different: its
60
meaning is determined by its novelty. There is a self-proclaimed newness and strong self-
confidence in the integrity of the work and in the importance of being an artist. Declarations of
modernist movements were made through manifestos to assert the need for aesthetic change, as
61
a way to show the unity of thought and action. Modern art also reflects the technological
developments of modernity that have allowed for new ways of looking at the world. To be modern
is to show ones control over ones existence through a process of logic and rationale. Belief in
62
progress and the continuation of the ideas of the Enlightenment pervades modernism.

Tim Woods sets out some significant points that postmodernism engages with. A doyen of the
debate on postmodernism, Ihab Hassan has produced a widely cited list of characteristics
63
common to modernism with their opposites countered by postmodern cultural practices. The list
is qualified by the statement that features of modernism move vertically or according to hierarchy,
while postmodernist features move laterally. Hassans list suggests that modernism is
characterized by an emphasis on form cultural products are fixed to a specific genre. While
postmodernism is antiform there is an openness to influences coming from outside traditionally
accepted areas of artistic production. Postmodernism is concerned with surface, while modernism
is concerned with depth. Depth stipulates interpretation, while emphasis on surface and the
methods of representation doubts the usefulness of interpretation. Woods suggests that Hassan
has an unspoken approval of the characteristics in the right-hand column (the postmodern
column), suggesting that postmodernism is a good thing and that it is just as well that
64
modernism has been superseded.

Marcel Duchamps ready-mades sought to pose questions of how aesthetic value was given to an
artistic object. The questioning of how the world is perceived is evident in the emergence of

58
Rodgriguez, 2001, p. 19.
59
Robert Hughes, The Shock of the New, London: BBC, 1980.
60
Rodriguez, 2001, p. 4.
61
Rodriguez, 2001, p. 42.
62
Rodriguez, 2001, p. 27.
63
Ihab Hassan in Woods, 1999, p. 60.
64
Woods, 1999, p. 60

17
cubism, where objects are presented as a series of discontinuous, fractured planes, all
65
equidistant from the viewer. Gustave Courbet and Edouard Manets provocative subject matter
were forerunners to modernism, but were still aimed at challenging the validity of what could be
included in an artwork. Modern architecture was identifiable by its incorporation of basic
geometric shapes, which were supposed to suggest notions of a rationalist, progressive
66
society. Modernism emphasised functionality and the eradication of extraneous decoration.
Houses were considered to be machines for living in and had to be built according to their
specific functionality.

The use of deliberately discontinuous narratives in modern literature suggested the break up of
67
previously accepted modes of thought and belief. Modernism enforced a clear demarcation
between high and low forms of culture, and within those categories: intellectual distinctions were
made between atonal electronic music like Karlheinz Stockhausens and modern jazz, or between
modern jazz and rock or between rock and pop etc. It also moved towards attempting to
68
understand non-western cultural forms. This is evident in Picassos interest in African art
forms, or Claude Debussys interest in Javanese gamelan.

What is modern literature? Texts which involve difficult reading: modern literature requires a
struggle to reach an understanding of what the text is about. The meaning of the text is not
immediately clear to the reader and it has to be analysed and placed in its context for its
meaning to emerge. Such a definition places faith in the presence of meaning beneath the
complexities of the characters and the texts plot. Thus there is a belief in the usefulness of
interpreting a text. Readers interpret novels such as Albert Camuss LEtranger to realise that it is
not simply about a murder and the punishment of the perpetrator. Readers are required to look
beneath the novels events and to see that it is at least in part about a man who is isolated from
the modern world and who refuses to behave according to the expectations imposed on him by
the society that surrounds him.

Hal Foster sees modernisms connection to the rationality espoused in the Enlightenment. Thus,
this included the need to develop the spheres of science, morality and art according to their inner
69
logic. That is, the task of the artist was to wage an inner struggle in order to achieve an artistic,
moral or scientific purity. The pure essence of each field would in turn be something universal:
something that existed beyond time and context. This pure, enlightened art would develop in a

65
Woods, 1999, p. 7.
66
Woods, 1999, p 7.
67
Woods, 1999, p. 7.
68
Woods, 1999, p. 7.

18
 70
sphere resisting the threats from kitsch on one side and academe on the other. Sabina
Lovibond states that the Enlightenment pictured the human race as engaged in an effort towards
universal moral and intellectual self-realization, and so as the subject of a universal historical
experience; it also postulated a universal human reason in terms of which social and political
71
tendencies could be assessed as progressive or otherwise. Modernism facilitated the
elevation of the artist to the status of being a cultural hero. The artists role was to stand outside
of his society and offer critical comments looking in, as Duchamp had done through his ready-
mades in the visual arts sphere. Artists were supposed to be independent of societys politics,
operating in a field free from obvious political interference.

The concept of the avant-garde is central to modernism. The avant-garde were those who
pushed the boundaries of aesthetic and literary practice: those who kept the new shocking.
Postmodern art on the other hand, rejects this belief in the concentration of aesthetic
development and the romanticisation of an elite group of outsider artists looking in and criticising
the mainstream and dominant society. Artistic expression exists everywhere and there are no
pre-requisites essential for legitimate aesthetic practice. An engagement with the market is not
regarded as a negative influence upon the artists ability to create works based on moments of
intuitive insight. In this sense, postmodernism creates room for art to come from the centre of
society. Thus, it is susceptible to being used by those who are part of the dominant culture and
who then further restrict and ostracise those on the societys periphery. To understand
postmodernisms political ambivalence and deconstructive capabilities I will now introduce various
aspects of postmodernism.

Postmodern Theory

This introduction aims to present a discussion of ideas associated with postmodernism. In the
second part I will discuss how these concepts have become evident in literary works since the
1960s. It will also attempt to point to variations in definitions given to postmodernism, as well as
some of its subcategories. The definition I use will not assert that postmodernism is an unvarying
entity that maintains the same form and function across different cultures. This is in part evident
72
in the fabulist literature of South America, frequently identified as postmodern. It is accepted
that ideas associated with postmodernism may become more influential depending on the time

69
Hal Foster (ed), The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture, Washington: Bay Press, 1983.1983,
p. x.
70
Foster, 1983.p. x.
71
Sabina Lovibund, in Woods, 1999, p. 9.
72
For example Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Mario Vargas Llosa.

19
and place of their emergence. This is to say that the function and form of postmodernism is
subjective; it is adopted in idiosyncratic ways.

Eagleton defines the more general term postmodernity as meaning the end of modernity, in the
sense of those grand narratives of truth, reason, science, progress and universal emancipation
73
which are taken to characterize modern thought from the Enlightenment onwards.
Postmodernists believe, in Eagletons words that our forms of life are relative, ungrounded, self-
sustaining, made up of mere cultural convention and tradition without any identifiable origin or
74 75
grandiose goal or as according to Baudrillard, the idea of progress is dead.

Postmodernism is used to indicate cultural expressions derived from the postmodern condition.
It is thus a cultural or aesthetic term, whereas postmodernity is a historical, philosophical
76
term. Eagleton defines postmodern art or literature as work that expresses its distaste for fixed
boundaries and categories on the traditional distinction between high and popular art,
deconstructing the borderline between them by producing artifacts which are self-consciously
populist vernacular, or which offer themselves as commodities of pleasurable consumption.
Postmodernism seeks to dismantle the intimidating aura of high-modernist culture with a more
77
demotic user friendly art, suspecting all hierarchies of value as privileged and elitist.

Jean-Francois Lyotard, who is regarded as a pioneer of postmodern thought defined it simply as

78
incredulity towards metanarratives. Lyotard believes that a work of literature or art can only
79
become modern only if it is first postmodern. And that the postmodern condition is
characterized by a breakdown of Western master narratives and the withering of their historical
80
codes and explanatory power. A metanarrative was anything that gave a total explanation of
existence or how the status quo could be changed. Concepts of religion, science and ideology
were no longer considered to be able to provide accurate insights to the world. Postmodernism
accepts that there is an irreducible gap between the world and narratives which seek to define it.

It might be more useful to argue that rather than having become redundant, grand narratives
have become more difficult to distinguish from other narratives that were formerly considered to
be subjective and particularistic. In particular this refers to those coming from the postcolonial

73
Terry Eagleton, Literary Theory: An Introduction, Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1996, p. 200.
74
Eagleton, 1996, p. 201.
75
Barry Smart, Postmodern Social Theory in Bryan S. Turner (ed) The Blackwell Companion to Social
Theory, London: Blackwell, 1998.
76
Eagleton, 1996, 200.
77
Eagleton, 1996, 202.
78
Butler, 2002, p. 13.
79
Astradur Eysteinsson, The Concept of Modernism , Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990, p.107.
80
Eysteinsson, 1990, p. 108.

20
world, which under colonialist discourse had been othered and positioned as being all that the
Occidental world is not. Grand narratives have not necessarily died but have become increasingly
common: the old ones have been replaced by new ones and in other cases the old grand
narratives have been re-invigorated and renewed. The competition for general frameworks for
understanding the world has become more complex with more grand narratives. Grand narratives
persist now more than ever and thus for a state of plural grand narratives, those on the periphery
need to assert their identities as strongly as possible.

Lyotard argued that postmodernism explicitly targets metanarratives. He argues that the
postmodern condition is characterized by a breakdown of Western metanarratives and the
81
withering of their historical codes and explanatory power. Metanarratives are established and
82
maintained in order to legitimize and give authority to certain cultural practices over others.
They are intricately intertwined with the dominant ideology of the relevant state. In any given
context, there is a hierarchy of accepted metanarratives. Thus, some metanarratives are more
susceptible to being dislodged than others. Postmodernism undermines narratives that believe in
the progressive emancipation of mankind.

83
Postmodernism is connected to both postcolonialism and feminism. In both cases, it is due to
the ability of postmodernism to side with those who have had their narratives represented by
others, through an act of writing back to the empire [those who represent the dominant
paradigms]. Certainly, not all postcolonial literature uses postmodern literary practices, but there
are specific and well-documented cases of cross-overs between these two discourses on
84
contemporary ways of being. Two such examples are Salman Rushdie and Peter Carey. In
regards to feminism, postmodernisms idea of subjectivity, relativity and the end of grand
narratives has helped to fuel feminist deconstructions of hegemonic patriarchal societies. Again,
this relationship is neither fully binding or one of honest fidelity, as postmodernists can equally
dismiss the grand narratives of the feminist discourses as has been done to earlier patriarchal
ones.

Postmodernism rejects modernisms conviction of belief in the elevating role of the artist and art.
A question partly posed by the realisation that Nazi prison commanders were connoisseurs of
literature, art and music has complicated attempts to make claims for the effects of particular

81
Eysteinsson, 1990, p. 108.
82
Butler, 2002, p. 13.
83
Budi Darma, Ironi Si Kembar Siam: Tentang Posmo dan Kajian Budaya,in Kalam , 18, 2001, p.164.
84
Hermine Krassnitzer, Aspects of Narration in Peter Careys Novels: Deconsructing Colonialism , New York:
The Edwin Mellen Press, 1995.

21
 85
sorts of study. Postmodernism doubts the legitimacy of the dominant notion of artist (as an
independent individual creating original works) and the intellectually or spiritually elevating
function it may provide in contemporary society. It is thus no surprise to encounter postmodern
works of art, literature or architecture that are kitsch. They are kitsch in that there is a blatant
statement of a denial of a unified aesthetic; there is a proud and ostentatious incoherence of
style.

Postmodernism, in its various forms has become international. Writers from all over the world
have made contributions to the emergence and development of postmodern literature. Partly due
to the varying ways in which the term is used and the multiplicity of postmodern art forms,
architecture and fiction, the term may inspire positive or negative connotations. As a result,
postmodernism presents itself as an intellectual challenge to those that oppose it and those that
embrace aspects of its spirit. The challenge faced is to remove its weaknesses (its overt
contradictions?) and capitalize on its strengths (its oppositional, anti-metanarrative verve?). Is it
possible to glean postmodernism of its positive features now that its moment of fashion and
newness is on the wane? Can its strengths be salvaged?

Harry Levin regards modernism as the superior father to its bastard child of postmodernism. He
considers progressions in postmodernist thought to be an anticlimax to the previous
achievements made throughout the era of modernism. He states the modernistic movement
comprises one of the most remarkable constellations of genius in the history of the West, while
on the other hand, postmodernism has produced literature that shows little concern for the life of
86
the mind, finding virtue instead in stupidity and the defence of ignorance. [Baudrillard and
Lyotard, however regard postmodernism to be a part of modernism.] Such criticism indicates his
position of believing in a clear divide between modernism and postmodernism.

Among other reasons, the postmodern conceptual framework has been attacked for its
denunciation of realism in literature, and scepticism of scientific, positivist and empirical methods
of research. Postmodernism does not seek to master perceptions of reality, as it considers the
world to be beyond any overarching, all encompassing explanation (beyond any definitive
metanarrative). Postmodernism doubts the unified and consistent patterns of social interaction.
As Sabina Lovibund writes, postmodernism rejects the doctrine of the unity of reason. It refuses
to conceive of humanity as a unitary subject striving towards the goal of perfect coherence (in its
87
common stock of beliefs) or of perfect cohesion and stability (in its political practice). It
suggests that societys structures have dissolved and members of society, now have a floating

85
Jonathon Culler, Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 51.
86
Eysteinsson, 1990, p. 105.

22
identity; one that changes according to the circumstances. Terry Eagletons book The Illusion of
88
Postmodernism is one work, however, that aims to expose some of the false aspirations and
misleading ideals that originate from postmodernism thought. With its weaknesses
acknowledged, it is important to recognize that the power and influence of aspects of postmodern
thought or art (literature) might be more pertinent in different contexts. In some cultures, possibly
where postmodernism has yet to fully emerge, its faults and fallacies might not be as apparent as
its strengths and ability to confront dominant modes of political and literary discourse.

Postmodernisms relativism and denouncement of positivist and empirical intellectual inquiry has
inspired many critics. Terry Eagleton has denounced postmodernism from a Marxist perspective,
while Ziauddin Sardar has strongly criticised the secular absolutism and the belief in the
superficiality and nothingness of everything that postmodern thought seems to support. Sardar
89
argues against postmodernisms colonialist bent from an Islamic perspective. The battle for
and against postmodernism is engaging and broad, and this thesis hopes to go beyond the nave
and simplistic definition of how postmodern can be useful in contemporary Indonesian literature,
while remaining fully aware of the destructiveness of an absolutist and nihilist postmodern view.

Postmodernism incorporates elements of previous styles into its various art forms. What is the
purpose of this repetition? It shows the connection between different times and different eras.
Postmodernism condenses chronology through artistic forms which combine forms of contrasting
histories and locations. Locality is also condensed distance vanishes. Identity and national
essences become confused when everything is available everywhere and the sources of social
identity have become blurred or have moved. Postmodernism connects contemporary life and
ones context to the past and to the foreign without first confronting any significant boundaries of
form. Given that it seeks to show the interconnection between different times and spaces it is
ironic that postmodernism has sometimes been seen as a distinctly new phenomenon. It is clearly
of the modern. Modernists should remember that ease in viewing an artwork, familiarity with an
art form is something new, as it rejects modernisms goal of newness. Thus postmodernisms use
of past styles sits within the modernist canon, albeit ironically and at a certain self-reflexive
distance.

Postmodernisms presence is elusive, problematic and questionable. To what extent does it

confront modernism: is it merely a questioning of its aims and forms, or is it a total rejection of its
reason for existing? Expressions of postmodernisms may range from the relatively conservative

87
Lovibund, in Woods, 1999, p. 9.
88
Terry Eagleton, The Illusion of Postmodernism , Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1996.
89
Sohail Inayatullah and Gail Boxwell (eds), Islam, Postmodernism and Other Futures: A Ziauddin Sardar
Reader, London: Pluto Press, 2003, p. 11.

23
to the extremely provocative. The degree of a postmodern writers confrontation or dialogue with
modernism is an essential task of the critic in determining the respective writers postmodern-
ness.

