Review: Henry V by William Shakespeare

This is, by far, my favorite Shakespeare play yet. While A Midsummer's Night Dream is delightfully absurd and Much Ado About Nothing is a laugh-riot, Henry V is both inspiring and thought-provoking. 

It is all thanks to the title character himself, the King Henry V. He is a good commander and king, presented a shining paragon of chivalry and virtue, yet simultaneously his character is opaque. Prince Hal, the wastrel heir to the throne, has seemingly grown up to be King Henry V, the shining star of England who successfully laid waste to the fields of France. King Henry V is heroic, just, and honest, everything a good King should be. 

But is he really? 

Quoting from another reviewer, from my point of view, good ol' King Henry V, Harry Plantagenet, Prince Hal of Eastcheap, is an "amiable monster, a very splendid pageant." He is, in trope-speak, obfuscating stupidity. From the first scene, where the Bishop of Ely and the Archbishop of Canterbury persuades the King to reject a bill appropriating their church property in exchange for spiritual support for the French invasion, we can see his ingenuity. The King is dawdling, as we learn from the Bishops, on where he stands for the bill. Is he dawdling because he is politically inexperienced, or is he bidding his time, knowing that the Bishops would come to him with the pretext needed for his invasion?

And for a patriotic play about war filled with jingoism, there are some highly critical passages here: the scene of Harry, incognito, speaking with Michael Williams, a common soldier, about the nature of kings and his subjects. The fate of Pistol and his friends. In the end, we are left with the fact that for all of the sacrifices made, for all the soldiers that have given up their lives so that he can rule France, it will be all for naught; France will be lost forever by his son Henry VI

Review: The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. by Adelle Waldman

Oh dear, this is the Virgin Suicides conundrum again, but the opposite. If I'm debating whether or not I rate Suicides too low, here I'm debating whether or not I rate The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. too high.

Review: A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf

What is the importance of A Room of One's Own? Perhaps because it, maybe for the first time, exposes the treatment women face in academia and the literati, these so-called sacred liberal place where anything is permitted in the name of knowledge and art, glorious in its supposed progressiveness, turned away a woman from a library because she did not have a (male) Fellows with him or a letter of introduction from the (male) Dean. Perhaps because it talks about the importance of material things in creating literature, that if we see the biography and history of great poets and writers we shall see a history of privileged men educated in the best schools meant to foster their genius. Perhaps because it emphasizes that for a woman to be truly free, then she must have a room of one's own i.e. an income independent of her husband or any one in her life, an income that is truly, wholly hers.

The theme of A Room of One's Own is classic. It is about women's emancipation, about women and fiction, about women and history. Mrs. Woolf predicts that in a hundred years, more women will take on traditionally male profession such as stockbroker and barristers and soldiers and doctors. In some ways, she is true: there are more female CEOs, female lawyers, female doctors, female stockbrokers, female soldiers now than there were in 1928, but that is not high praise, for any number is greater than zero. Even with this progress, women still face sexism in everyday life. Despite the fact that any field now welcomes women if she pleases to enter it, the "glass ceiling" still exist, and women were still paid less than men. Mrs. Woolf pointed out an essay that espouses women's inferiority in her book. She said that due to its antiquated ideals, we may be excused to think that it was written in 1868 and not 1928. Sadly, as I read the essay, I think it's similar to many other essays written by "well-meaning" (male) academia and religious leader that I have the misfortune to read in 2015.

A Room of One's Own then remains relevant even a hundred years after its publication. Like when Mrs. Woolf pointed out how "drawing-room" novels were derided because most often they're written by women about women and how "battlefield" novels were praised because they are written by men about men, so does now, when women who watch romantic-comedy films are said as silly chits while films who have explosion and guns were given high ratings. Women who read romance are ridiculed yet no one ridicules men who read those awful Tom Clancy thrillers and its derivatives. Sexism is still alive, even when women are granted the vote, even when there are women barristers and women stockbrokers taking up office in the City. The cards are stacked against us, but women will always find their voice. As Mrs. Woolf said: "lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind."

Review: I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai

In a world where we see news of teenage celebrities (I'm looking at you Kylie Jenner) abandoning their studies in lieu of pursuing fame, Malala's story reminds us how education, an ubiquitous part of most countries, is something that people in several countries have to fight for. I am by no means shaming Kylie for something she's chosen to do - that is if she is indeed the one who is choosing to quit school in order to focus more on her image - but you have to admit that her and Malala's story provide quite a striking image. Here, you have Kylie Jenner, a privileged American teen who essentially refuses the opportunity given to her, and on the other you have Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani teen who got shot for trying to pursue the opportunity Kylie has squandered in the first place.

