This Earth Of Mankind was the first in a quartet of novels (Buru Quartet after the name of the prison he was held under for more than a decade) by Pramoedya Ananta Toer who weaves together a tale highlighting the themes of class structure, racism, arrogance, and how colonialism has the power to alter the indigenous culture and history interpolated within the context of nationalism permeating in the Dutch colony of East Indies. The story is set in 1898 in Wonokromo a small town close to Surabaya, East Java. It follows a year in the life of Minke (the main protagonist) a Native Javanese who was a student of HBS, a prestigious Dutch high school at the time. Being the only native in the school, he is by twist of fate introduced and soon fell in love with an Indo, Annelies Mellema, the daughter of a Dutch businessman Herman Mellema with his concubine, Nyai Ontosoroh. Upon his graduation, Minke married Annelies in accordance to the Islamic customs but is not recognized legally according to the Dutch law. The arrival of Dutch Maurits Mellema, the son of Herman Mellema with his first wife in the Netherlands, also complicated their union further for he alleges that the marriage was conducted without the consent of Annelies' legal, Dutch, guardians, claims rights to the assets Boerderij Buitenzorg through a legal tussle which ensues. The outcome of the Amsterdam trial grants Maurits Mellema's custody of Annelies Mellema. This verdict creates protest from native people. The execution of the verdict results in bloodshed as Nyai's body guard, a Madurese, Darsam clashes with the Dutch authorities. The story ends as Annelies was forced to go to the Netherlands.
Pramoedya narrates a compelling story, full of revelations into the nature of Indonesian societal structure, national history, and into the nature of all humankind. One of the book virtues is its organization. The book is well structured, consisting of a translator's preface, an afterword, a glossary of Javanese terms and twenty chapters detailing the narrative. The translator's preface by Max Lane provides some insights into, that the book should not be read as "simple denunciation" of the colonial regime but rather as a coming of age novel paralleling Minke's journey with the ideological issues underpinning the novel. The writing is rich and honest with 367 pages it is a long read but it more than makes up by never failing to engage as one reads through the pages and the pages seem to turn themselves. Its parsimonious use of language however contains moments of poetic charms, but it's not an overtly lyrical book. The prose invokes visual representation of the changes occurring at the turn of the century, filling his work with historical detail (Minke being interested with Japan's predominace [119], Dutch-Acehnese colonial war [60-61], Zincography [338]), yet offers an uncanny combination of escapism and romance. Pramoedya's writing is truly unique. He provides many insights using a first-person narrative that is in turn both deeply personal [1] and strangely detached. His style is noteworthy because it allows him to only reveal to the readers what he wishes to reveal but still allowing the readers to immerse themselves in the story, and observe the unfolding of the drama as a curious bystander.
The author is trying to make sense of the national awakening that many Indonesians had at the turn of the century, including the author himself, goes further as a call to arms for Indonesians to continue the struggle against injustice and agitate for change, "Once in lives, people must take a stand.. if not they will never become anything" (94). Pramoedya wishes to capture a special moment in history- the legacy of the Dutch colonization of Indonesia and the method he chose to do so was through his vivid depiction and powerful character projection of a new historical personality, Minke. The idea for the book was conceived in the sixties when Pramoedya felt that the corpus of literature produced generally tended to ignore the social and political crisis the country was facing. Hence, by reconnecting the missing pieces in their own history to examine the birth of a national consciousness, he hopes to rally the new generation who grew up in a time of post-colonial and militaristic regime to once again reignite the fire of genuine nationalism. To that end, Pramoedya makes no effort to disguise the nature of his critique of the social and political values of colonial Indonesian society when he exclaims "All that glorified European science and learning was a load of nonsense, empty talk!..In the end it would all be a tool to rob us of all we love, all we owned" (334).
The most stunning thing about this novel is the fact that Pramoedya composed it, orally, while in prison. The story was written down in the early 1970's and published in Jakarta in 1980 (Afterword), where it was promptly banned by President Suharto's censors who accused the book to "surreptiously spreading Marxism-Leninism" ideas even though there was nothing in it even remotely related to current events. Why would this critique of the colonial regime bother the Suharto regime? The only aspect that I can think of is that Minke is a writer and writes critically of a regime, even though the regime is the Dutch colonial one. The possibility of dissidence was threatening even for a strongman like Suharto who was might be fearful of the notion that the pen can still be mightier than the sword.
