Literary Parody

Jun 17th, 2008, in IM Posts, Opinion, by timdog

View the original article here.

27 Comments on “Literary Parody”

kinch Says:
June 17th, 2008 at 10:42 pm
(Adopting a suitably Jonsonian tone) One would not have wished it longer.
kinch Says:
June 17th, 2008 at 10:43 pm
oops… one letter h did not make it off Nusa Buru.
kinch Says:
June 17th, 2008 at 10:45 pm
I’m also disappointed that you forgot to weave Plinkenboh into this rich tapestry.
Achmad Sudarsono Says:
June 17th, 2008 at 11:12 pm
Timdog,

I take my hate off to your creative bastardry. But first I take my sarung off (nice image ladies!!), and go to bed. x o

Awesome work !

Achmad.
kinch Says:
June 18th, 2008 at 7:42 am
Looks like Pak Sono Ustad of the Ukelele has just supplied the obligatory Plinkenboh reference.
kinch Says:
June 18th, 2008 at 7:51 am
Talking about translators – perhaps we could have a thread on ‘Tossers who have been Australian Diplomats in Indonesia’. I can think of at least three – the marxist translator of Pram, some pedophile who later got busted in Bali and hanged himself, and of course a certain Hawke/Keating era ambassador type fellow who was notorious for having an affair with a ‘famous’ (as in brown nosed Ibu Tien a lot) female Indonesian writer.

Another good thread would be ‘Indonesian Rumours it would be Career Suicide to Write about in the Regular Press’ – e.g. Ibu Tien the fire truck Poo Avenger and Ibu Tien Collects a load of Hot Lead and Forgets to Slap on the Customary 10% (I guess because this was where the Force Majeure Clause came into effect).
Achmad Sudarsono Says:
June 18th, 2008 at 8:44 am
Kinch,

C’mon man, name-names, dong. Kinch can’t be your name outside of the cybersphere — who was the diplomat ?

Timdog,

Beautiful, beautiful. Please, if possible, do some more, like:

- Gabriel Garcia Marquez
- Salman Rushdie
- Arundhati Roy
- Earnest Hemingway

I bags Hunter S. Thompson….
kinch Says:
June 18th, 2008 at 9:17 am
Do the digging yourself, Pak Sono. A former Whitlam minister who got put out to pasture in Jakarta in the 1980s. The female writer concerned wrote biographies of Fatmawati and Ibu Tien. Apparently it was scandalous enough to get hinted at in the Indonesian press of the day.
Achmad Sudarsono Says:
June 18th, 2008 at 10:06 am
Gross, man. Why couldn’t he get a skanky 21-year old from Blok M, like any other self-respecting middle-aged Australian.
kinch Says:
June 18th, 2008 at 10:44 am
‘Self-respecting ex Whitlam minister’ has to be an oxymoron. IIRC said writer’s husband (had his snout in the Pertamina trough) eventually got tired of the gossip and gave her the heave-ho.
timdog Says:
June 18th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
Achmad – I’m going to put you in the next one, but I need you to sign a consent form to say that you have waived all your rights to self-respect and will not engage in Richard Oh-style grumbling if you find yourself misrepresented… gpp?
Achmad Sudarsono Says:
June 18th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Do your worst — yes — I give consent — even if you publish in book form. I waived my rights to self respect a long time ago.

All I ask in return is that I get to do Hunter S. Thompson.
timdog Says:
June 18th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
You’re welcome to Hunter S. I’ll do Ernest Hemingway later, but in the meantime I have come into exclusive posession of the manuscript of Ayu Utami’s new novel…

“Achmad” by Ayu Utami

I am a chicken who has flown the coop, pursued by the fox I am far from home.
The hardness of the wood, the tautness of the strings, the coldness of the machine heads – what is this thing, this instrument? Is it a ukulele?
Achmad takes of his shirt and wipes the sweat from his neck, his chest, his torso. He is not a big man.
I can smell his B.O.

Achmad and I lay on the bed. He did not pressure me or force me. Is this love?
“Touch me in my special place,” Achmad said.
We had sinned.