Malala's story resonates deeply with me. My family places a hard emphasis on education, so I can see and appreciate Malala's thirst for knowledge. My family too is Muslim, so I can also understand Malala's frustration with how several people wrongly interprets and twists Islam into something that is horrible, monstrous, and virtually unrecognizable. However, my society is very welcoming to woman getting education, and even the most hard-line and conservative Islamists in my country still send their daughters to school, albeit maybe in a different school than most mainstream Muslims. So I could only watch in part-horror and part-sympathy as Malala tells how she needs to hide her books, on how she needs to go to her school clandestinely, on how watching families live in horror as Taliban takes control of the area. She tells her story bluntly, according to her opinions and her experiences. When the military enters her beloved Swat in order to "flush out" the Taliban extremists, she doesn't fawn over them - rather, she shows that military or Taliban doesn't really matter to ordinary people in the Swat because all they really want is peace in their beloved valley. She also doesn't fawn or flounder over foreigners and foreign intervention in Pakistan, despite her current situation living in Brimingham, criticizing both the Americans and the British for their hypocrisy and part in making Pakistan the way it is now. She stays true to herself, living the embodiment of the saying "be the change you want to yourself".

I read the book while on a train trip to my hometown, and I had to keep my tears in check. Reading her story makes me realize how privileged I am. I never think about it that much, being a middle-class Indonesian Muslim girl, but reading Malala's book makes me realize how I take my education for granted. I go to university because that is what is expected from me. I go to school because that is what is expected from me. That is my life. It has never been questioned or challenged. Never does the question "What if I don't go to school?" or "What if my education is cut off?" come up in my conversation with my family, because my dad makes it clear for me, come hell or high water, he <i>will</i> make sure I go to school even if that means he has to ask for help from his extended family or go on a fast for a year. And my aunts and uncles and grandparents too make sure that I know they will not tolerate me missing even just a year from school and that they will do whatever they can in their power to keep me in school until at least I get my bachelor's degree.

I thought this was the case for every girls in the world, and that the reasons that some of them couldn't go to school was because they lack the necessary money. It never occured to me that there were other reasons, that some people thought girls shouldn't go to school and threatened those who do. This book made me realize that my circumstances are special, that what I have is an immense privilege, something these girls would give up their lives for.

Malala said, in her Daily Show interview, that it is a part of our human nature that we don't learn the importance of anything until it's snatched from our hands. This book made me realize that; how education, something that I took as granted and basic human need, is a very important thing in some parts of the world. I grumbled and complained about the university coursework that I had to do, but Malala and her friends would risk their lives in order to even have a little chance of going to college. This book made me realize my gifts, and I think it should be given to any teen celebrities - hell, let's just make that anyone that has thought about cutting their education short just for the fun of it.

Final Rating:


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Book information:
Title: I Am Malala
Author: Malala Yousafzai and Caroline Lamb
Edition:
ISBN:

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(Cross-posted to my Goodreads account: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1160677959)

Review: The Weaverbirds by YB Mangunwijaya

So! I finally finished this book. It's been, what, four months since I borrowed it? And I only finished it now. Lovely. The school library is going to rake in lots of money.

This book is, well, it's not difficult, per se. I just had a hard time of getting into it. The book had the double sin of a) written in 1st person and b) contains a lot of sentimental Indonesian-esque romance that I don't really like. Romance is fine, but Indonesian authors tend to have this style that whatever romance they wrote is going to end up really sappy and/or cheesy. Since most old novels are written in 1st person (my most hated POV) and have these sappy romance (that my cold heart does not understand), you can see why I don't really read them much.

But as a book connoisseur, I have to read a lot of books, crossing genre and time, even if that means I have to get out of my comfort zone. Or spend four months reading a 300 page book. 

Okay. So. The review. Right.

The Weaverbirds (Indonesian: Burung-Burung Manyar) tells the story of Setadewa (Teto) and Larasati (Atik). Teto is the son of a KNIL soldier, KNIL being the private army of the Dutch colonist in Indonesia, and an Indo mother. Atik is still Teto's cousin of some sort; her mother is the adopted daughter of Teto's father's uncle. Teto's father comes from a blue-blooded native Javanese family, but he likes being "Dutch" more.

During the Japanese occupation, Teto's father joined the rebellion, and was subsequently caught. Teto's mother was kept as a mistress by a Japanese official to protect Teto's father, and Teto was left in the care of Atik's family. Teto vowed that he will avenge his parents, and joined KNIL once he was old enough. When the Japanese left however, Teto was faced by the Republican factions; that is people who wanted and have declared Indonesia's independence. Teto viewed the Republicans as ex-collaborators with Japan, and thus viewed Indonesia's independence as not something that they earn, but something that is given by Japan. Not to mention, after the war, the fate of his parents is still unknown. Thus, begins Teto's quest to "help" his homeland and find the truth about his parents.