Similarly with poststructuralism and deconstruction, Faruk H.T. writes part of postmodernisms
90
purpose lies in its ability to confront and dismantle previously accepted dichotomies.
Postmodernism has taught us to question the inter-relatedness between the objective-subjective,
rational-irrational, East-West, male-female, high-low culture, and so on. All of these ideas rely on
the construction of the meanings opposite. That is, we cant have high culture unless we have
defined what low culture is. Postmodernist architecture, art or literature explores the areas in
between high and low culture. Postmodern writers produce works which are neither fully high nor
low literature. Although holding many reservations about the ideological indeterminance of
postmodernism, Ariel Heryanto has written that it can offer a profound challenge to the currently
91
dominant apparatuses of the social sciences. Michael Bodden writes, Heryanto equated
Indonesian development (pembangunan) with that kind of modernism which believed in linear
progress, absolute scientific truth, the efficacy of social engineering and the establishment of a
formal system of knowledge and production. According to Heryanto, the positive aspects of
postmodernism in the Indonesian context, include the following alternatives:
double entendre and youth slang (rather than formal language), diversity and complexity (not the
sole basis), local (not universal), mixing (not stability and security)[] anarchy (rather than
hierarchy) [] process (rather than goal), openness (rather than centralization), participation (not
bureaucracy), play (not subservience to the rules) and so on.92]

The high-low (serious-popular) cultural divide is one example of a binary opposition which is part
of Western thinking. Catherine Belsey, in Poststructuralism, writes that Western thought is
dependent on the maintenance of these binary oppositions, where one extreme is highly valued,
93
the other found wanting (e.g. high vs. low). The highly valued term is privileged over the
subordinated opposite. The subordinated opposite is argued to be all that the high valued form is
not, through a process of othering. However, pivotal to this discussion, Belsey writes, is that
these terms can never sustain the antithesis on which they depend and that the meaning of each
94
depends on the trace of the other that inhabits its definition. Finding this to be evident is known
as deconstruction. Jonathan Culler defines deconstruction as a critique of the hierarchical
oppositions that have structured Western thoughtto deconstruct an opposition is to show that it

90
Faruk, 2001, p. 25.
91
Ariel Heryanto, What does Post-modernism do in Indonesia? Sojourn, Vol. 10, No. 1 (1995).
92
Bodden, in Foulcher and Day 2002, p. 300.
93
Catherine Belsey, Poststructuralism: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002, p.
75.
94
Belsey, 2002, p. 75.

24
 95
is not natural and inevitable but a construction, produced by discourses that rely on it.
Deconstructing the terms negates their objective status. The aim of deconstruction is to find the
gray area, to find what exists between the two polarised categories. Deconstruction relies on the
strategy that
The idea ofa central referent does not hold; it has to be dismantled. There is no determinate
meaning of a word, a text or a signifier, but meaning is always newly constructed. The effect of
meaning is constituted only by its differences from innumerable alternative meanings, and so the
specification of meaning becomes a never-ending process.96

Deconstruction should be a liberating experience, leading to the realisation of a new scope for
artistic exploration.

This brief introduction has attempted to outline the main concepts associated with postmodern
thought. These include relativism, scepticism (in theory) and self-reflexivity (in practice). It is
recognized that just as postmodernism envisages a world without boundaries, literature that is
identified as being postmodern may continue to show evidence of modernist tendencies.
Ironically though, postmodernism makes no claim to being a coherent set of aesthetic principles.
It thus has prepared its own escape route for criticism of not providing a consistent aesthetic
practice.

Postmodern Literature

It is possible to recognise postmodern fiction by applying a checklist of features to the text in

question. Texts described as postmodern do not need to show traces of all of the features that
predominate in descriptions of postmodern fiction. However, it is necessary to show in what ways
a text has a postmodern dominant and what are the elements that contrast or conflict with the
texts postmodern tendencies. A text may not need to be fully postmodern to critically apply
postmodern ideas this also might not be desirable. It is possible that gaps and divergences
between various styles may enhance a texts richness or complexity. So, it may be most useful to
discuss a text in terms of its postmodern-ness and to be aware of the range of postmodern
devices that often appear as reflections of the postmodern condition.

A practical and clearly structured guide to postmodernism can be found in Tim Woods Beginning
97
Postmodernism. Woods identifies eight dominant traits of postmodern literature. These features
overlap to a certain extent and some may be considered as a subcategory others. Nonetheless,

95
Culler, 1997, p. 122.
96
Krassnitzer, 1995, p. 32.

25
Woods formulation provides a useful starting point. Firstly, Woods writes that postmodern texts
have a preoccupation with the viability of systems of representation. That is, the texts show an
inherent distrust of their ability to refer to the real world. Second, a texts subject may be plural;
the narrator is not a stable, reliable and invisible author. Third, the narrativedoubles back on its
own presuppositions the texts indicate their own structural incoherence and absurdity. That is,
a text may assert two mutually denying statements. Fourth, the narrative self-consciously alludes
to its own artifice. This is similar to the first point as both are concerned with the texts own
textuality and its ability to have referential meaning beyond its form. Fifth, an interrogation of the
ontological bases of the connections between narrative and subjectivity. The final three cover
dismantling the borders between high and popular culture, exploring ways narratives construct
understandings of history and the displacement of the real by simulacra[through
98
using]historical fictions as fact.

Aleid Fokkema outlines three visions of postmodernism, those of McHale, Hutcheon and
99
Waugh. Each of them appoints various exemplary authors and novels (or short stories) to their
canon of postmodern literature. Postmodern theory denounces the idea of a canon, but
convenience in practical literary criticism and understanding overpowers the abstract goals of
theory. Firstly, McHale argues that postmodern fiction is characterised by the ontological
dominant. That is, it problematizes the ontology of the literary text itself orthe ontology of the
100
world it projects. Secondly, Waugh cites to the phenomena of metafiction. This is fictional
writing which self-consciously and systematically draws attention to its status as an artifact in
101
order to pose questions about the relation between fiction and reality. Thirdly, Hutcheon
describes its attributes of historiographic metafiction. This is, they engage, problematically
referential text that is offered as another of the discourses by which we construct our versions of
102
reality. . One of the most well known works that plays with the re-telling of history, through its
incorporation into narrative is John Fowles The French Lieutenants Woman. For example:
So perhaps I am writing a transposed autobiography; perhaps I now live in one of the houses I
have brought into the fiction; perhaps Charles is myself disguised. Perhaps it is only a game.
Modern women like Sarah exist, and I have never understood them. Or perhaps I am trying to pass
off a concealed book of essays on you.103

97
Woods, 1999.
98
Woods, 1999, p. 9.
99
Aleid Fokkema, Postmodern Characters: A Study of Characterization in British and American Postmodern
Fiction, Amsterdam, Rodopi, 1991, p. 14.
100
Brian McHale, Postmodernist Fiction, New York: Methuen, 1987, p. 10.
101
Patricia Waugh, Metafiction: The Theory and Practice of Self-Conscious Fiction, London: Methuen, 1984,
p. 2.
102
Hutcheon, 1988, p. 52.

26
 104
As Waugh and Hutcheon have written, there is an instability of the fictional world. This
conflicts with the ideal of realism, where literary works present a different version of a historically
possible world. Realist works depict a world that is logically possible. Realist works accept the
validity of the relationship between empiricist conventions and scientific knowledge and reality. In
denying these established thought processes, postmodern writers presented a confrontation
105
between the text and the world of our own. Textual instability can be created by using a
paranoid or confused narrator, or one without a reliable centre of consciousness. Figures from
other works of fiction or history make appearances in realms beyond their usual existence. Don
DeLillo, often cited as being central to the postmodern literary canon in the U.S., narrates the
story of J. Edgar Hoover watching a famous early 1950s baseball game during the first chapter of
106
his monumental work, Underworld. While President Nixon appears in Robert Coovers novel
The Public Burning (1977), where he seduces a fictional character. Another example is Umberto
Ecos The Name of the Rose. Eco has written, books always speck of other books and every
story tells a story that has already been told. Butler, writes that this is an example of how texts
107
are seen as perpetually referring to other ones rather than to any external reality. While
Derrida sees it as merely an example of continual dissemination of variations on previously
108
established concepts or ideas.

Intertextuality and the practice of books talking to books is also common to both movements. It is
postmodernism though that asserts the essentiality of this condition: books only talk to other
books, they never really refer to the real world. There is a total disenchantment with the
referential ability of language and any form of artistic expression.

Distinguishing the postmodern from the modern, is the formers refusal to play fair with the
109
reader. Even in grandiose and complex modern literature, such as that by James Joyce, the
accomplished reader could still construct a logical chronology and sets of cause and effect
relationships. But, because it is postmodernitys meaning of existence, it refuses to follow
paradigms that rest on the belief that the world can be logically recreated in a literary (or any
other kind of) text. Butler has written that the postmodernist novel doesnt try to create a
sustained realist illusion: it displays itself as open to all those illusory tricks of stereotype and

103
Christopher Butler, Postmodernism: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002, p.
71.
104
Butler, 2002, p. 70.
105
Butler, 2002, p. 70.
106
Don de Lillo, Underworld, New York: Scribner, 1997.
107
Butler, 2002, p. 32.
108
Butler, 2002, p. 32.
109
Butler 2002, p. 32.

27
narrative manipulation, and of multiple interpretation in all its contradiction and inconsistency,
110
which are central to postmodernist thought.

Postmodern texts do not attempt to understand the psychology of a character. Aleid Fokkema
has written how this feature makes it possible for them to be described as flat or cartoon like
111
because their inner conflicts and emotions are not specifically explored. This is in part due to
the postmodernist belief that an individual does not have a central core aspect of his or her
identity that moderates his or her behavior. Postmodernists believe in the dominance of plural
selves rather than a single personality. Lawrence E. Cahoone explains it as follows: the human
self is not a simple unity, hierarchically composed, solid, self-controlled; rather it is a multiplicity of
112
forces or elements. It would be more true to say that I have selves, than a self. This
complements Catherine Belseys idea that a human being is not an identity, a whole, but
something that is in a process of continual transformation. As such, it is unsurprising that logical
behavior is not demanded of characters in postmodernist literature. Christopher Butler describes
this indifference to exploring a characters identity to be evident in the fiction of the new novelists
in France. He writes that they moved towards a far colder, contradiction-filled anti-narrative
method in the texts of Alain Robbe-Grillet, Philippe Sollers, and others, who were not so much
interested in individual character, or coherent narrative suspense and interest, as in the play of
113
their own authorial language.

McHales discussion on the search for the dominant in postmodern writing is useful because he
describes an instance of crossing back and forth between modernism and postmodernism, using
the example of Faulkners Absalom Absalom. McHales defined modernism as have an
epistemological dominant (concerned with the theory of knowledge), while postmodernism was
114
defined by an ontological dominant (concerned with the nature of being).

Linda Hutcheon sees postmodernism as being resolutely contradictory, as it is complicit in its

reproduction of cultural forms that it seeks to criticize. It is an ironic form of knowing it says
something as if with inverted commas around it. It adds to the flood of cultural discourse and
115
production, while seeking to criticize the idealized position of the artist. Similar to avant-gardist
th
movements of the 20 century, postmodernism seeks to de-naturalize our understanding of the

110
Butler, 2002, p. 73.
111
A. Fokkema, 1991, p.15.
112
Cahoone, 1996, p. 15.
113
Butler, 2002, p. 7.
114
Brian McHale, Change of Dominant from Modernist to Postmodernist Writing in Douwe Fokkema and
Hans Bertens (ed), Approaching Postmodernism: Papers Presented at a Workshop on Postmodernism, 21-
23 September 1984, University of Utrecht, Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 1986. p. 58
and 60.
115
Linda Hutcheon, The Politics of Postmodernism , London: Routeledge, 1989, p. 34.

28
world. It is this process which makes it comparable to movements which have sought to re-
establish the rights that have been subordinated by dominant ideologies, metanarratives. This de-
doxification is the initial step in creating room for change. However, postmodern literary works
typically refrain from straightforward social criticism. In White Noise, Don DeLillo maintains an
116
ambiguous position towards the culture he is criticizing; there is no heavy-handed criticism of it.
Cindy Shermans photographs of herself based on Hollywood movie stills also provide an
example of simultaneously installing and subverting dominant cultural practices. This acts
significance depends on the artists degree of self-awareness in doing so.

The relevance of parody and pastiche to postmodernism. Jamesons argument, was in Dentiths
words, something like this: that the cultural logic of late capitalism was distinct from that of
previous economic stages; that postmodernist cultural practice in a range of arts expressed this
cultural logic; that this cultural practice was characterised above all by pastiche, which was to be
distinguished from parody by the absence of any critical distance from the ur-text. Jamesons
essay characters consumer or late capitalist or post-industrial society as a world without
cultural hierarchies; a depthless world in which the recourse to nature, or the past, or high
culture, as ways of getting the measure of the world, has been abandoned. In such a situation,
the critical force carried by parody has been replaced by pastiche, in which artists, architects and
writers can endlessly allude to other styles in an interminable recycling which mirrors the
117
unending commodity circulation of absolutely extensive capitalism.

Conclusions
Despite inevitable exclusions it is necessary to provide a basic conclusion of what I consider to be
the dominant features of postmodern literary practice. These features may be applied across the
arts to varying degrees. Pastiche is connected also to irony and the acceptance of creative
exhaustion in the arts. In postmodernism repetition is inevitable so the metanarrative of complete
originality is considered to be flawed. Process is prioritized over the object; questioning and
referring to the process in which an artwork is created becomes the central feature of the artistic
object. Artists have challenged the rigidity of boundaries born out of modernism through
diversification and unexpected combinations.

Postmodernism, like other literary genres, movements or theories is extremely difficult to define
and only a few of the main points of disagreement or contention have been outlined in this
discussion. However, for the sake of a practical and constructive thesis, a definition must be
formulated, keeping in mind that attempts at essentialising or limiting the definition of

116
Woods, 1999, p 68.
117
Simon Dentith, Parody, London: Routledge, 2000, p. 155.

29
postmodernism is antithetical to its raison dtre. As such, by its very premise, this thesis is
decidedly non-postmodernist. I will use the term to refer to a theoretical (intellectual?), artistic and
th
literary movement that rose to prominence in the second half of the 20 century, which engaged
in the problematising of the text (medium), characterisation, originality and the instability of the
text. My definition, in part, neglects the achievements or developments made by peripheral or
non-Western cultures. The discourse that has formed the basis for the definition is primarily
Western (American and British).

Indonesian writers and Seno Gumira Ajidarma in particular have also developed their own
significant uses for ideas originally espoused by other postmodernist authors: their application
has been both innovative and a creative response to their surrounding conditions. It is indeed, no
way second rate, because of apparent predecessors elsewhere. Logical also, in that part of the
postmodernist theories appear particularly relevant or helpful to understanding Indonesian
culture, and its literature, in particular. Postmodernism is not in Indonesia as something merely
foreign, it has been appropriated to become identifiably Indonesian.

Some critics have argued that a key feature of modernity is its self-reflexiveness. Eysteinsson
also identifies this similarity between texts described as modern and postmodern. In this sense
there is a clear continuation between the two movements. However, critics have referred to
postmodernisms intensification of this practice. The difference lies in the degree of the practice
rather than the introduction of any fundamentally new idea. Postmodernisms intensification of
aspects of modernism have been read as an opposition to modernism. That may be too dramatic
a conclusion.

Should postmodernism be considered the climax or anti-climax of modernism? Is its modernisms

demise or its final culmination? The answer is probably somewhere in between. To find an
effective and productive postmodernism, it must be one that does not reject out of hand the
systems of thought that apply ideas of positivist knowledge, leading to an endless decline into a
relativist swamp, incapable of reaching any tangible position. It is equally useless to deny that the
postmodern moment has occurred: ideas of postmodernism have had broad and thorough
influences in many different fields of intellectual and artistic endeavour. Neither a hasty retreat to
the comforts of modernism nor a blind enthusiasm for the trendy radical aims of an overpowering
postmodernism will provide satisfying and enduring answers to questions of aesthetic practice.
Postmodernisms representing of the marginalized and its disturbing of elitist modernist practices
do increase our knowledge of ways of being and help us to comprehend the human condition in
broader, more representative terms.

