Aveling has contributed a very critical understanding of Indonesian literature. In reference to the development of Indonesian literature over the past 50 years, Aveling states that Indonesian literature has evolved in a very rapid manner. There are many aspects of understanding social and cultural protocols in recent literary works. With critical appraisal of different genres and categorical narrative techniques, he recognizes Indonesian literature as the “mirror of society” (2009).

While noting different dimensions of reading Indonesian texts, Aveling refers to the practice of identifying postcolonial elements in Indonesian texts as marked by Foulcher and Day (2002), stating that postcolonialism could be very specifically identified in narrative texts like The Scattered Dust of Love by Achdiat Karta Mihardja, Saman by Ayu Utami or Eyewitness by Seno Gumira. There is a trace of postcolonial commonality in these texts by Aveling. “Hybridity” appears as a distinct element in narrative texts of Indonesia. Aveling makes a very straight comment in the processes of reading Indonesian texts by Australian literary critics, especially in dealing with postcolonial studies of Indonesian narrative art.

The postcolonial elements in Indonesian texts, as detected by Aveling, are very closely weaved into the sociocultural structure of Indonesia. The collective mode of leading family-oriented lives adding community-based ideologies in Indonesian texts are noted to be part of the postcolonial experiences of Indonesian writers. The emergence of Bahasa Indonesia as a development from Malay, Balinese and Javanese literature is appreciated by Aveling as a positive modernistic development in the Indonesian literature. As a matter of fact, Aveling was specific in his description of the differences and gaps between Indonesian collective approaches against the Australian trend of maintaining individualistic notions of culture and life.

He noted that Indonesian philological tradition remained very distinct in Indonesian narrative art. The participation of Australian students in exploring Indonesian literature has been made possible through different provisions of scholarships and scopes for translations. It is interesting for Aveling to notice that Indonesian literature is very rich in terms of maintaining its collective culture. However, this collective mode of maintaining the social norms around issues related to gender discrimination remains one of the major topics in its narrative arts.

Meanwhile, Quinn, in his essay “On Translating Indonesia” (2003), highlighted the importance of translating Indonesian texts into English. He asserted that the contradiction between the Indonesian culture and the English culture was very visible, as English readers showed less interest in Indonesian texts. As a matter of fact, the Indonesian and English worlds were opposite poles. There was a gap and a reluctance by both cultures to bridge the gap. As a result, enormous stress is detected in the process of understanding Indonesian culture by many English-speaking critics. The differences, as noted by Quinn, are exemplified by the linguistic richness of Indonesia compared to the English. He refers to the word “rice” that has no other name in English, whereas in Indonesian, it has four different names.

In The Novel in Javanese (1992), Quinn states there are very few studies of Indonesian literature, especially outside the country. A concern noted by Quinn, is the lack of translations from Indonesian into English. Indonesian narrative texts, as detected by Quinn, are very much related to humanitarian issues that offer vivid concerns regarding Indonesian culture. However, a serious decline has also been marked by the lack of interest among students in studying Indonesian texts. In the words of Quinn, there are two reasons for such disinterestedness among students of Indonesian narrative art. These reasons are a declining interest in literary studies coupled with an increasing unwillingness on the part of universities to offer specialist courses with low enrolment figures, and declining staffing levels that compel staff to devote their time increasingly to the nuts and bolts of teaching the Indonesian language.

Quinn laid serious emphasis on the process of translating Indonesian literature into other languages, especially English. Even in this context, the scholar notes that it is necessary that, as someone tries to learn Indonesian, there should be a readiness to accept its unique semantic structure. Unlike English, modern Indonesian has a very collective way of representing the second person pronoun. This distinct matter demands zeal to learn and accept a new language. The emphasis of Quinn in this matter is to attain adequate, coherent and logical understanding of Indonesian.

The essence of collectivism in the native language of Indonesian is well identified by Quinn. He refers to the Indonesian way of calling words for numeral classifiers. These classifiers are noted to be utilised as the speaker focuses on counting a particular amount of things. In the Indonesian language, the numeric indications are noted to be a semantic categorization. On a specific note, when one counts a herd of cattle in English, one does so by counting heads, whereas in Indonesian, it is about counting tails. This means every numerical representation gets identified as per its category. This is a very unique identification led by Quinn, who acknowledges the richness of the Indonesian language.

— The writer is a lecturer at the Faculty of Cultural Sciences Andalas University, Padang

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