Review: Beauty is a Wound by Eka Kurniawan

This book has what I call the "Lolita" and "The Virgin Suicides" 'curse' which, although I like the prose and characters, I won't give it more than three stars. Why? Because of it's violence to women.

Eka Kurniawan has been called the successor to Pramoedya Antanta Toer and his books have been likened to Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Reading this, I can see why. Mr. Eka has a distinct style that is unlike other contemporary Indonesian authors: poetic and sarcastic without being too overwrought or cheesy. This novel is about a prostitute and the tragedies that befall her family, and has been described as 'grotesque' so I know I'm not going to find rainbows and sunshine and many consensual sex. 

The first and last hundred pages or so are amazing. I like Dewi Ayu's plight and her stories. She is a fierce, amazing woman who knows what she's worth and acts accordingly. Dewi Ayu does not have wool over her eyes like so many of her peers have. She is realistic and pragmatic and also just a touch insane. I immensely enjoy the story when it's focused on her, so that's why I give this book three stars despite my misgivings. The sexual violence in the first Dewi Ayu narrative is shocking, but expected. 

The problem starts when the narrative moves to Dewi Ayu's daughters. That's when the sexual violence, to me, becomes unbearable. It seems like on every page someone is getting raped. Eight-year-old girls described in a sexualized manner. Dewi Ayu and her daughters are the most beautiful women in Halimunda, so every man wants to bone them and damn consent. More mentions of Dewi Ayu's daughters' sexual desirability, never mind the fact that they're ten-years-old. More rape. And this goes on and on for two hundred pages or so.

I'm not a prude who demands every sexual scene to follow the safe, sane, consensual rule. But there's a line between what I call "meaningful sexual violence" i.e. sexual violence that have impact to the story and "gratuitous sexual violence" in which the sexual violence loses all meaning and becomes another source of titillation. The sexual violence in this book falls to the later category. I don't feel shocked when a character is raped; I just sigh, make some disgusted noise, and move on.

Dewi Ayu's and her daughters' misfortune are tied to their sexual desirability. Their tragedy is that they are beautiful women in a chauvinist patriarchal world. And I'm so tired of this narrative. Like many male authors, Mr. Eka is commenting and satirizing the sexualization of women. Like most male authors, his efforts fall short, although I applaud it. 

Maybe I'm just tired of seeing women fall victims to violence. Maybe I'm just tired of how when we heard the words "sexual violence" we automatically assume that the victim is a woman. Maybe I'm just tired of grown men sexually commenting on a teenage girl's body. Maybe I'm just tired of gratuitous sexual violence in my books. Maybe. Maybe.