30
Although postmodernism should be considered a continuation of modernism, it is still possible to
construct new dichotomies which are indicative of each styles aesthetics. This table is a
summary of the ideas I associate with the two styles. Indeed, it is very abstract, however keeping
these notions in my mind may be useful in detecting works that have a postmodern aura to them.

Modernism Postmodernism
Positivism Scepticism
Optimism Pessimism
Style Kitsch
Progress Running on the spot
Meaning Emptiness
The relation of the text to the world is in nothing is beyond the text (texts are
tact incapable of referring to the world)
Space and time are clearly demarcated Space and time are one and united;
and separated we live in plural times and plural
spaces
Purposeful Futile
Logical Irrational
Consistent Flippant
Satisfying Frustrating
Universal Particular
Novel Repetitive
Original Fake
Pure Polluted
Belief Nihilism

This chapter has sought to briefly define the distinguishing features of modernism,
postmodernism and postmodernist literature. From my reading of Ajidarmas literature I have
isolated recurring uses of textual instability, multiple and shifting selves, a distrust towards
metanarratives and an engagement with popular culture. It is these four aspects of
postmodernism that I will uses as the basis for my discussion of Senos fiction. But first, I will
introduce the social and political context of New Order Indonesia, which will allow for a better
understanding of the innovations of Senos fiction.

31
Chapter Two
Cultural Politics of the New Order

A myriad of works have already dealt with the cultural and political conditions of the New Order
era. As such, the purpose of this section is only to provide the context for Senos work. This
chapter outlines the dominant conditions that influenced social and cultural expression.

The New Order (NO) was the name given to the Indonesian government, which ruled from 1966
until 1998. Suharto came to power after the aborted communist coup of 1965 and led the NO until
political and economic turmoil and widespread protests forced him to step down in May 1998.
Krishna Sen and David Hill have described the NO as, the authoritarian form of government
118
through which Indonesia was ruled since 1966. During this era, Suharto sought to establish a
stable social and political environment that would be conducive for economic development
119
(pembangunan). The ideal of national development was used to justify and to maintain its
legitimacy. Ariel Heryanto, has identified five main factors with which it did this: i) nationalism; ii)
Pancasila; iii) the 1945 Constitution and its formal embodiment; iv) development programmes
120
and v) propaganda on stability and order. Heryanto asserts that it development was the most
vital and least susceptible to serious challenge during the NO. The fifth aspect (propaganda on
121
stability and order) was the most open to direct criticism .

The second aspect, Pancasila (The Five Principles) is Indonesias state philosophy. According to
Adam Schwarz these principles have been a forceful binding agent for a young nation and a
122
powerful tool of repression. To question the validity of the Indonesian nation state was a most
serious crime. The NOs claims of the immutability of Indonesias national sovereignty is evident
through its actions which have sought to annihilate separatist movements. Organisations such as
GAM (Gerakan Aceh Merdeka, Free Aceh Movement) and Fretilin (East Timorese pro-
independence movement, in the past) represent antitheses to NO rhetoric of national unity.
Heryanto asserts that Pancasila significance has two parts. First it functions as the ideological
basis for the NOs primary claim to have saved the nation from the so-called 1965 communist
123
coup and in later years it has been used to undercut perceived Islamic-based opposition.

118
Krishna Sen and David Hill, Media, Culture and Politics in Indonesia, 2002 p. 2
119
Or as Hendrik M.J. Maier, calls it construction.
120
Ariel Heryanto, State Ideology and Civil Discourse in Arief Budiman (ed), State and Civil Society,
Clayton: Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, Monash University, 1990, p. 290.
121
Heryanto, 1990, p. 290.
122
Adam Schwarz, A Nation in Waiting, St. Leonards: Allen and Unwin, 1994, p. 10.
123
Heryanto, 1990, p. 291.

32
Critics of the NO were dismissed by the NO as being anti-Pancasila, anti-45 Constitution or as
representing a threat to national stability and order.

Throughout the NO regime, the government was able to steadily increase its authority while
diminishing the prospects for sustained and effective criticism against it. Depoliticisation of society
124
was central to central to establishing a conducive climate for economic development.
Nationalism and Pancasila, mentioned above were just two of the main factors that were used by
the NO to discredit opposition to its policies. Essential to the three other factors indicated by
Heryanto, was the states efforts in gaining control of the press, the de-politicization of universities
and the politically restricted ability for artists and writers to express social criticisms through their
work. Heryanto considers it as follows: legitimation involves extensive military participation in
social activities, intimidation, extensive and rigorous surveillance, retarded mechanisms of rule of
law, overt extra judicial operations and the tight control of the press and educational
125
institutions.

Development, as mentioned earlier, was central to the NOs ideology. As a result of the
pembangunan successes, an urban middle class was formed who had disposable income and
time for consuming cultural products. However, as Matheson-Hooker points out, a side effect of
126
development, was destruction. Thus pembangunan had a paradoxical relationship with
Indonesian culture. The destruction of the pembangunan ideology, was evident in environmental,
cultural, social and political terms. Ideological conformity in the name of development eradicated
political opposition and restricted the growth of art forms that presented alternative ideals to those
of the NO.

The 32 years of NO governance was marked by serious restrictions on the expression of criticism
of political figures and the social conditions in Indonesia. The NOs ideal of pembangunan, and
Pancasila were directly related to the press policies while Suharto was in power. It was believed
that economic development could only be achieved in a calm national climate, free of major
confrontations between different communal groups. Being a nation of diverse religious, cultural
and ethnic groups, the NO attempted to ensure that no single group would promote their own
interest over that of the nations. National identity and state integrity was prioritized over the
needs and rights of ethnic and religious minorities. To prevent the proliferation of public political
discussion, in which certain ethnic or religious groups would vie for political advantage, the NO

124
Faruk, Pengantar Sosiologi Sastra: Dari Strukturalisme Genetik sampai Post-Modernisme, Yogyakarta:
Pustaka Pelajar, 1994.
125
Heryanto, 1990, p. 291.
126
Virginia Matheson-Hooker, Culture and Society in New Order Indonesia, Melbourne: Oxford University
Press, 1993, p. 14.

33
adopted a policy towards the press that banned the discussion of SARA issues. To support
national development, issues relating to ethnicity (suku), religion (agama), race (ras) and class
(antar golongan) were excluded from national discourse.

SARA, however was a general list of what should not be reported within the Indonesian media.
As a complement to this, the NO government also had in its power the ability to close down any
publication that transgressed guidelines of what should not be discussed. This was done through
the withdrawal of a publishing companys publishing license. The SIUPP could be withdrawn at
any time. Harmoko, head of the Ministry of Information throughout the later years of the NO
explains: publications which dont reflect the values of Pancasila and the 1945 Constitution and
instead propound different views, including liberalism, radicalism and communism are prohibited.
127
In practice, that means their SIUPP will be cancelled, a step which is allowed by law. The
exact limitations of what might trigger were never stated by the NO government. The vagueness
of the limitations worked in the governments favour, as journalists and editors were encouraged
128
to practice self-censorship. The press was encouraged to be free but responsible. A truly
free press was considered an inappropriate Western import, and thus the press was coerced
into supporting the governments aims of development.

So, what were the dominant modes of cultural expression throughout the NO? Did writers present
opposition to the authoritarian government, or were they involved in literary forms that separated
them from political struggle?

129 130 131

Hatley , Foulcher and Clark have all written that there were two main trends in cultural
production during the NO. The first was one of aesthetic experimentation, non-realistic and
absurd writing, a concentration on philosophical and metaphysical themes. Foulcher has written
how the developments made in the anti-realist works of Danarto evolved from being subversive
132
into a new kind of orthodoxy. Secondly, there were increasing references to indigenous and
133
regional cultural traditions. In the works of writers such as Y.B.Mangunwijaya and Emha Ainun
Nadjib, Clark, argues that these writers attempted to outwit the authorities through social
commentary conveyed through references to Javas pre-eminent cultural expression, the

127
Schwarz, 1994, p. 241.
128
Schwarz, 1994, p. 241.
129
Barbara Hatley, Cultural Expression in Hal Hill (ed) Indonesias New Order, St. Leonards: Allen &
Unwin, 1994.
130
Keith Foulcher, Post-modernism or the Question of History: Some Trends in Indonesian Fiction since
1965 in Virginia Matheson-Hooker (ed), Culture and Society in New Order Indonesia, Melbourne: Oxford
University Press, 1993.
131
Marshall Clark, Shadow Boxing: Indonesian Writers and the Ramayana in the New Order in Indonesia
72, October, 2001.
132
Foulcher, in Matheson-Hooker (ed), 1993, p. 35.

34
 134
wayang. The anti-realist fiction developed distinctive Indonesian features, and even though it
opposed aspects of the social and political realities of the era, it was also a deeper engagement
135
with those very issues it criticised.

Significant writers during this period include, Putu Wijaya, W.S. Rendra, Goenawan Mohamad,
Sutardji Calzoum Bachri, Danarto, Nh. Dini and Leila S. Chudori. Putu Wijaya pioneered the
development of anti-realist expression in his short stories and plays. He has also been a part of
the postmodern exploration of examining the construction of form, of meaning, and of reality
136 137
itself. Danarto also used conventions of surrealism in his sufistic short stories. Keith
Foulcher recognises the experiments in form made by the anti-realists in the New Order. He
refers to Danartos story Rintrik, as a variety of the fantastic, outside the world which we inhabit
from day to day, but the story itself is laden with conflict of rival world-views and the social and
138
political practices which flow from them. Sutardji Calzoum Bachri became famous for his credo
that the goal of literature was to free words from meaning.

Hendrik Maier, a leading critic of Indonesian literature has commented negatively on much of the
NO literature. Maier argues that the surrealist literature which dominated the Suharto era was too
similar to what was acceptable to the ideologues of the New Order hierarchies and only cites Wiji
139
Thukul as a substantial oppositional author. Maier argues that NO writers had not produced
works that presented alternatives to the dominant ideologies. This reflects the view of seeing
140
absurd literature as a rejection of social responsibility. Maier compares the socially critical
impotency of the surrealists against the achievements (and unjust sufferings) of Indonesias pre-
eminent modern writer, Pramoedya Ananta Toer. He laments that Pramoedyas Buru Quartet
novels arrived too late in the Indonesian literary scene. And that, instead of a literature of great
and densely constructed novels that would deal with love, life, and death in a deeply philosophical
way, what existed was sastra pop [popular literature], short stories, and poetry readings that
141
were in close correspondence with the wishes of the ideologists of the New Order. Other

133
Hatley, in Hill, 1994., p. 222.
134
Clark, 2001, p. 165.
135
Clark, 1999, p. 38.
136
Foulcher, in Matheson-Hooker (ed), 1993, p. 37.
137
Harry Aveling, Rumah Sastra Indonesia, Magelang: Indonesiatera, 2002.
138
Foulcher, in Matheson-Hooker (ed), 1993, p. 31.
139
Hendrik M.J. Maier, Flying a Kite: The Crimes of Pramoedya Ananta Toer, in Vicente L. Rafael (ed),
Figures of Criminality in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Colonial Vietnam , Ithaca: Southeast Asia Program
Publications, 1999, p. 257.
140
Foulcher in Matheson-Hooker (ed), 1993, p. 35.
141
Maier, 1999, p. 253.

35
critics, such as Harry Aveling, consider the literature produced during the New Order as having a
142
great diversity and richness, despite the oppressive conditions.

The NOs influence over the legal systems in Indonesia, allowed for censorship of works such as
Nyanyi Sunyi Seorang Bisu (The Mutes Soliloquy) and the Buru Quartet. Suhartos rule was
marked by the implementation of the law based on the governments will, rather than any
steadfast, consistent application of the rule of law. As in the case of the press, publishing houses
were also hounded by mysterious telephone calls, warning publishers of the ramifications if
certain texts were published. Maier describes the circumstances as follows: in modern Indonesia,
reading a literary book can still be an act of resistance, selling literature can still land someone in
143
prison. Fiction was considered to have the power to cause public disorder and
misunderstandings of Indonesian history. Literary works were banned, as the government feared
they would be misinterpreted: the government believed that not everyone had the abilities to
interpret the fictions correctly. This is an indication of the governments willingness to only
validate one truth, one perspective on reality. Clark writes that Maiers conclusions on literature
written during the NO era are too negative. Instead, Clark asserts that writers such as Putu
Wijaya, Danarto and Seno were in their own oblique way just as oppositional and political as their
144
realist counterpart, Pramoedya.

Through negating the oppositional strengths of the media and the arts, the NO created an
authoritarian-like atmosphere. Writers were not able to freely or openly criticise the legitimacy of
state ideologies for fear of being censored. The notions of development and national unity were
prioritised over the importance of mass human rights abuses. The atmosphere was exclusive of
ideologies that challenged the NOs efforts at developing and maintaining an Indonesian national
personality. How Seno used postmodernism to question the concepts and ideologies which were
part of the New Order will be explored in the next chapter.

142
Ian Campbell, Some developments in Indonesian literature since 1998, in Review of Indonesian and
Malaysian Affairs, Vol. 36, number 2, 2002, p. 35.
143
Maier, 1999, p. 248.
144
Clark, 2001, p. 165.

36
Chapter Three
Seno Gumira Ajidarma

3. 1 Micronarratives

Micronarratives in the Indonesian Context

The fall of the New Order has led to the increased questioning of the many grand narratives
145
associated with its ideologies. Since 1998 new freedoms have emerged about what can be
discussed in public discourse. This section looks at some of Senos works which have
represented the narratives of the dispossessed and the unrepresented parts of Indonesian
society many of which did not conform with the New Orders aims of economic development
and national unity and representing their plight has challenged the New Order authority on
national construction. This section shows the breadth of Senos dealing with micronarratives and
as such argues for their recognition as a significant part of his literature. Their presence is part of
my assertion that various examples of Senos work can be qualified as postmodern. The works
discussed were written during the New Order or afterwards but are works which counter New
Order ideologies.

There are many sources of micronarratives: ideology, ethnic identity, geography, class or religion.
These aspects may be combined to different degrees in each narrative. The interplay of ethnic
identity, ideology, class or religion strengthen the other-ness of a minority group. Senos stories
dealing with the rapes of Chinese Indonesians, for example are micronarratives based on ethnic
identity. As these rapes largely occurred in Jakarta they are not micronarratives because of their
geographical location. The perspective of an Indonesian communist is a micronarrative of
ideology however, transferred to the Peoples Republic of China, a similar perspective would be
part of the dominant web of grand narratives. In this sense, what is a micronarrative or grand
narrative is subjective as it relies on context rather than as being something universal. Put simply,
they are the stories of ideological, geographical, ethnic or class minorities, and those who are on
societys peripheries.

145
Razif Bahari writes that a feature of postmodern times is that the comfort and stability of meta-narrative
of any kind is slipping away, while national boundaries are increasingly becoming porous, in A postcolonial
apercu: reconceptualising Indonesian history, nation and identity in Pramoedya Ananta Toers Buru
tretrology, in Review of Indonesian and Malaysian Affairs, volume 36, number 2, 2002, p. 19.

37
Stories from the Periphery
Seno has written about provinces on the periphery of Indonesian national culture. One is East
Timor, which gained independence in 1999, another is Aceh. In stories about the cultural and
political centre, Seno has written about those who have not benefited from Indonesias economic
development. Or in the case of the narrator in Jazz, Parfum dan Insiden, a young office worker,
who sits in a high-rise office and is unable to escape from feelings of complicity in the violence
inflicted upon East Timorese. The general ignorance of the violence inspires a deep guilt within
the narrator which forces him to pursue more information about East Timor. The narrators
reading of reports about the violence becomes like a drug to him and he struggles to reconcile his
emotional response with the indifference of the world around him.