 Structurally, the novel itself is divided into three parts: a prologue of some sorts that tells the story of Teto and Atik's childhood, a middle part consisting the bulk of the action, and an epilogue. 

I find the concept refreshing, because Indonesian novels often have this black-and-white view of the world, that the good guys will always be good and the bad guys will always be bad. This is a boring, not to mention unrealistic, point of view of the world. The good guys is not always good and the bad guys are not always bad. So it's really refreshing to see a flipped perspective; the Republicans became the antagonist and the colonizing Dutch became the protagonist.

Maybe it's because of this I find the middle part to be the most exciting of the three. It details Teto's struggle to reconcile his vision of Indonesia, and the Indonesia he's seeing right now. Teto does not go to war because he hates Indonesia; he loves Indonesia and wants to free her from the Republicans whom he viewed as Japanese collaborators. Teto's mother frequently becomes a sort of allegory for Indonesia herself, in the eyes of Teto: she was a happy housewife in the Dutch period, only to become a trapped mistress in the Japanese occupation, and later institutionalized after the war. Indonesia too, according to Teto, is subjugated but happy during the Dutch period, trapped in a broken promise during the Japanese occupation, and has become insane in her independence.

Teto's views and behaviors is a departure from the usual Indonesian heroes that is usually portrayed as calm and polite even in the midst of gunfire. Here, Teto is brash and foul-mouthed, but he had the heart of a lion, and a firm principle taught by his father. He's an intelligent boy; he knew in the middle that what he's doing, what KNIL and him are doing, is basically worthless but still he fought because his father taught him not to run away from a fight. And by God, he didn't, even if it meant sacrificing his only chance on being with the girl he loved.

I expected Atik to be one-dimensional and flatter than a cardboard, but she was quite fleshed out, which is a nice surprise. Atik too is struggling that she may or may not have feelings for Teto, her childhood friend slash distant cousin and a traitor to the Republic. Atik herself works for the Republic, even becoming an aide for the then-Foreign affairs minster. She has to learn to reconcile her loyalty for her motherland and her affection to an agent of the enemy.

The prose is wonderful and this is one of the few first-person POVs novel that I actually like. YB Mangunwijaya conveys Teto's feelings so perfectly that you can't help to root a little bit for the Dutch, if only to give Teto his happy ending. The changing of POVs is something I severely dislike in most modern novels since it's just hella confusing, but Rama Mangun (as he's affectionately called) uses it so efficiently to portray the characters' feelings, to let us see the two-sides of the coin, that I can't complain about it.

My problem with this novel is that we really don't see Atik and Teto's relationship developing properly. Literally 70% of their screentime are spent apart from each other. We only get to see their interaction in the beginning and in the end; they rarely interact in the middle part. When I first read Teto declaring his love to Atik in his inner monologue I was like "bruh? You only met this girl for two months, tops!" It feels odd to me because they only met each other for a short time in their childhood, and it didn't really make sense for both of them to be violently in love with each other. They talked about their closeness a lot, but we don't actually see how close they are, or how their closeness develops in the first place. As individual characters, they are well-developed, but as a pairing they are not.

I also have issues with the length of the first part and the third part. The first part should be longer, and the third part should be shorter. The ending is firm and resolute, but the execution is off. There's a lot of padding in the third part but the last pages seems rushed, as if the author has a page limit and he's nearing that limit so he better wrap the story up. The conflict in the last part just kind of...hangs there with no development whatsoever beyond a few short paragraphs. I didn't even realize there's a conflict until 3/4 in. Inserting a new conflict at the end of the book is pretty unusual, so I understand if the author wants it to be done quickly, but if that's the case then why does he insert it in the first place? It's completely unnecessary and throws the reader off.

There's also this bizarre subplot involving a minor character that does not have anything to do with the plot, whatsoever. The pages for that, I think, can more efficiently used instead to flesh out the story more, but alas it does not happen. The third part is the most boring of them all, part of the reason why this takes me a long time to finish after whooshing through the middle part.

It is a good book, and it is a good story, but it's marketed everywhere as a love story, and I didn't really feel the whole romance angle. As a war-novel, it's good, it's great; I would've given it a four-star. But you have to call an orange an orange, and as a romance novel it's very unsatisfying. This, coupled with other plot issues and pointless padding, reduces the grade to only three-star.

Final Rating:

Book Information:

Title: Burung-Burung Manyar (English: The Weaverbirds)
Author: YB. Mangunwijaya
Pub./Edition: Fourteenth edition. Jakarta: Djambatan, 2004 (orig pub. date: August 1981)
ISBN: 979-428-560-9