A major thread within the novel is that of education and what can and should be expected of an educated person. Minke being the descendent of Javanese royalty is entitled to be one of the few natives presented with the opportunity to receive European education. Minke is trying to be a progressive, forward thinking Javanese native caught between two worlds. The European teachers especially Miss Magda Peters and Minke's pen-pal Miriam Croix sees him has stepping stone to a self sustaining Indonesia "to be of value to my[Javanese] own people, not to her[Dutch] people" (194). However, to his own people he is an outcast as they see him abandoning their native culture to become a "brown Dutchman" (130). Also early in the novel his "mentor", the French artist, Jean Marais, tells him "You're educated Minke. An educated person must learn to act justly, beginning first of all with his thoughts, then later in his deeds. That is what it means to be educated" (56). This advice underpins Minke's thought and actions from that point on: at each test or decision point he tries to apply his education such as in deconstructing Nyai's astuteness without having proper education. There is bitter irony here because on the one hand his education teaches him to think and argue and believe that all things are possible while on the other hand the colonial structure, within which he lives, works to ensure that little is possible. For as Miss Magda Peters paradoxically proclaims that "…without a love of literature, you'll remain just a lot of clever animals" (210) it is symbolic to signify atleast in the novel how that statement really encapsulates how bestial human relationship are for it towers, triumphs love, respect and in the narrative's context, how the very essence of humanity is ensnared by colonialism.
The notion of gender stereotypes and the roles it inherently imposed upon members of society is also another lens by which one can adopt to examine the novel. The scene near the beginning of the novel offers the reader a focused and valuable perspective on gender and its meaning in the Dutch East Indies at the time of the story. Despite the fact that Minke is a guest in Nyai's home, and that she is clearly a woman of means and authority, he is unsure of how to greet her. This is evidenced, as well, when Minke is "amazed" that Nyai, a native woman, could both speak Dutch so well, and that "she was so relaxed with a male guest" (30). He hesitates to offer his hand in greeting, and makes a clear distinction in his mind as to how it is appropriate to greet a European woman and a native woman. He is divided; Minke considers both taking her hand, or even outright ignoring her. However, she proffers her own hand first, to his surprise, and he decides that "if that's how they do things here" (30), he would treat her respectfully, as he would a European. This scene is important in highlighting the treatment of women in Indonesian society; it not only illustrates the fact that men considered themselves to be above women in status and worth, but also a duality that existed between treatment of European women and of Native women. Also the critique Pramoedya is making on the role imposed on women, particularly native women in colonial society is evident in the trial scene when questioned on the nature of the relationship between her child, Annelies, and Minke, Nyai makes the case that pure love should be considered equally powerful, if not above the bond between concubine and master, asking, "Are such purchases truer than pure love?" (287). However, the judge merely responds that Annelies is an Indo, and therefore above her, as was Minke, as he was given permission to appear at the court. The point Pramoedya wishes to stress is the rigid stratifications inherent in the structure of the colonial society, that simply because she was a native woman, no matter how eloquently and sensibly she spoke, her words were not valued.
The book is peppered with a wide range of characters from the various ethnic communities, from the traditional Javanese Minke's mom, Madurese bodyguard, Darsam, Creole French painter, Jean Marais, Chinese pimp Ah Tjong, Dutch administrators and Indos, Annelis. In doing so, Pramoedya diverse characterizations allows an insight into the complex psychology of the colonial life- of both the colonizers and the colonized which ensures that the strictly enforced layer of colonially-decided rights is set against a wide variety of political and personal opinions to be voiced. But one could argue that this is also its main detriment because it is, at heart, an ideological novel. And, like many ideological novels, characters and plots are simplified and exaggerated to make the point as the author provides few one-dimensional "good" or "bad" characters. They are there only to serve a purpose. Hence what transpires as a result is a narrative that has a melodramatic tinge but is not equalled in the complexity of characterization. So, in simple terms the story can be seen as poor clever boy meets rich powerful concubine and falls in love with her beautiful but weak daughter only to be crossed by the wicked step-brother.
That said, the book on the whole is a riveting read providing a vivid picture of a wide range of human experiences during a very special moment in Indonesian history, a bittersweet coming of age in the largest island Java set in the colonial era, of seeing science unravel its power in front of mankind, for better or for worse, through the eyes of his main character. The lessons which Pramoedya writes persuasively through the universal language of fine storytelling still are applicable almost exactly 110 years later from when the story took place. I would like to end off on a positive note unlike the sorrowful ending in the novel by stating why I thought (unlike Suharto and Sukarno) this novel cast Pramoedya as a humanist, not a propagandist for the one simple quote that really struck a chord with me "'How can human beings be looked upon purely from the point of view of official documents and without considering their essence as human beings?" (341) really forced one to question ourselves of our own identity, deeds, suffering, and the extent of colonialism's oppression on our fellow mankind.