The collection of stories in Saksi Mata and the short story, Telpon Dari Aceh are examples of
where Seno has written about human rights abuses in provinces far from Jakarta. While in terms
of ideological micronarratives, he has dealt with the backlash against suspected communists
146
during 1966-67. These works are (the play) Mengapa kau culik anak kami? and (a recent short
147
story) Rembulan dalam Capuccino. In these examples, Seno presents the suffering of the
victims caused by the murders of suspected communists. He provides an alternative to the
dominant narrative by emphasising the cruelty of the mass murders, rather than the alleged
sadism of the communists. Michael Bodden has also written of the connection between
Indonesian postmodernism and its connection to social criticism. With particularly relevance to
the works discussed below, Bodden has observed that:
the work of the Indonesian postmodernistswas produced in a general climate of growing popular
opposition to the New Order. In this way, the postmodern universalism of these cultural workers
grew out of the Euro-American genealogy of nationalism with its emphasis on inalienable rights that
extend to all, creating a community of equals before the law. 148

Seno was targeted by New Order authorities as a result of his allegiance with the East Timorese.
His targeting by the military was a result of his writing, rather than any pre-determined association
with the East Timorese or Acehnese. It was a result of his choice to expose their suffering.
Marshall Clark has written, Senos second work of fiction portraying the tragedy of East Timor
(Jazz, Parfum dan Insiden)was also a reflection of his strong commitment to revealing not only
the tragedy of Indonesias invasion and annexation of East Timor but also the decaying social
149
and political underside of Suhartos New Order regime. Senos stories assert the need for
protection of human rights and attempted to move away from a discourse which only saw East

146
Seno Gumira Ajidarma, Mengapa Kau Culik Anak Kami? Yogyakarta: Galang Press, 2001.
147
Seno Gumira Ajidarma, Rembulan Dalam Cappucino in Kompas, 30.11.03
148
Bodden in Foulcher and Day, 2002, p. 294.

38
Timorese narratives as being opposed to the Indonesian nation state. He connects the suffering
150
of the East Timorese to broader issues of equal rights, individual identity and freedom. Saksi
Mata, Jazz, Parfum dan Insiden and Telpon dari Aceh, aim to be neutral, beyond their assertion
of human rights. The stories emphasize the suffering caused by the Indonesian Militarys
suppression of independence movements in the name of preserving Indonesian national unity.
For Seno, the legitimacy of the East Timorese narrative lies in their human rights abuses rather
than notions of cultural and national independence.

Clara and the Portrayal of Ethnic Chinese

Seno has written numerous short stories on the political crisis of 1997 and 1998. These stories
deal with ethnic identity (Clara, Eksodus), mass rapes (Clara, Jakarta 2039) and mob violence
(Jakarta, Suatu Ketika). He addresses the issue of Chinese ethnic identity by using the politically
charged violence of 1998 as a starting point. These works merge two of his main themes:
violence and social engagement. This section focuses on the short story, Clara (Atawa Wanita
151
yang diperkosa). This story has been chosen because of its dealing with the politically sensitive
issue of the hitherto unsolved cases of the mass rapes that took place in Jakarta during the social
upheaval preceding Suhartos resignation, and because it problematizes the complicity of the
police in silencing the victims narratives.

To appropriately position Clara in Senos output, we must understand the position of the ethnic
Chinese in New Order Indonesia. Suhartos government actively subordinated Chinese culture
and separated them from the notion of the Indonesian personality. They could not openly
express their cultural and ethnic identity. Other minority ethnic groups suffered a similar problem
throughout the archipelago. However, Chinese businesses were closely connected to New Order
152
economic interests. Ethnic Chinese were considered to be uniformly rich, corrupt and to be of
doubtful loyalty to the Indonesian nation. They were also considered ideologically suspicious
because of their presumed connection to communism. Ethnic Chinese were in a paradoxical
position in New Order Indonesia, as many played a vital role in economic progress, while they
could also be positioned as a scapegoat in times of crisis. The case of the May riots is particularly
relevant as Chinese homes and businesses were targeted, as were many ethnic Chinese
themselves.

149
Marshall Clark,Seno Gumira Ajidarma: An Indonesian Imagining East Timor, Review of Indonesian and
Malaysian Affairs, 33,2, 1999, p. 34
150
Bodden in Foulcher and Day, 2002, p. 318.
151
Clara (or the woman who was Raped)
152
Adam Schwarz, A Nation in Waiting, St. Leonards: Allen and Unwin, 1994, p. 108.

39
Throughout the New Order, Chinese culture was not given room to develop freely: Mandarin was
banned and ethnic Chinese were encouraged into adopting Indonesian sounding names or
153
converting to Islam. Through such processes, assimilation into the Indonesian culture was
possible. Conversion and new personal names, would make an ethnic Chinese Indonesian
154
accord with, what Ariel Heryanto calls, the Indonesian national personality. New terms were
used, which at the same time referred to and obscured their presence. These terms include,
orang keturunan (literally, people of descent) and warga negara Indonesia (simply, Indonesian
citizens). The press and politicians were forbidden to discuss matters concerning ethnicity, class,
155
religion and race, with race implicitly understood to mean Chinese. Apart from being partners
in economic development, being a Chinese Indonesian was discordant with the national identity.

Paul Tickell in After the Dictatorship and Pam Allen, in Contemporary Literature from the
Chinese Diaspora in Indonesia, have both discussed the way ethnic Chinese and Chinese
identity have been portrayed in fiction after the fall of President Suharto. Tickell uses stories by
Veven Wardhana as an example and argues that the previous stereotypes of Chinese have been
156
replaced by new and similarly essentialising ideas. The purpose of Allens paper is to provide a
review of the recent developments in Indonesian literature that deal with three aspects of
Chineseness: 1) fiction by ethnic Chinese, 2) fiction that deals with the masalah Cina (the
157
Chinese problem) and 3) fiction that addresses the tragedi Mei 1998. Both essays provide a
significant starting point for a new discussion of representations of ethnic Chinese in
contemporary fiction. These essays map the emergence of new writing and link it to the
contestation of ideas which shape identity. I regard these fictions as being a part of the general
condition of postmodernity.

Clara tells the story of a victim of the mass rapes that occurred in the week leading up to
President Suhartos resignation in May 1998. The rapes of up to 168 women were committed
th 158
during the widespread looting on the 13-14 May. The title alone indicates a new brazenness
in addressing politically sensitive issues: writers are free to tell it as it is; metaphors and abstract
symbolism are not needed to disguise overt social criticism. The story, which is a conversation
between the victim and an unnamed policeman, addresses problems that were later to emerge in
the attempts to resolve the crimes, including disbelief towards the confessions and the victims
fear of reporting the rapes. At one stage, the policeman, says, I cant just believe her - I have to

153
Pam Allen, Contemporary Literature from the Chinese Diaspora in Indonesia, in Asian Ethnicity,
Volume 4, Number 3, October 2003, pp 383-399.
154
Heryanto, 1998, p. 103.
155
Paul Tickell, After the Dictatorship, paper presented at Monash University, 1.5.03
156
Tickell, 2003, p. 4.
157
Allen, 2003, p. 383.
158
Allen, 2003, p. 397.

40
be suspicious. I must think of other possibilities, corner her, provoke her and make her tired so
159
she quickly says what she really means. The story concludes without resolving Claras fate.

After being stopped by a mob on a Jakartan toll road while returning to her familys home, Clara
says, Is it true these people hate Chinese that much? Sure I am Chinese, but what have I done
160
wrong by being born Chinese? Im Indonesian, I said while trembling. Her claim to being
Indonesian is rejected by one of her rapists, No way! Indonesians dont have squinty eyes like
161
yours! The (clichd) racism of the native (pribumi) Indonesian is contrasted with that of Claras
efforts to make sure her father does not fire his workers, who are presumably native Indonesian.
Claras indifference to race, is evident after been questioned about her boyfriends photograph in
her wallet, in that she says, Ive never cared whether he is Javanese or Chinese. I only care
162
about love.

Seno breaks the stereotype of ethnic Chinese as ignoring the needs of native Indonesians by
portraying Clara as someone who considers the needs of the pribumi employees who work for
her fathers company. This is one aspect of Senos sympathetic portrayal of Clara. However, as is
the stereotype of ethnic Chinese, Clara is rich and her father encourages her to leave Indonesia
163
possibly as a sign of his superficial loyalty to Indonesia. Despite being (a typical) rich
Chinese, Clara is assimilating to being a true Indonesian: she feels Indonesian, she has a
Javanese boyfriend and she has tried to prevent the pribumi workers from being fired. On the
other hand, the policeman is an exemplar of corruption and mendacity. The urban pribumi poor
are guilty of the rape of Clara and there is no implication of police involvement in organising the
rapes. An old woman who appears near the storys conclusion asks forgiveness for the behaviour
of anak kami (our children). This statement is suggestive of the collective guilt experienced after
such indiscriminate and brutal violence.

The strength of Clara, lies in its breaking of the taboo on the rapes that occurred during May
1998. Clara does conform to some of the stereotypes commonly held of ethnic Chinese.
However, it is atypical of Senos work to create such polarised and clear cut examples of
innocent and guilty characters. The strength of his more insightful works lie in their ability to
show up the falsity of supposedly clear definitions of binary oppositions. It is unlikely that all of the
rape victims were rich and had Javanese boyfriends. Thus, Seno has been sympathetic towards
the portrayal of an ethnic Chinese, in part at the expense of the urban poor, who in this

159
Ajidarma, 1999, p. 74.
160
Ajidarma, 1999, p. 72.
161
Ajidarma, 1999, 72.
162
Ajidarma, 1999, p.74.

41
representation, acted without coercion from the military or police. Part of the subversive aspects
in this story most lies in the characterisation of the policeman: a man who has the ability to
manipulate what he knows into suiting his ideological interests. Seno also shows up the problems
of representing the narratives of others, and thus is a critique on representation.

164
The Petrus Killings and their Narratives
I will now turn to a different type of micronarrative. The previous section was based on
micronarratives determined by ethnic identity and the connotations of religion and political
ideology that went with it. This section concerns micronarratives of class, in particular, a
supposedly identifiable class of petty criminals (preman or gali). Like the ethnic Chinese and the
East Timorese mentioned above, the type of criminal in the discussion below were not granted
the guarantee of basic human rights. As with the perspectives of ethnic Chinese, alleged
communists or Acehnese separatists, narratives which expose the suffering and experiences of
those deemed by New Order officials as dispensable present the underside of Indonesian society
during the New Order regime. In contrast to other narratives mentioned above, the petrus
campaign itself was relatively short lived. However, if the petrus campaign is seen in the broader
context of how the New Order state legitimised violence through state ideology, it cannot be
considered a one off or a short lived policy. It is for this reason that an understanding of Senos
petrus stories is important in considering his work as a whole.

Graphic descriptions of violence appear in many of Senos fictions. The violence is at times
limited to disputes between lovers (as in Matinya Seorang Penari Telanjang) while on other
occasions it is surreal (Negeri Senja), mystical (Wisanggeni, Sang Buronan), related to traditional
martial arts (Penari Dari Kutai), entertaining and inspired by comics (Kematian Donny Osmond)
or random and politically charged (Jakarta 2039, Jakarta: Suatu Ketika). Some of Senos early
poems, written under the name Mira Sato, also contain macabre themes. For example Dua Gadis
165 166
Cilik or the collection Mati, Mati, Mati . Political violence is clearly at the forefront of Senos
concerns as it has served as a theme throughout many of his short stories, plays or editorials.
Part of my assertion is that despite the prominence that the Saksi Mata stories have had in
understanding Senos work, the petrus stories were the first examples of an engagement with this
topic which has sustained Senos interest until some of his most recent short stories.

163
At the beginning of the story Clara is contacted by her father who tells her to leave the country as soon
as possible because it is too dangerous for her to stay. Ajidarma, 1999, p. 70.
164
Abbreviation for both penembak misterius, mysterious sniper and penembakan misterius, mysterious
shootings.
165
Mira Sato (a name Seno used until 1981), Bayi Mati, Jakarta: Kesembilan Belas Puisi Indonesia, 1978, p.
30.
166
Mira Sato, Mati, Mati, Mati, 1975.

42
Petrus
Joshua Baker traces the petrus back to Yogyakarta where, in 1983 a senior policeman started a
campaign of extra-judicial killings of suspected criminals. The killings were called mysterious
because the murderers were never brought to justice. However, the police and army were
believed to be behind the killings. The murders were also mysterious as many of the victims
were thought to have magical powers: members of the armed forces believed that they could only
be killed if they were decapitated or if they were shot while their feet were not touching the
167
ground. The murders were associated with a special type of killing the way they were killed
as sadistic due to the perceived mystical powers of the criminals. The campaign was a response
to the crime wave that was spreading throughout many large Indonesian cities during the early
168
1980s. This campaign was also taken up in Jakarta, Surabaya, Solo Medan and Salatiga. One
of Suhartos biographers, Robert Elson describes petrus as a long-running series of murders of
169
alleged criminal underworld figures and ex-convicts in the early and mid-1980s. Initially
170
ABRI did not publicly accept responsibility for the murders. For example Benny Murdani (then
head of ABRI) claimed that the murders were a result of fighting between underworld gangs.
However, Suhartos autobiography of 1989 was his first public acknowledgement of the states
involvement in the murders. Suharto explained the petrus campaign as,
We had to use force. But this did not mean that we just shot them, bang, bang, just like that. No!
Those who resisted, yes, they had to be shot willy-nilly. Because they resisted they were shot.
Some of the bodies were just left there. This was for shock therapy so that people would
understand that criminal actions would still be combated and overcome.171

172
Police in major cities issued ultimatums to criminals warning them to hand themselves in.
Rumors spread that immutable lists were made up of criminals. As many of the bodies that were
found in public places were tattooed, it was believed that being tattooed was incriminating, and
made one susceptible to becoming a victim of the petrus killings. Baker has written that this belief
173
led to large numbers of men to remove their tattoos with caustic soda. Throughout the
campaign bodies were dumped in different cities from which the victims had came from. Baker
sees the petrus campaign as one of the New Orders attempts to establish security throughout
Indonesia. Other efforts included, suppressing separatist movements in Aceh and East Timor,

167
Joshua Baker, Petrus: A New Criminal Type in Benedict Anderson, Violence and the state in Suharto's
Indonesia, Ithaca: Southeast Asia Program Publications, Cornell University, 2001.
168
Prof. Arief Budiman tells of the experience of seeing dead bodies on the side of the road in Salatiga.
Members of the army who initially visited him to warn him against his anti-petrus stance, also revealed to
him about their own participation in the petrus killings. One asked him, is it a sin if I kill somebody, just
because Im following orders?
169
Robert Elson, Suharto: A Political Biography, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001, p. 236.
170
Angkatan Bersenjata Republik Indonesia, The Armed Forces of Indonesia
171
Elson, 2001, p. 237.
172
John Pemberton, On the Subject of Java, Ithaca: Cornell University, 1994, p. 311.
173
Elson, 2001, p. 237.

43
limiting political activism and restricting press freedom. He has compared the killings to Suhartos
attempts at cleaning up urban life through banning becak s and prostitution. Economic
development was the New Oders raison detre, and to oppose policies that would support it,
placed the writer as an oppositional figure.

The Penembak Misterius Trilogi

Recently Marshall Clark has written a paper on Wisanggeni, Sang Buronan which discusses the
174
novel in terms of its incorporation of a wayang character and petrus. However in comparison to
the first three stories in Penembak Misterius, Wisanggeni, Sang Buronan is an abstract or
metaphorical addressing of petrus. This section focuses on the first part of Penembak Misterius,
which is titled: Penembak Misterius: Trilogi. These stories show Senos opposition to the killings
of suspected criminals during the early to mid-80s. The literary practices used in the stories also
show the range of styles present in much of his writing: real (Bunyi Hujan di atas Genting), surreal
(Grhhh) and postmodern (Keroncong Pembunuhan). However, as the stories are representations
of micronarratives they are all to a certain extent, postmodern. The stories also show his
tendency to use fiction as a medium for dealing with issues which affect the public. The stories,
Keroncong Pembunuhan (The Murder Song), Bunyi Hujan di atas Genting (The Sound of Rain on
Tiles) and Grhhh (Grhhh), show Senos concern for political issues. As the stories address overtly
political issues through postmodern forms of expression Penembak Misterius is particularly
relevant to this thesis.

