Putu'€™s outsider takes readers through an equally bleak and disturbing few days as we witness the inner thoughts of a hypochondriac sociopath on the verge of mental and moral breakdown.

The short novel '€” translated for the first time into English by Stephen Epstein and published as part of the Lontar Foundation'€™s Modern Library of Indonesia collection '€” opens conventionally enough in the present tense, rather than the narrative past of most of the rest of the book, as Epstein attempts to meet Putu'€™s desire to '€œterrorize the reader'€™s sense of time'€.

The narrator, a Balinese journalist living in Jakarta, is preparing for a date with his '€œsweetheart'€, Rosa, during which they will discuss their future together.

When he tells us that the date is their 3000th, we get an initial
indication all might not be as it seems with this young man'€™s grasp on reality.

After the opening chapter any stylistic or thematic similarities to many of the other novels in Lontar'€™s superb collection comes to a jarring halt.

There are no great discussions of life, love, poetry, the future, gender, nationalism, religion, culture or family set against one of the pivotal eras of modern Indonesian history.

There is no Japanese invasion, or Dutch colonial administration, no thrilling struggle for independence or reform, just grim, daily life on the streets of early 1970s Jakarta.

Masterfully, Putu sets the scene of an urban existence still very much in evidence 40 years on: The pointless search for brief physical stimulation among uprooted first-generation city-dwellers, smoking, drinking coffee or beer, eating cheap food at street-side vendors or copulating with an equally cheap whore among the stink, noise, smoke and rain.

Unappealing as this environment undoubtedly is, it is surpassed by Putu'€™s depiction of the increasingly unhinged stream of consciousness of the narrator as he seeks to avoid returning to Bali to perform his
filial duties after receiving the eponymous telegram informing him of his mother'€™s death.

Given the nature of the book, there is no plot in the conventional sense. Lurching from impulse to impulse, the narrator lies to friends, family and coworkers in a fevered state of delusion, determinedly giving the appearance of a serious young man, while inside his mind is shrieking with absurdity and vileness.

Refusing to face up to the reality of his situation, if indeed what he says even has any semblance of reality (Has his mother actually died, is she simply ill? Does his fiancé Rosa exist or is she something else entirely?) he abuses the trust of everyone around him.

The most obvious victim of this deception is his foster daughter Sinta, a 10-year-old on the brink of adolescence, whose real mother desperately wants her back. Sinta'€™s willing connivance in his deception makes her corruption all the more tragic.

Posing as a loving, committed father figure to the child, he rebuffs the attempts to regain her by her mother and stepfather, who could provide a much more stable life for the girl.

His somewhat less-than-paternal feelings for Sinta, while hinted at, are beyond doubt. This is a man after all who happily admits to dreaming about having sex with his mother. Frequently.

While the narrator speaks of how he will perhaps marry Sinta '€œwhen she becomes of age'€, he later discovers a letter he wrote to himself 13 years earlier telling how he had once been in love with a nine-year-old girl, who, he says, had everything he could dream of in a woman, '€œfrom her body to what she talked about'€.

The self-loathing he felt about this love for the young girl lay
behind his decision to leave Bali for Jakarta where he would use prostitutes to fulfill his sexual needs.

The book ends with him and
Sinta packed and ready to go on a journey together back to Bali, with no firm plans about when if ever they will return.

Putu'€™s Telegram marks a distinct break with tradition in Indonesian fiction. Its graphic depiction of the ramblings of an immature and deeply troubled young man who has fled the conventional morality of village life in Bali to the shadows of Jakarta provides a bleak and enthralling
picture of life in the city.

In Telegram, Putu guides Indonesian literature away from its passionate, epic, if occasionally grandiloquent, path onto a more nuanced and more intriguing direction.

Putu was born in Bali in 1944. While his father hoped he would become a doctor, Putu'€™s passion for literature led to a prolific writing career.

The loss to Indonesian medicine has been more than compensated by the gains to Indonesian literature. He has written around 170 novels, theater pieces and short stories as well as countless newspaper
columns, essays and television and movie screenplays.

In 1971 he cofounded the Teater Mandiri theater collective and staged his first play, Aduh, in 1973.

Telegram was among the first 10 books chosen when the Lontar Foundation launched its Modern Library of Indonesia collection in 2011. It was the first time in the almost four decades since its initial publication the book was translated into English.

Lontar'€™s series, including Telegram, marks a first in Indonesian letters: The works of the nation'€™s finest authors have been presented in English for a wider audience, rendered by translators sensitive to
nuances of language and culture.

Putu'€™s Telegram offers a compelling entry point into Lontar'€™s collection and a different view of what Indonesian literature should '€” or could '€” be

__________________

Telegram
Author: Putu Wijaya
Publisher: Lontar Foundation, 2011
120 pages

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