Penembak Misterius was Senos fifth book. Previously, he had published three collections of
175
poetry one collection of short stories and written an unpublished novel. These works were
generally introspective and personal. The poems, in particular were stark and bleak. The poems
are explorations of feelings and emotions, rather than of an external reality. Senos reliance on
176
subjective metaphor positions the poems as being distinctly modern. Numerous stories in
Penembak Misterius however are clearly socially engaged. That is, they involve issues beyond
the individual writer; the themes of the stories are concerned with problems facing the society he
lives in. The petrus stories are just three of eight such stories in the collection. Other subjects of
the political stories include poverty (Seorang Wanita di Halte Bus), political conformism
177
(Semangkin d/h semakin), greed (Helikopter) and the urban poor (Loket).

174
Clark, 2004.
175
Mati, Mati, Mati (Dead, Dead, Dead, 1975), Bayi Mati (Dead Baby, 1978), Catatan-Catatan Mira Sato
(The Notes of Mira Sato, 1978)
176
Keith Foulcher, On being a Modern Writer. 2001, unpublished.
177
In Hidung Seorang Pegawai Negeri (A Government Officials Nose, in Dunia Sukab ) and Darah itu Merah,
Jenderal (Blood is Red, General, in Saksi Mata), Seno deals addresses the connection between corrupt
politicians and human rights abuses.

44
Bunyi Hujan is the story that most clearly resembles the information that I have on the petrus
killings. The cinematic and dramatic Keroncong Pembunuhan seems to be an appropriation of the
petrus theme into a different context, just as Grhhh uses it for a moral infused surrealist story.
Bunyi Hujan di Atas Genting is set is an urban kampung and, typical of Senos stories contains
very few characters. This story focuses on one person, Sawitri; it is an exploration of her anxiety
while she waits for her partner to come home, fearing that he has been killed and will one day be
found, half hidden beneath a sack at the end of the lane where she lives. She is fearful as some
178
of the other bodies that she has seen were Pamujis friends, all of whom were tattooed. Pamuji
is also tattooed. The tattoos of the corpses have been damaged by the bullet holes, even when
179
they are not located in the lethal areas of the body. Sawitri has the impression that the person
who did the shooting, did so in part to damage the tattoo and to make the victim suffer as much
as possible before dying. The sadistic deaths of Pamujis friends aggravates Sawitris anxiety as
she waits for Pamujis possible return. The bodies always appear at the end of the lane, after the
rain has stopped and always seem to be looking in her direction. The sound of rain falling on roof
tiles becomes a signal that a body will soon appear at the end of the lane; each time it rains she
believes the may find out whether Pamuji has been killed. The rain draws Sawitri to a potential
180
climax in her wait for Pamuji. This climax, similar to Keroncong Pembunuhan and in Sarman , is
not resolved at the storys conclusion.

Bunyi Hujan does not problematize the guilt of the suspected criminals. Instead Seno emphasises
the suffering that has resulted from the widespread. As such this feature is similar to the lack of
discussion on competing nationalism in the Saksi Mata stories. However, in showing the effects
of the murders, Seno has used a passive and helpless figure. Sawitri is dependent on news of
Pamuji he determines her existence, even in his absence. Sawitris passiveness is not a
positive portrayal of women. For this reason, it is a particularly depressing and pessimistic story:
there are no alternatives given, Sawitri has no way out of her horrible fate of indefinite waiting and
the story only ends when the narrator tells Alina that, the story isnt over yet that is, the
murders are still continuing. Sawitris waiting must continue. It is the defending of a criminal class
identified as guilty that makes the petrus stories a significant part of Senos oeuvre. The victims
Seno defends are not as transparently innocent as either Clara or those in Saksi Mata. This
engagement with moral ambiguities shows Senos consistency in representing a diverse range of
micronarratives.

178
Ajidarma, 1993, p. 20.
179
Or as it is in the story, bagian yang mematikan (deadly parts).
180
The conclusion to Sarman is marked by the interference of the person who listening to the story being
told. The narrator subsequently tells the person listening that what happens to Sarman is not important.

45
Historical Fiction
The stories of Saksi Mata, Jazz Parfum dan Insiden, Clara and Jakarta, Suatu Ketika are
examples of where Seno has incorporated historical events into his fiction. This has been an
integral part of his micronarrative fictions. The writing of history as fiction has helped to soften
the impact of the political message in a time of sensitivity towards various political issues. Where
the narratives of certain ethnic groups reject the New Order doctrines on state unity, Seno has
obscured their specific origins in a fictional text. According to Michael Bodden much of Senos
socially engaged works were published in an atmosphere in which banning was still very much a
181
possibility. This may have been the case, but it is also likely that there was an emerging
middle class that was much in favour of the need for a more open and democratic government. It
is also possible that any ban on Senos work would not have persisted beyond the fall of the New
Order, nor would have been very effective. By using the medium of fiction, Seno was able to
disseminate the perspectives of those who have been suppressed by the New Order government.

Through using a fictional form, Seno has been able to lift eyewitness accounts of atrocities (Saksi
Mata, Clara, Jazz, Parfum dan Insiden), directly from non-fiction resources and present them to a
182
public with limited access to perspective which contrasted with the New Orders. Throughout
the works, Seno doesnt provide explicit information that the stories are set in East Timor, yet
dates remind readers of the historical context. In doing so, he avoids scrutiny from potential
censors, but conveys his message to readers used to metaphorical and suggestive writing.
However, stories such as Clara and Jakarta, Suatu Ketika state their setting. For this reason they
could be considered slightly bolder discussions of contemporary political problems something
allowed by the regimes decline. Seno reconciles the contrast between the two independent
genres in his statement: when journalism is silenced, literature must speak. Because while
183
journalism speaks with facts, literature speaks with the truth. Faruk H.T. has recognized
Senos incorporation of fact within fiction and states that Seno tries to stay loyal to each
discourses conventions, not merging one set of rules with the other. He suggests that the main
184
challenge in doing so is how to change between one set of rules to a different set of rules.
Faruk seems to be suggesting that these examples of Senos texts are superficial explorations of
postmodernist ideas.

The merging of fiction with non-fiction is also a comment upon the postmodernist argument that
all forms of discourse have an element of fiction to them and that no text can hope to give an

181
Bodden, 1999, p. 153.
182
Maier, 1999, p. 255.
183
Seno Gumira Ajidarma, Ketika jurnalisme dibungkam sastra harus bicara, Yogyakarta: Yayasan Benteng
Budaya: 1997, p.1.
184
Faruk H.T., 2001, p. 149.

46
objective description of reality. There is only discourse and differences between fiction and
non-fiction are trivial. Senos use of footnotes in fictional texts is an example of Seno
incorporating non-fictional elements into a different medium. Many of these footnotes only give
trivial information pertaining to the cultural background of certain popular culture elements in his
fictions. Many of the references are to aspects of Western culture, so, the need for these become
redundant when the audience is already familiar with what is being referred to. The footnotes
disrupt the reading, rather than seriously confronting notions about the conventions of writing
fiction.

The major literary development throughout the New Order was the experimentation in absurd or
surrealist literature. Writers such as Putu Wijaya, Sutardji Calzoum Bachri and Iwan Simatupang
185
are considered to be the pioneers of the absurd aesthetic in Indonesian literature. The style of
surrealist writing changed throughout the last 30 years. Delving into the unconscious and the
irrational was considered as an attempt to escape the hyper-rationalism of the New Orders
modern nation state. In Subversion or Escapism? Paul Tickell questions the position of absurd
literature and its ability to undermine dominant ideologies. However, Maier sees a whole
186
generation of writers as being lost to an attempt on criticising the New Order. Absurd literature
in Indonesia has been introspective and has taken, at best, highly metaphorical and indirect
approaches to social criticism. Others argue that the deeper questioning of the possibilities of
existence was seen as necessary in the face of economic greed and overt materialism. Iwan
Simatupangs The Pilgrim is one example of where an authors concern is removed from specific
social issues. The combination of social criticism and absurdity distinguishes Senos literature
from previous literary styles.

Grhhh combines surrealism with overt social criticism. Escaping into surrealism has provided a
vehicle for expressing subversive ideas. The storys protagonist is a low ranking detective called
187
Sarman. Initially, Sarman is portrayed sympathetically as he is burdened by an overwhelming
responsibility to get rid of the many zombies that are roaming throughout the unnamed capital
188
city. Like characters in Sebuah Pertanyaan Untuk Cinta (A Question for Love) , Sarman is
189
having an affair. In this case, Sarman seeks respite from his daily problems at Markonahs
street side stall. However, the moment he finds relief his walkie-talkie calls him back to the

185
Harry Aveling, Rumah Sastra Indonesia, Magelang: Indonesiatera, 2002, p. 83.
186
Maier, 1999, p. 258.
187
Sarman, like Sukab is a name frequently used throughout Senos stories for male characters.
188
Seno Gumira Ajidarma, Sebuah Pertanyaan Untuk Cinta, Jakarta: Gramedia Pustaka Utama, 2002.
189
Tommy F. Awuy discusses how Senos characters are frequently involved in affairs, in Politik Imajinasi
dan Ironi dalam Cerpen-cerpen Seno Gumira Ajidarma, in Horison, XXXIV/3/2000, p. 16. Another case of
where Seno has shown love to lack the possibility of creating happiness is in the collection of stories, Atas
Nama Malam (In the Name of the Night).

47
 190
impossible task of ridding the city of zombies. Sarmans plight is used to foreground broader
social issues, including the press and environmental destruction. The press is criticised for
191
always overdoing trivial issues, while covering up the real problems. While the Minister for the
Environment appears after the environment is damaged through the attempts to wipe out the
zombies. He argues why do you have to use guided missiles? Dont you care about wasting all
192
those expensive weapons? These criticisms rest upon Sarmans broader submission to the
realization that even though the presence of the zombies doesnt make sense, other things in this
193
country also dont make sense, but theyre still accepted as being normal. A surreal plot is
used to show the guilt of the individual policeman in implementing the petrus killings.

Conclusions
Seno has used micronarratives to comment on issues arising during the New Orders reign, and
at the time of its decline. Postmodernism rejects singular and universal truths. Instead it supports
groups who exist outside the dominant cultural values. As has been noted though,
194
postmodernism destroys the cultural dominant, but fails to construct a positive alternative. In
the examples given above postmodern cultural practices have been used to subvert the
ideologies that subordinate marginal ethnic groups. Through transforming postmodern literature
into a literature of social criticism and political agency, Seno has helped to re-shape dominant
literary practices. The political climate may currently be slightly more stable, however the trauma
of 1997 and 1998 continues to pose pertinent questions that remain unanswered.

A role of the writer is to show readers what is neglected by the mainstream and dominant
cultures. The success of the literature thus in part depends on the extent to which the writer has
prevented the intrusion of ideals which reflect those of the politically and culturally powerful.
Throughout the works mentioned above, Seno has sought to express the problems associated
with being an ostracised and disempowered ethnic other. To include the perspectives of ethnic
identities excluded from the coherent and unified Indonesian personality is a political statement,
advocating a more inclusive and pluralist society. It does not, however, elevate the text to a
position beyond rebuke. Particularly in Clara, Seno is seen to follow some of the stereotypes of
ethnic Chinese that are a part of their stigmatisation in Indonesian society. The moral purity of
the text is not the issue in this thesis, but instead it is how Seno has sought to bring formally
taboo topics into public discourse. The irony is that these micronarratives are being told by a
writer who is of the Indonesian cultural centre. Seno is Javanese and he holds a stable position

190
Ajidarma, 1993, p. 25.
191
Ajidarma, 1993, p. 29.
192
Ajidarma, 1993, p. 31.
193
Ajidarma, 1993, p. 30.
194
Bodden in Foulcher and Day, 2002, p. 317.

48
as a journalist and editor at top Jakartan magazines. He is not found wanting for ways of
publishing his articles or short stories. His short story collections and novels are published by the
top publishers.

3.2 Characterisation

It may have escaped your attention, but I slipped in, a moment ago, a word that should have made
you prick up your ears. I spoke about my essence and being true to my essence. There is much I
could say about essence and its ramifications; but this is not the right occasion. Nevertheless, you
must be asking yourselves, how in these anti-essential days, these days of fleeting identities that
we pick up and wear and discard like clothing, can I justify speaking of my essence as an African
writer?
J.M. Coetzee, Elizabeth Costello195

The previous section analysed some themes of Senos fiction. This part isolates one aspect of his
literature that is independent of broader social contexts, or is used to reflect them. It is hoped that
the conclusions made about the characters in the stories discussed below can be used as points
of reference for other characters that appear in Senos fiction.

This section looks at how the characters in some of Senos stories are postmodern. As stated
earlier, the main features of characterisation in postmodern fiction are related to an unstable or
shifting personality, a lack of psychological depth, and an incoherent, or paradoxical personality.
Postmodernist theory on characters has emphasized the fundamental tenet that characters have
selves, rather than a single, unified and coherent self. There are different levels of
problematizations of character in postmodern fiction. The flat, personality-free characters are
postmodern, while characters who have their behaviour or thoughts limited by the intervention of
the author are exemplary of a postmodern text, rather than being particularly postmodern
themselves. It remains possible for the author to explore a figures personality and identity, only to
thwart the characters ultimate independence through devices which refer the reader to the
construction of the text. However, in this section, I will focus on the plurality of a characters self
and their lack of essence.

A Sniper and Saleh

My discussion of postmodern characters is based on two stories from the Penembak Misterius
collection one of which (as was Bunyi Hujan), is from the Penembak Misterius Trilogy. Both
stories have male protagonists who experience epiphanies which drastically influence the stories
action and both are socially engaged. I will provide a summary of each story and then a
discussion of their similarities and differences. The summaries focus on what happens to the

195
J.M.Coetzee, Elizabeth Costello, Knopf: Sydney, 2003, p. 43.

49
sniper (Keroncong Pembunuhan) and Saleh (Helikopter) and their perspectives on the stories
action.

Keroncong Pembunuhan is told from the snipers perspective. He is the protagonist and the
196
murderer of thousands of innocent people. At the beginning, the sniper is indifferent to
shooting his pre-determined target; he just wants to finish the job quickly so he can return home
197
and have a beer. The sniper is caught between being indifferent to his job and being fully
aware of his physical environment. The reader is referred to the heightened senses of the sniper,
whom takes particular notice of the young women wearing revealing dresses, the taste of the sea
198
air, his hunger, the sound of his bosss voice and the keroncong music. He also remarks that
he enjoys spying on people without their knowing and that their faces look different when viewed
199
through a telescope. The sniper is connected with his gut feeling with his emotions, rather
than his logic. It is this awareness that foreshadows his confrontation with his boss. As in other
200
stories in the collection, the sniper experiences an epiphany. The sniper, while waiting for his
orders to shoot, sternly questions his boss on why his target should be assassinated. Suddenly,
the sniper advocates judicial treatment of suspected criminals. He is no longer submissive and
rejects his bosss statement about the intended target as being a traitor to his nation and
201
people. The sniper becomes independent in determining his actions and is fuelled by a
purpose not to shoot the wrong person. The story concludes before the shot has been fired,
finishing only with the line, this will surely make the oldies think of the past and one line from a
keroncong song. The sniper, though, has determined that he will shoot the man responsible for
organizing the shootings, rather than the previously intended victim.

Helikopter is the story of Saleh - a name that means pious, virtuous, godly. Saleh is well
respected and occupies a position of authority in his community. At the beginning his behaviour is
contrasted with the mass infatuation of the population with materialism and consumer goods. This
is evident through the prevalence of Mercedes that crawl through the Jakartan city streets.
Wealth and personal significance is gained through owning a Mercedes and is the only evident
goal of his society. Saleh can only make sense of this through commenting, terlalu, roughly
meaning things have gone too far. His response to this, though, is not to look further into his
religious teachings for guidance as an anti-dote for the obsession with materialism, but to
202
purchase a helicopter. Saleh shocks those who know him, as he seems to have abandoned his

196
Ajidarma, 1993, p. 11.
197
Ajidarma, 1993, p 6.
198
Ajidarma, 1993, p. 4.
199
Ajidarma, 1993, p. 7.
200
Sarman in Sarman, Saleh in Helikopter
201
Ajidarma, 1993, p. 5.
202
The storys humour lies in its denial of how the reader expects someone with Salehs reputation to act.

50
ethics. The story narrates the shock of those who feel belittled by his ostentatious display of
wealth those who own Mercedes have lost their status as being wealthy.

Both stories feature characters with paradoxical and contrasting ways of acting. There is little
continuity between the sniper of the first half and with his actions that challenge the authority of
his boss the person who is informing him of who and when to shoot. This discontinuity is central
to the creation of characters that do not appear to have a definable way of being. Saleh and the
sniper cannot be considered as standing for anything because they are subject to changing their
beliefs, thoughts or actions at any moment. They are not moral agents or exemplars of a better
way of being. That Seno does not touch on the cause of their changes in behaviour indicates his
belief in the futility of doing so: characters act in a perplexing range of ways and knowledge of
why they change (or develop) is impossible to obtain. This removal of characters from cause-
effect relationships poses a new way of considering the way in which they interact with their
circumstances. The sniper is both a murderer of innocent people and someone who has
prevented more innocent people being killed. The strength of this story is that either aspect of the
sniper is not emphasised. He is morally ambivalent.

The epiphanies experienced by Saleh and the sniper are different. In Keroncong Pembunuhan
the snipers epiphany is positive. The sniper is no longer submissive to his bosss orders and acts
independently. He questions his boss and uses his power as a sniper to find the person who has
selected the target the sniper then aims at the source of the petrus killings rather than at a
possibly innocent petty criminal. However, Salehs epiphany leads to his following in the practice
that he had condemned earlier in the story. He shows the farce of the general obsession with
expensive cars, through purchasing a helicopter. This act does not bring Saleh liberation from the
malaise afflicting those around him, but it does show up the futility of pursuing expensive goods
as a means to validating ones existence. Saleh creates a new referent, after the Mercedes no
longer sufficiently signifies financial wealth. Through his complicity in his critique of others,
Salehs behaviour accords with the irony of postmodern social criticism.

The two stories offer contrasting examples of two characters interaction with absurd
circumstances. In the first example, the snipers epiphany leads to a positive personal reformation
he liberates himself from subservience to those with (accepted) authority over him. His
introspection which Seno does not directly describe allows him to discover his own powers to
influence his context. Despite taking place in an unquestionably murky environment of criminality
and corruption, the story has a strongly positive conclusion: change at an individual level can

51
 203
affect more general circumstances. The pro-activeness of the sniper also contrasts with the
passivity of characters in other stories (some in the same collection) such as Seorang Wanita di
Halte Bus, Loket, and in the aforementioned Bunyi Hujan di atas Genting.

Salehs transformation is equally dramatic but not as positive. He criticizes the materialism of
others by taking it to absurd and impractical levels. His epiphany leads to his decline as a moral
figure rather than liberation from a mentality held by those around him. Thus, Senos stories have
an ambiguous attitude towards the role of plural selves: there is nothing certain about what will
happen if one acts more in tune with ones conscience, at the expense of ones logic. If
postmodernism argues for the presence of multiple selves and conflicting belief, it is the snipers
characterisation that best exemplifies this idea. The sniper remains more contradictory than
Saleh, as he (the sniper) realises his guilt yet continues to assassinate a yet-to-be-proven guilty
figure at the storys conclusion. While, on the other hand, Salehs personality can be seen in more
clearly divided parts: Saleh as virtuous community leader and Saleh as hypocrite. The sniper
more successfully combines the paradoxical behaviour and leaves few clues about what his true
personality is.

The Case of Sukab

Another example of where Seno has problematised ideas regarding character, is through his
frequent use of the name Sukab. Other names that Seno uses often are Sarman and Alina (for
a female character). As Sukab is not a standard Indonesian name it has come to be identified
with Senos fiction. The sense of Senos ownership of this name is evident in the adverse
204
reaction to Agus Noors use of it, after he published a short story with the title Sukab. Below, I
will discuss how Seno has used the name Sukab for a specific type of character, as well as to
question received ideas of where a character begins and ends.

Sukab is identifiable as a common person or a layman (seorang tokoh rakyat) he is not

wealthy and he struggles in many aspects of daily life. He neither performs extraordinary things
nor thinks extraordinary thoughts. However, through the use of characters called Sukab, Seno is
able to engage with ideas and problems which are common or relevant to much of Indonesias
populace. Although, Sukab is part of a simple world, and is himself uncomplicated, many of the
Sukab stories are imbued with understated philosophy. These short stories might not be the
magnum opus that will guarantee Senos acknowledgement as a great writer, however they give

203
This vision of personal change also resembles the sentiments expressed in Senos essay,
Reformehong, which asserts the importance of change in oneself rather than seeking to change others.
This essay is a powerful indictment of the euphoria that followed the overthrow of Suharto in 1998.
204
Agus Noor, Bapak Presiden Yang Terhormat, Yogyakarta: Pustaka Pelajar, 2000.

52
readers an idea of the way in which he believes in the plurality of the self and the multiple
possibilities for one character. On Sukab, Seno has written, in fiction Sukab is not the name of a
character. Sukab is just a name that I use for all characters, just because I am too lazy to think of
205
a name that suits the characters so that it is convincing and so on. With slight contradiction he
has also written (in the same text), that name just comes to mind every time I imagine a common
206
person.

Senos most recent comic has a Sukab as the central character. The book is apparently the first
in a series titled Sukab, Intel Melayu (Sukab, The Malay Spy), the first being, Misteri Harta Centini
(The Mystery of the Centini Wealth). Like other Sukabs, the Sukab-as-spy is hapless and is often
a victim of his circumstances. Despite being used to find the missing wealth of the Suroto family,
Sukab has never solved a case during his career as a private investigator. Sukab dresses in the
207
styles of spies from films and is incongruous in the Jakartan landscape. He cant become a spy
without adopting the practices of the spies he has either read about or seen in movies. Sukab
208
muses, Im a spy, but why doesnt it feel as if Im in a film? This self-reflexive intertextuality
emphasises the role of other texts in influencing the formation of the text. Sukab becomes a
parody of the conventions of the spy character. This aspect of parody and repetition of previous
styles or characters is a part of the postmodern condition. However, he spends most of his time
avidly reading philosophy texts or literary fiction: his personality and interests conflict with his
purpose in the comic. As such Sukab is made to be a mere literary convention rather than an
independent and original character.

Sukab also opposes New Order ideologies through his lack of material ambition. He is not rich,
not materialistic, not aspirational and he is not a part of the New Order drive to modernisation and
economic prosperity. Sukab is aloof or liberated from such worldly concerns and is more
concerned with abstract and philosophical issues. Even Sukab the private investigator is more
interested in reading philosophy and literature than with solving the crimes he has been assigned
to. He aims for enriching his mind and soul rather than his material or physical or material
interests. He is an alternative citizen.

Conclusions
Seno has overcome some conventions of modernist fiction through using characters with shifting
identities. He has shown the plurality of selves in the three cases discussed above. In the cases

205
Seno Gumira Ajidarma, Dunia Sukab: sejumulah cerita, Jakarta: Kompas, 2001, p. viii.
206
Ajidarma, 2001, p. viii.
207
John Roosa, James Bond Jakarta Style in Inside Indonesia, January-March, 2003.
208
Seno Gumira Ajidarma, Sukab Intel Melayu: Misteri Harta Centini, Jakarta: Kepustakaan Populer
Gramedia, 2002.

53
of Saleh and the sniper, he did this within one character, while in Sukabs case, Seno has used
him in numerous texts. Sukab has become a variation on a theme with no fixed identity. He is
an embodiment of an idea rather than a real character. He is someone who is constantly
changing. There is no clear knowledge of where Sukabs character begins and ends. The
specificity of Sukabs character is broadened he is not just one character, but he is several.
Importantly, though he is not any person. Sukab has a personality: we recognise him by his lack
of wealth, social inadequacy and frequent misfortune. As such, this does not represent a clear
break with modernist notions of character. It is Sukabs depth that prevents him from being fully
postmodern. Nonetheless, Sukab remains a character inspired by postmodern notions of plural
identity, despite being fixed to a more abstract and general notion of being a poor and hapless
urbanite. Again, this postmodern idea of character is used to sympathize with the common
person.

Saleh and the sniper are two polarities of reactions against the cultural and social conditions
during the New Order. Saleh is representative of a morally base leader, he has no firm belief in
the principles he claims to represent and he gives them up for more worldly pleasures. However,
the lack of belief in any morals or principles has become seriously distorted, as those who accuse
others of abandoning their morals are shown to be hypocrites. Those who shout, even though
we only have a Mercedes, we still have our self-respect become parodies of a communitys
righteous leaders. The connection to the contemporary social condition in Indonesia where the
idea of being a politician is directly linked to practicing corruption, collusion and nepotism could
hardly be lost on the readers as thinly veiled social criticism. The sniper, however, is a powerful
example of non-conformity and activism. His confrontation with his boss, is a potent denial of
showing deference to figures of authority.

In Senos fictions Saleh, the sniper and Sukab pick up and wear different identities. They are
shown to be in a continual state of becoming, without ever having a singular and stable identity.
Sukab, is the clearest example of this. Unlike Saleh and the sniper, however, Sukab is frequently
shown to be a construct of the author and that he is not an independent character with his own
free will. Sukabs identity, vocabulary and ways of thinking are shown to be dependent upon the
cultures around him. A character such as Sukab is limited by his predecessors in similar fictions
and by the authors own interventions. Sukab: each Sukab is independent of the previous Sukab,
he has no history, no connection is made between the Sukab in the many stories in which he
appears. We must consider each Sukab individually but our of him is informed by all the other
Sukabs. Sukab is both, ironically with and without a history.

54
These three characters all give new commentaries on what it means to not have a single
essence. Saleh and the sniper are characters of greater self-determinance than Sukab, all three
though, are merely understandable and knowable by their actions and not by anything that may
connect one action with the next. We understand them independently of their thoughts or
motivation. The agency of the sniper in particular best reflects Boddens observation that a
central tension in the works of these Indonesian postmodernists is produced by the need to resist
209
a powerfully dominating unitary state.

This section has identified some trends in the characters in some of Senos fictions and has
embellished the case for his classification as a postmodernist writer. However, I have not argued
that all characters are exemplary of the postmodern condition. The limited scope of this section
can be seen in that his most recent stories show no clear continuation of themes expressed in the
stories above.

3.3 Metafiction

It is not a good idea to interrupt the narrative too often, since storytelling works by lulling the reader
into a dreamlike state in which the time and space of the real world fade away, superseded by the
time and space of the fiction. Breaking into the dream draws attention to the constructedness of the
story, and plays havoc with the realist illusion.
From J.M.Coetzee, Elizabeth Costello. 210

In my earlier discussion on micronarratives, I discussed how Seno has used historical events in
his short stories: in these examples, there was an indistinct border between what was real and
what was a result of the authors creativity. This section, however, focuses on how Seno refers
readers to the devices involved in writing a fictional text. There is no surreptitious disguising of
unpleasant narratives, but rather an ostentatious display of the texts own devices. Writing that
incorporates foregrounding asserts that it is literature, it is a type of media, not an
unproblematic re-presentation of the world. Senos texts have frequently shown how it is a
construct of the author. This contrasts with an absent author in modernist or realist literature.
Examples of this appear in Wisanggeni, Sang Buronan, stories in the Penembak Misterius and
Kematian Donny Osmond collections and Clara. The different ways in which Seno foregrounds
the presence of the author gives further legitimacy to position him as a postmodernist author.
Where the authors presence is fore grounded, I will refer to that process as a postmodern
climax. It is at these moments that the text differentiates itself from other types of literature which
seek to maintain the realist illusion of the texts. An example of the reference to the constructed-
ness of the text appears in Keroncong Asmara. The relevant sentences appear at the storys

209
Bodden in Foulcher and Day, 2002, p. 295.

55
opening and conclusion: because this is a love story it must have a romantic beginning with an
211
almost identical sentence at the storys end. Senos incorporation of a storyteller (juru cerita),
is also a reference to the indigenous oral literary tradition of Indonesia. In this case, Seno is able
to connect the modern with the traditional past, and at the same time proclaim the irrelevance
of the two previously polarized classifications. In some cases what seems to be postmodern may
also have a relevance to the specific case of Indonesia. This device which resembles postmodern
212
practices may be an indication the fiction is part of an orally oriented literary system.

Postmodern literature is marked by the instability of the fictional text. This distinguishes
postmodernism from realist literature, where the world is reproduced in a textual form, and
surrealist literature which highlights the irrational and subconscious in giving meaning to real
existence. The realist illusion is maintained: the methods and the devices of the author are not
revealed. Postmodernism, however denies the referential ability of any text: it believes that there
is only an arbitrary connection between the world and the way in which meaning can be given to it
as, there is an endless deferral of any final referent. This is reflected in the ways the author
shows up his text as being a text that attempts to refer to the world and, in turn shows up its own
weaknesses. The postmodernist conclusion is that only discourse about discourse can be
created. The truth (or knowledge) that is created is restricted by the form and devices of the
texts discourse. Based on this, postmodernism argues that truth is relative and subjective; that
213
there are truths, not a single, universal truth.

What creates instability within postmodern fiction? Postmodernists believe that our concept of
what a novel is, deeply influences the creative process, thus one way of escaping this trap is to
display ones self-conscious to the tropes that one is repeating. The French Lieutenants Woman
214
by John Fowles is a common reference to fiction that plays with the notion of history as
215
narrative and with the retrospective ironies that can go with that. Christopher Butler in
Postmodernism: A Very Short Introduction, describes it as postmodern based on, its deliberate
revealing of the authors manipulations, as he offers a postmodernist commentary on the

210
Coetzee, 2003, p. 16.
211
Ajidarma, 2001, p. 4.
212
Marshall Clark, Democraticising the Literary Experience: Metafiction in the works of Agusta Wibisono,
http://www.educ.utas.edu.au/users/tle/JOURNAL/Clark/MarshallClark.html
213
Senos recent story Penjaga Malam dan Tiang Listrik (in Koran Tempo, 16 February 2003), is an
allegorical story based on the postmodernist ideas of the limits of representation. In this story, the
nightwatchmans realisation that he has no way to signify the time when it is before or past the hour, has
particularly violent repercussions.
214
John Fowles, The French Lieutenants Woman, London: Cape, 1969.
215
Butler, 2002, p. 70.

56
Victorian period, for example on Victorian attitudes to sex, and on his own plot, which parallels or
216
parodies those of the Victorian novel, particularly Hardy.

Alina the Listener

217
The second section of the Penembak Misterius collection is titled, Stories for Alina. The
stories that are featured in the stories for Alina, are united by their tales of woe. The stories
promise little hope of the happy ending that may be associated with oral literature (the style in
which the stories begin). The designated subjects include despair (Sarman), loss (Bandana),
fear (Bunyi Hujan di atas Genting) and destruction (Becak Terakhir di Dunia). Most of these
stories begin with Alina asking for a story to be told to her, from an unnamed storyteller. For
example, Sarman begins as follows: Tell me a story about despair, said Alina to the storyteller.
218
So, the story teller told her a story about Sarman. This technique identifies the piece as being
postmodern. Although this type of introduction corresponds with some of the aims of
postmodernism, it does not indicate that the device is exclusively postmodern. The postmodern-
ness is affected by how the two layers of fiction interact. How does the act of narrating influence
or limit the events that are narrated? Are they shown to be dependent, with one layer having
power of the other? For example, in the story from which the above is quoted, the narrator does
not interfere with the storys progress, other than to refuse to give a conclusion. The narrated
story exists independently of the narrator. As such, the problematization of text-author is limited.
How significantly does the self-reflexive reference influence the text? Does it influence all of it, or
is it just an opening or concluding packaging device? It is possible that these devices can be
used with only a superficial influence on the text.

Bandana
Bandana also shows traces of textual instability. Bandana, as other stories in the Kematian
Donny Osmond collection, has the standard text interspersed with photographs, comic
adaptations of the text, and typographical irregularities. Like the Stories for Alina, the story
begins with tell me a story about loss, said Upik to the storyteller. So, the storyteller told a story
about a bandana. The story is of two main characters: Nana, a child in a super-rich family, who
seemingly can have anything she wants, whose hobby is tennis and who is emotionally attached
to a bandana she has received from Gabriela Sabatini. The other is the storyteller: he is the son
of a security guard and works as a ballboy at the sport center where Nana plays tennis. He
frequently compares his life unfavourably to that of Nanas, given her material luxuries. For
example, my fate is truly different from hers; how lucky she is; I always think of Nana, but is it

216
Bulter, 2002, p. 70.
217
Cerita untuk Alina comprises of: Sarman, Becak Terakhir di Dunia (atawa Rambo), Melati dalam Pot,
Dua Anak Kecil, Tragedi Asih Istrinya Sukab , Seorang Wanita di Halte Bis and Semangkin (d/h Semakin).
218
Ajidarma, 1993, p. 39.

57
possible that she ever thinks for a second about me? That is the clear difference between my fate
219 220
and Nanas. Early in the text, the narrator asks himself, can a girl like Nana ever suffer?
This is the central problem of the text, as it the problem the narrator gives himself the power to
answer at the storys conclusion. The narrator discovers that Nana can suffer (menderita): this
happens when she loses her bandana. It is the narrator who has the prerogative to tell a story in
which she gets it back, or does not. Finally the poor ballboy has significance in Nanas life; he
now has the ability to compare favourably to her. The postmodern climax of this text is as
follows:
Actually, now I can become a meaningful person in Nanas life. Now, I can determine her fate. Im
a high school kid, who takes the same subjects as Nana, but Im just a ballboy who gets bossed
around. Now, I can decide whether a rich kid like Nana will continue to suffer or become happy. Im
thinking about it. Which one will I choose? A ballboy whose father is a security guard rarely has an
opportunity like this.221

The storys conclusion is determined by the emotions of the young boy who has been treated
poorly by Nana in the past: events are not narrated as something that has already happened, but
as something that is in the process of occurring while the story is being narrated the events
are determined by what is narrated rather than vice versa. Thus, Bandana problematizes the
relationship between author and text more than in the case of the Stories for Alina or Keroncong
Asmara. The storys conclusion lies fully in the hands of one of its characters and not in the hands
of an omnipotent (and absent) author.

Wisanggeni, Sang Buronan; Clara; Negeri Senja

222
Marshall Clarks insightful essay on the use of the Wisanggeni as counter-discourse in
Indonesian literature refers to Senos use of this postmodernist device in his early novel,
223
Wisanggeni, Sang Buronan (Wisanggeni the Outlaw). Clark states that the allusion to
Hanomans superior narration is intriguing, as it self-reflexively places the characters of the
224
narrative on the same diegetic or narrative levels as the narrator. The section Clark refers to
is as follows:
So, Hanoman sat on top of a rock and began his story. But o, forgive this senseless writer if Im
unable to retell the tale as well as the great Hanoman with his refined wisdom and wonderful
storytelling abilitymy ability as a pulp fiction writer is nothingso dear reader you must bear with

219
Ajidarma, 2001, p. 23.
220
Ajidarma, 2001, p. 23.
221
Ajidarma, 2001, p. 26.
222
Marshall Clark, Too Many Wisanggenis: Reinventing the Wayang at the Turn of the Century, to be
published in Indonesia and the Malay World, Vol. 32, No. 92, March 2004. Thanks to Marshall for sending
me a copy of the script prior to its publication.
223
Seno Gumira Ajidarma, Wisanggeni, Sang Buronan, Yogyakarta: Benteng, 2000.
224
Clark, 2004, p. 7.

58
 me and imagine that what is written here is but a grain of sand compared to the literary reality of
the true events.225

The reader is made aware of the compromised status of the text; of how the text is limited by the
writers apparent inability to write in a way that refers accurately to the events that are described.
We are made aware of the inability of the text to fully represent what is being referred to.

Another postmodern climax in Wisanggeni, Sang Buronan reads as follows:

The dalang stuck the Wisanggeni wayang kulit puppet into the banana tree trunk, on the ground,
and grabbed hold of another puppet. At that moment, an unshaven man in ragged clothes, wearing
a caping-hat and sandals from buffalo leather, slipped in amongst the audience.226

This example of postmodern textual instability does not disturb the level of the final text. The
wayang performance has been told as a narrative, rather than the descriptions of what is being
performed at a wayang performance. However, at the novels conclusion, Wisanggeni becomes a
human being rather than staying as an inanimate wayang kulit puppet. This device works against
those watching the wayang performance rather than the readers of the text. The joke is on the
audience, rather than the readers. The audience is then shown to react negatively to the real
presence of the character that they were watching only moments before. Wisanggeni, the outlaw,
is no longer at a safe distance on the wayang screen, he is one of them. The passage reads,
a number of people, sitting near the untidy man, finally became really angry.
lets throw him out! Hes crazy!
Yeah. This is the tramp who likes to sit beneath the banyan tree in the city square. Scram! Dont
disturb people who are watching wayang!227

Clara, also deals with the problem of referring to events outside the text. In this case, the
postmodern warning about the compromised text works to show how the police may manipulate
the rape victims stories in order to fit in with their legitimate version of events. The statement
reads as follows:
so, the story you are going to hear is not her words, but my words. Ive worked for years as a writer
of reports and almost all of these reports have never been the same as reality. Ive become an
expert in turning bitter reality into a happy story, and the opposite also. Ive turned patriotic events
into politically subversive acts the main thing is that the stories are manipulated to suit our
needs.228

225
Ajidarma, 2000, p. 26.
226
Ajidarma, 1999, p. 88.
227
Ajiarma, 1999, p. 89.
228
Ajidarma, 1999, p. 70.

59
A different aspect of textual instability is present in Senos latest novel, Negeri Senja. Although,
this is not in particularly self-reflexive, it does make the reader aware of the constructedness of
the text. While in Wisanggeni, Sang Buronan, the author addressed the reader in general, in this
a particular reader is addressed Alina. By doing so, the texts real reader has their reading of
the novel disturbed, by the realisation they are not whom the text is intended for. The text is
written for Alina, and the reader is made to feel like an intruder reading something that is not for
him or herself. The dialogue between the traveller and Alina from Negeri Senja is as follows:
I dont know if you are going to believe me, Alina I feel that I will never know, because you have
never said anything to me, youve only listened with very curious eyes. But, when will I meet with
you again, Alina, if I will never know when I will return? Just like I have never known, or, have
always been afraid to know, whether you are waiting for me or not. 229

Also, in Negeri Senja, the phrase purportedly, and indeed only purportedly (konon dan memang
hanya konon) becomes a clich within the text itself. Its repetition disturbs the fluidity of the text
and it is used to highlight the set of stock phrases that are used throughout the creation of Senos
fictional world. The repetition of this phrase refers the reader the particular idiosyncrasies of the
author who is constructing the text. Without its repetition this effect would not be possible, and it
is indeed a more subtle way of referring to its authorial manipulation. Sukab, Intel Melayu as a
parody of a detective cartoon, is also to a certain extent an example of metafiction. The
metafiction of this form lies in its that in parodying one text (or kind of text), the parody text holds
up a mirror to its own fictional practices, so that it is at once a fiction and a fiction about fictions.
230

Intertextuality and Footnotes

In texts such as Jazz, Parfum dan Insiden, Matinya Seorang Penari Telanjang and Sukab, Intel
Melayu, Seno uses footnotes to give further information about what the characters are talking
about. The footnotes often state how what has appeared is not original or are adapted from a
major work of Indonesian fiction. The footnotes appear to be overstatements of the texts
dependence on outside sources for its creation. This device refers to the diminishing possibilities
for being original and how writing fiction leads to endlessly repeating established formulas, until
the text is reduced to a clich of modern fiction. In these cases, the author is anticipating the
interpretation of critic: the authors sources and influences have been laid bare. The author is
making it known, that he is aware of his derivativeness. This is also evident in Senos recent short
231
story Cintaku Jauh di Komodo (My Love, Far off in Komodo).

229
Ajidarma, 2003, p. 10.
230
Simon Dentith, Parody: The New Critical Idiom , London: Routledge, 2000, p.14.
231
Seno Gumira Ajidarma, Cintaku Jauh di Komodo, Kompas, August 17, 2003.

60
The footnotes are borrowed from a different category of text: academic writing. However, the
sources he uses for footnotes and what he requires footnotes to give an explanation of, are
specifically, non-academic. An example of this is in the recent short story, Rembulan dalam
Cappuccino (Moonshine in a Cappuccino), where Seno uses a sugar substitute as a source to
give an explanation of what a cappuccino is.

Conclusions
Senos metafictional texts have destabilised two kinds of relationships present in modernist
fiction. The first is the problematisation of the author-text relationship. On numerous occasions
Seno shows the interference of the author upon the construction of the final literary product. It
becomes evident that the characters and the text are compromised by their representation by an
author who cannot successfully excise his influence from the act of narrating the fiction. The
second is the author-reader relationship. In both Wisanggeni, Sang Buronan and Negeri Senja
Seno shows the text to be a direct dialogue with the reader rather than seeking to maintain the
realist illusion.

The superficial and fleeting references to the texts fictionality do not present an enduring and
sustainable trope for a more creative and complex contemporary fiction. Establishing a
connection to an oral literary tradition positions the work in a specifically Indonesian context.
However, there are other ways this link with tradition can be maintained and developed, whether
through oral performance of the written text or through limiting the piece to an oral performance
only.

The texts discussed above give an example of the different ways in which Seno has referred to
the fictionality of his texts. In only a few of these cases have these devices been used for social
criticism. However, it is on these occasions that this postmodernist device is most effective.

Establishing the case to see textual representation as something seriously problematic. To realize
the problems in advocating singular, universal and transcendental truths all of this is an attack
on NO methods of creating and determining the meaning of events in 32 years of Suhartos reign.
The lessons of Senos texts should be applied to all readings of all ideologies.

61
3.4 An Engagement with Popular Culture

Exciting like a martial arts story, wise like a book of philosophy, light as entertainment.
232

This book is guaranteed to be different. This is a literary text about teenagers, written by Seno
Gumira Ajidarma. There are comics, an otak-otak recipe its confusing isnt it? Just read it for
yourself.233

Call it fiction if you want, or non-fiction, its up to you. It is just a metropolitan novel.234

These three statements on the back covers of three of Senos books invite the reader to see how
the works break with certain limitations of genre. The reader is encouraged to consider these
works as combinations of different literary forms. One aspect of this (the incorporation of comics)
is an example of how Seno has negotiated new ways of classifying literature, by forcing readers
to reconsider established rigid boundaries of form.

The influence of comics upon Senos work is increasingly evident and forms a significant part of
his work. Thus, it is necessary to analyse the way in which Seno has engaged with the comic
form. In this section, I will attempt to map out the main features of Senos comics. Doing so will
provide broader knowledge of Senos significance as a writer, as well as an insight into one
aspect of contemporary Indonesian literature. Most importantly, Senos comics should not be
understood as being antithetical to his serious writings (possibly being Saksi Mata or Negeri
Senja). I argue that Senos works cannot be classified as either being serious literature or popular
but instead as a successful postmodernist negation of the hierarchical divisions, typical of
modernist cultural aesthetics.

Comics
This section begins on the assumption that a comic is not considered to be high literature.
However, comics are far from uniform and to discuss them in generic terms is belittling the
breadth of their variation. In these cases, the form clearly does not hinder the expression of
challenging and philosophical ideas. Political cartoons in the print media provide a different form
to criticise political and social conditions. To consider comics only as a medium for entertainment
neglects their complex development over time and place. Comics are considered a cultural
product with a purpose limited to entertainment they are not educative. They are considered a

232
The back cover of Wisanggeni Sang Buronan. Seno Gumira Ajidarma, Wisanggeni, Sang Buronan,
Yogyakarta: Bentang, 2000.
233
Seno Gumira Ajidarma, Kematian Donny Osmond, Jakarta: Penerbit Pustaka Utama, 2001, back cover.

62
genre that does not discuss serious issues nor explore the aesthetics or various dimensions of
meaning. This perception is no doubt based on the abundance of comics that explicitly target
young readers and which have become the overwhelming example of the form.

A discussion of Senos comics, requires a definition of comic. The Oxford English Dictionary
states: (a) a childrens periodical, mainly in the form of comic strips. (b) a similar publication
intended for adults. The OED recognises their multiple form, but states that comics are primarily
for children, with some intended for adults, incorporating the style of childrens comics. Adult
comics must differ by their content rather than form. However, this definition does not tell us of
the common traits of comics, regardless of their target audience. Roger Sabins definition (in
235
Adult Comics ) provides a more solid starting point: a comic is a narrative in the form of a
sequence of pictures. Comics are usually published regularly in thin editions. Humour is not an
essential requirement, even though the name suggests its presence.

Comics are supposedly self-evident and are not considered to be in the realm for experimenting
with the meaning of words, and the significance of meaning. They are considered to have their
own conventions and practices, which differ significantly from those that apply to novels, short
stories, poems or essays. They have typically been excluded from the noble realm of literature,
inhabiting instead the despised (the dominant and more easily accessible) world of popular
culture. They are considered to be a medium for entertainment and not education: unlike high
literature it has no elevating powers. And for this have they been continually denigrated. Comics
are considered a negative influence on a childs development, distracting them from worthwhile
236
pursuits. The demonisation of comics allows them to enter the realm of the forbidden other.

A comic is usually cheap and dispensable. Comics have not been considered valuable for
historical or cultural research, which may provide insight into a particular society. Comics are
considered to be for those who are too lazy to read real literature. Comics are not normally
237
critical or sophisticated, because their market is usually at the juvenile and uncritical.
However, Sabin writes, that a new comic market has emerged since the mid-1980s. During this
decade, comic writers have broadened their subject matter ranging from political satire, erotic
238
fantasy to eyewitness accounts of the Holocaust. This new type of comic which became more

234
Seno Gumira Ajidarma, Jazz, Parfum dan Insiden, Yogyakarta: Bentang, 1996, back cover.
235
Roger Sabin, Adult Comics: An Introduction, London: Routledge, 1993, p. 5.
236
Marcel Bonneff, Komik Indonesia, trans. Rahayu S. Hidayat, Jakarta: Kepustakaan Populer Gramedia,
1998. p. 3.
237
Sabin, 1993, p. 5.
238
Sabin, 1993, p.1. Another significant adult comic is Joe Saccos comic (published as a book), Palestine,
Seattle, WA: Fantagraphic Books, 2001.

63
evident during the 1980s, was linked to previous styles of comics. Thus, Sabin argues that the
th 239
contemporary adult comic has a history that goes back to the 19 century.

The narrative is formed by a sequence of panels and supporting text. Each panel blocks in a
scene, highlighting it as an important part of the narrative. The reliance on visual or textual
strength changes from comic to comic, as both features inform meaning. A comic is recognisable
by its combination of text and graphics. A comic usually has four types of text. First, there is the
narrative. The narrative is frequently placed at the top of the panel, often describing the scenes
context. Second, there is the speech of the characters, which is placed in speech balloons,
originating from the characters mouth. Third, there are the words that are used to express sound
or action. These words are often onomatopoeic and include, ker-splat and pow. These words
may be written in large, bold letters to indicate their loudness. Fourth, and less frequently, than
the speech balloons, there are the thought balloons. The thought balloons are noticeable by the
small circles which arise from the characters forehead. Comics also use speed lines to indicate
the velocity of a vehicle, and the artists may draw characters with bulging eyes to emphasise a
sense of surprise. These devices are not the only features of comics, but are ones that appear
frequently in comics.

Traditionally, comics tell formulaic stories with predictable conclusions and often have a limited
and consistent set of characters, all with their own circumscribed traits. They have a limited range
of behaviour, or in E.M. Forsters words, they are flat. That is, they can be reduced down to one
240
particular personality trait. They have a clear-cut and often stereotypical or one-dimensional
character. Characters are associated with certain specific sets of beliefs: each has their own
clearly definable essence. Clichd characters and their mass production position them as part of
popular culture. Comics are associated with characters that lack complexity and that do not
develop throughout the narrative. These characters are flat, but with a central identity. To position
Senos comics as postmodern must go beyond merely acknowledging the potential presence of
serious content. The serious content and other aspects of the comic must be related back to the
general condition of postmodernity. I must indicate the particularly postmodernist aspects of
Senos comics, which are different from other modernist comics.

In Indonesia, Marcel Bonnef describes the presence of komik didaktis (didactive comics). That
is, comics that were used as part of governmental propaganda efforts. These included short
comics that reminded the populace of their obligation to vote in the 1971 general election, to
participate in family planning programs and to encourage them to adhere more strictly to their

239
Sabin, 1993, p. 5.
240
E.M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel, Middlesex: Penguin, 1927. p. 71.

64
religions. Bonnef writes that comics had two distinct roles: their first role was primarily to
entertain, while secondly, (either directly or indirectly) to educate their readers. He concludes, by
arguing,
Comics can only develop in an artistic and intellectual perspective, when there has been research
into them. Without that, comics will remain as a side-product, in between other forms of creation.
241

The hegemonic ideology was expressed in a form more easily accessible to larger sections of the
society. The mass appeal of comics was recognised. These comics do not usurp standard forms
of communication, but are distinctly subordinate to them.

The Comic and Seno

Senos comics are part of his effort to redress what he thinks to be the undignified position comics
242
occupy in contemporary Indonesia. The political relevance of the topics in the comics (including
the rapes of Chinese women in 1998 and the pursuit of ill-gained wealth) reflects his interest in
making them a legitimate part of current social discourse. The works also reflect his interest in the
243
works of Karl May and Kosasih. Seno has cited these two writers as being significant
influences on his interest in literature: Karl May as a writer of adventure stories, and Kosasih as a
244
comic artist. These writers have a direct connection to popular literature. Some of Senos
works share similarities with comics, despite appearing in a high literature form. This is evident
through his interest in detective stories, violence and love interests, where he incorporates a
245
swashbuckling mix of crime, sex and violence (re: Matinya Seorang Penari Telanjang). The
comics are determinedly political works. They have a clear aim to disturb established cultural
conventions.

Kematian Donny Osmond is the second of three comics written by Seno. Unlike Jakarta 2039 and
Misteri Harta Centini, few of its stories have any direct social or political relevance. In this sense,
it resembles the typical role of comics as a medium for entertainment. But, the way it entertains
and the way it breaks standard comic practices provides another example of Senos engagement
with postmodern issues.

KDO neither fully follows a comic form nor that of a standard literary text. The text of the 14 short
stories, is interspersed with sections of the text reproduced in comic style. These sections share

241
Marcel Bonnef, Komik Indonesia, trans. by Rahayu S. Hidayat, Jakarta: Keperpustakaan Popular
Gramedia, 1998. p. 66
242
See Ajidarmas Ph.D. proposal, Tiga Panji Tengkorak: Ideologi di balik teks. (unpublished).
243
See Ajidarmas article on Karl May, Sandhya Kala Ning Apacahe? in Kompas, February 23, 1992.
244
Interview with Seno Gumira Ajidarma, Citra Office, Kebayoran Baru, June 4, 2003.
245
Ajidarma, 2000.

65
the features mentioned earlier: panels with drawings inside and the various types of text
(descriptive, speech balloons, thought balloons). The comic sections are typical comics it is only
their presence amongst pages of pure text, that disrupt any possibilities of a coherent or uniform
style within the book. KDO is an example of Senos play with a texts visual elements. There is a
disruption of textual form.

Aside from the intrusion of comics within the texts, other elements also impinge upon the purity of
the text as a literary product of one authors imagination. KDO contains photographs of foreign
celebrities, an Indonesian recipe for fish cakes and the lyrics of a Deep Purple song. The
presence of these texts prevent the expectation of a sole engagement with Senos own original
literary expression. Seno borrows other writers words, but these appropriations augment the
short stories in the text. Their presence suggests the incompleteness of the short story alone. The
text is not an independent form separate from the ideas from which they derive. Seno shows the
sources of the stories to the reader. Senos incorporation of these elements is similar to his use of
footnotes in his other works (such as Jazz, Parfum dan Insiden and Misteri Harta Centini). Like
the footnotes, the lyrics and the recipe show the stories own interaction with the cultural
phenomena that they refer to. In this sense, Senos works are part of a broader cultural dialogue,
they are not restricted to the realm of literature.

The postmodern adventures in KDO are generally limited to visual and graphic experimentation.
There are few new developments in postmodernist intrusions upon the realist illusion or sections
which refer readers to the constructedness of the text. However, KDO is significant as it asserts
Senos vision of a literature free of modernist hierarchies: there is no separation between
standard literature and a comic. This text, like Misteri Harta Centini best exemplifies the idea of
the postmodernist discordant combinations of form: any text, whether it be fictional or borrowed
from another source can be appropriated into this work of Senos.

In KDO, Senos borrowings from popular culture are largely from Western sources. This
incorporation of American or British icons of popular culture history, also contrasts with the New
Order ideal of looking further into Indonesian traditions for inspiration. In this sense, Senos
engagement with popular culture subverts New Order ideologies at two levels: through the
abandoning of cultural hierarchies and through accepting foreign sources as a legitimate means
for renewing Indonesian literature.

Misteri Harta Centini (MHC) (The Mystery of the Centini Wealth) has only been published as a
comic, unlike Jakarta 2039 or the stories from KDO, which were all published as short stories
prior to their publication as comics. This suggests an increasing commitment to his comics. MHC

66
is announced as the first in a series of comics, based on Sukab, Intel Melayu (Sukab, the Malay
Spy). To enhance its status as a comic it states on the inside of the back cover that the next title
in the Sukab series will be Sukab vs. Ninja Burik. As a comic, MHC relies equally on the
drawings for its action and significance. In MHC Seno is tackles a serious issue in a medium that
has previously been considered a medium for entertainment. In this sense, MHC has more in
common with Jakarta 2039: both works establish the comic medium as a form for social criticism.
The experimentations with typography are not continued, but the conventional comic form
continues its expression of postmodernism and social criticism in other ways.

Conclusions
An engagement with popular culture rejects the rigidity of high cultural forms. Through
incorporating and exploring various aspect of the comic form, Seno has rejected the presumed
mutual exclusivity of popular cultural forms from those of high literature. It is this ambiguity of form
and style that has come to play more of a role in Senos works, making his works amalgamations
and distortions of established literary models. It is this act of showing their interconnectedness
that Seno has broadened the scope of Indonesian postmodern literature.

The presence of a precedent in serious (or adult) comics does not deny the postmodernness of
Senos comics, just as previous cases flat characters do not deny the postmodernness of
contemporary characters in the fictions of Rushdie or de Lillo. Senos comics make sense in the
postmodern ethos. The condition of postmodernity makes such an expression viable; even
powerful it gives it the ability to affect change and re-determine the social and cultural order.

Unlike modernist incorporations of graphics, the visual element throughout various contemporary
texts have moved from being passively there to being an active part of the literary experience,
vying for interest and sense of import. Unlike the decidedly didactic comics of the New Order,
Senos comics such as Jakarta 2039 and Sukab Intel Melayu reproduce subversive politics: they
speak the language of the repressed in their style and form. Senos comics do not come from the
top down, colonising popular culture forms, but assume the different form from a more equal,
empathetic position. Also, dissimilar to the case mentioned by Sabin, Seno clearly acknowledges
the past comic artists who have played a significant role in influencing his own comics.

The postmodernness of Senos comics does not only rely on their engagement with the narrative
of ethnic minorities and with topical political issues (as does Joe Saccos Palestine), but also on
their characterisation. The shift in characterisation from Jakarta 2039 to Sukab Intel Melayu is
evidence of a development in Senos engagement with the problematising of identity and asserts
the continuing relevance of postmodernist thought in contemporary Indonesia.

67
Chapter Four
Conclusion

This thesis has placed postmodernism as a central source of ideas for understanding the works
of Seno Gumira Ajidarmas fiction. I have used numerous works to show examples of postmodern
ideas. The dominant expressions of postmodernism are the micronarratives, characters with
multiple selves, metafiction and an appropriation of popular culture.

Through representing micronarratives, Seno has challenged dominant New Order ideologies.
These challenges remain pertinent to contemporary Indonesia in the post New Order era. He has
given a voice to those who had been both silenced in political discourse and violently suppressed.
Through the assertion of the rights of peripheral communities, Seno has confronted the Jakarta-
centric dominance of the modern Indonesian state. Through his telling of micronarratives, Seno
has informed readers of suffering and human rights abuses. These micronarratives not only
commented on the indistinct borders between non-fiction and fiction, but also enhanced the role
of fiction as a socially engaged medium. By doing so, in these texts, Seno also took
contemporary Indonesian fiction away from the surrealist writing which dominated the New Order
era. The micronarrative fictions restored the position of his literature as being a harmful and
critical medium which provided an alternative vision to understanding contemporary Indonesia.

The characters in Senos fictions have also been used to criticise New Order ideologies. Through
using characters with multiple selves and with problematic essences, Seno has imbued his
characters with a strong sense of personal independence. They have been able to break free of
what has subordinated themselves to an unquestioned autocratic authority. Their independence
has also been used to show up the conformist and severely restricted mode of being, which was
propagated throughout the New Order period. His characters cut to the core of a dominant
ideology which prioritised the rights of an abstract and general community, over the rights of
individuals. Too often the suppression of individuals was violent and was justified by a morally
base political elite. The characters who rebelled against materialism and ideological conformism
were not educated and had no particular skills. Senos vision of was particularly democratic:
anyone, at any time regardless of their history could oppose a despotic government. Change
could come from within and there was no need to look for an inspiring leader. Senos characters
were powerful exemplars of the will needed to oppose New Order authoritarianism.

68
Through metafiction, Seno has provided insightful critiques on the way meaning is constructed.
The critiques apply to fictional and non-fictional forms of writing. The pointed criticisms of the
authors manipulations and the limitations of the literary form, refer readers to the subjectivity of
any attempt at asserting a universal truth. Senos metafiction negates the attempts of the New
Order to define and explore Indonesian history from their ideologically biased position. Senos
metafiction which are often combined with historical events, do not claim objectivity, but instead
show how representations of the violence suffered by others is inherently problematic. The
metafictional practices show readers the constructedness of texts and their connection to
particular ideologies. These practices attack the New Orders attempts to enforce a limited
interpretation on Indonesias political history. Metafiction is against censorship and against the
representation of others. It teaches readers how the process of othering blurs attempts at
discovering a reality, a truth.

Finally, Senos use of popular culture is multi-layered. Engaging with popular culture confronts the
hierarchies applied to modern literature. Through using comics as a medium for addressing social
and political issues, Seno has questioned the idea of comics as a medium limited to
entertainment. Comics are not merely a side product of the cultural and political condition, they
can help shape and inform public discourse. Comics are not necessarily a safe medium: they
are a medium for confronting political and social issues. Senos use of slang on the back covers
of his works, or as indications of the oral base of the text, also criticises the use of language
throughout the New Order. The staid and indirect speech which characterised New Order officials
(and in particular Suharto) has been replaced by a language that does not confer immediate
superiority upon others. The language of Senos characters is spontaneous and disregards the
cultural practices of an aristocratic Javanese tradition, which appeared complicit in the
acceptance of an authoritarian and repressive government.

This thesis has found that postmodern literary practices are found throughout many of Senos
works. They have been used as a means of opposing many of the ideologies of the New Order
government. The postmodern ideas of a plurality of truths and the limitations of representation
have been central to Senos confrontation to the singular and restricted understanding given to
Indonesian culture, society and history throughout the New Order. Far from being indifferent to
political change, postmodernism in this instance has been specifically used as a tool for political
and social subversion.

69
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Appendix: Books by Seno Gumira Ajidarma
Title English Title City Publisher Year Form
Mati Mati Mati Dead Dead Dead Not available Not available 1975 Poetry
Bayi Mati Dead Baby Jakarta Kesembilan Belas Puisi 1978 Poetry
Indonesia
Catatan-catatan Mira Sato The Notes of Mira Sato Jakarta Puisi Indonesia 1978 Poetry
Manusia Kamar Room Person Jakarta Haji Masagung 1988 Short story
collection
Penembak Misterius The Mysterious Sniper Jakarta Pustaka Utama Grafiti 1993 Short story
collection
Saksi Mata Eyewitness Yogyakarta Yayasan Benteng Budaya 2002 Short story
collection
Dilarang Menyanyi di Kamar Singing in the Bathroom is Not available Not available Not available Short story
Mandi Forbidden collection
Negeri Kabut The Land of Fog Jakarta Gramedia Widiasarana 1996 Short story
collection
Sebuah Pertanyaan untuk Cinta A Question for Love Jakarta Gramedia Pustaka Utama 2002 Short story
collection
Jazz, Parfum dan Insiden Jazz, Perfume and the Incident Yogyakarta Yayasan Benteng Budaya 1996 Novel

Ketika Jurnalisme dibungkam, When Journalism is Silenced, Yogyakarta Yayasan Benteng Budaya 1997 Collection of
Sastra harus bicara Literature Must Speak essays
Iblis Tidak Pernah Mati The Devil Has Never Died Yogyakarta Galang Press 1999 Short story
collection
Atas Nama Malam In the Name of the Night Jakarta Gramedia Pustaka Utama 1999 Short story
collection
Matinya Seorang Penari Death of an Exotic Dancer Yogyakarta Galang Press 2000 Revision of
Telanjang previous short
story
Layar Kata Screen Words Yogyakarta Yayasan Benteng Budaya 2000 Film criticism
essays
Wisanggeni Sang Buronan Wisanggeni, The Outlaw Yogyakarta Yayasan Benteng Budaya 2000 Novel
Jakarta 2039 Jakarta 2039 Yogyakarta Galang Press 2001 Comic
Dunia Sukab Sukab's World Jakarta Kompas 2001 Short story
collection
Mengapa Kau Culik Anak Kami? Why did you Kidnap our Child? Yogyakarta Galang Press 2001 Plays

Kematian Donny Osmond The Death of Donny Osmond Jakarta Gramedia Pustaka Utama 2001 Short story
collection
Surat dari Palmerah Letters from Palmerah Jakarta Kepustakaan Populer 2002 Collection of
Gramedia letters from the
editor
Sepotong Senja untuk Pacarku A Slice of Sunset for My Jakarta Gramedia Pustaka Utama 2002 Short story
Girlfriend collection
Sukab Intel Melayu: Misteri Harta Sukab the Malay Spy: The Jakarta Kepustakaan Populer 2002 Comic
Centini Mystery of the Centini Wealth Gramedia
Aku Kesepian Sayang.' I'm Lonely, Honey. 'Visit me Not available Not available Not available Not available
'Datanglah, Menjelang Kematian.' close to death.'
Negeri Senja The Land of Sunset Jakarta Kepustakaan Populer 2003 Novel
Gramedia

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