The forest was cool. Gradually, the sun rose overhead into the sky because actually, the sun is a star and the earth, which is a planet, goes around the sun.
They walked slowly into the transmigrant village. The plantation workers, poor men from Java, were all busy raping their sisters. A small man with a ukulele sat in the corner, masturbating furiously.
He was the kind of man she found attractive, small, lean, big glasses. She began to masturbate. Her family considered her to be a whore because she had slept with well over a thousand men, all for money. But she was not a whore, she was a symbol of female empowerment, like new green shoots in the rice field.

“This is actually rather good, but does it have to be so self important?” Achmad asked.
“Yes, it does.”
“Why?”
“Because we are important people,” she said.
“How do you know?”
“Because Goenawan Mohamed told me, and he’s the Daddy…”

He had travelled to many countries, like a galloping wild horse, but he hated the Chinese. Light was streaming through the green leaves of the forest.
Oil. Anti-Chinese sentiments. Anti-communist purges. Masturbation. Government corruption. Transmigration. Masturbation. Girls together, gossiping about sex. The strings of the Ukulele quivered beneath his fingers.

“I have slept with 5679 men and I used the money they paid me to buy vibrators,” she said.
“Does Achmad give you orgasms?”
“It makes me wet when he plays his ukulele.” [double meaning there – get it?]
“I’m a virgin. It’s not fair,” she said unhappily.
“Look, we have to have a virgin as a symbol of the way most Indonesian women aren’t in touch with their sexuality like me.”
“But why does it have to be me?”
“Just shut up and play with my vibrator, think about Achmad while you’re doing it.”

[Continue in really rather fine style for about a hundred pages, then abruptly, without warning, lose the will to continue, let all plot and narrative structure collapse, and leave the reader feeling a little cheated]

From: Achmad Sudarsono – achmad@indonesiamatters.com
To: Ayu – Ayu@indonesiamatters.com
Subject: Ukuleles

Ayu,
I still think of you. Was it wrong what we did? I ask myself this question. I also ask myself if god exists. Does god exist? You have nice breasts by the way.

From: Ayu – ayu@indonesiamatters.com
To: Achmad Sudarsono – achmad@indonesiamatters.com
Subject: Zen and the art of chicken-keeping

Achmad,
I am far from you but I still hear the sound of your ukulele. Does god exist? Does it really matter? I am playing with my nipples now.

From: Achmad Sudarsono – achmad@indonesiamatters.com
To: Ayu – ayu@indonesiamatters.com
Subject: Little Red Riding Hood

Ayu,
Little Riding Hood came to her grandmother’s bedroom. She was confused. The wolf had an enormous penis and the sky was the colour of blood. Compliantly she undressed and caressed the wolf’s big hairy tail.
“This is sin, but sin sells books,” said the wolf, hungrily.
Red Riding Hood’s nipples were erect. The wolf entered her and their cries mingled with the cries of the birds rising from the trees.

From: Ayu – Ayu@indonesiamatters.com
To: Achmad Sudarsono – achmad@indonesiamatters.com
Subject: Coffee? Tomorrow? 11am?

Achmad,
Is that a Ukulele in your pocket, or are you just pleased to see me?

From: Achmad Sudarsono – achmad@indonesiamatters.com
To: Ayu – ayu@indonesiamatters.com
Subject: Re: Little Red Riding Hood

Ayu,
I am masturbating.

From: Ayu – ayu@indonesiamatters.com
To: Achmad Sudarsono – achmad@indonesiamatters.com
Subject: Re: re: Little Red Riding Hood

Achmad,
About that coffee – I’ve got to do a book-signing at QB books tomorrow – can we make it Friday?

THE END
Achmad Sudarsono Says:
June 18th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
I really take my hat off, Timdog.

This is pure genius.
David Says:
June 18th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
That was hysterical.
Shloka Says:
June 18th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
@ Timdog,

Awesome! Although it took 3 readings to make sense to me. You know the primary reason I don’t like Rushdie? I find his style complicated although I top my class in English and History. Seems that along with intolerance, the Indian education system also sucks…
janma Says:
June 18th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
oh my hubungan kelamin God! That was certainly something! Timdog those must have been good mushies man! Hat off as we speak!
kinch Says:
June 18th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
Bravo!
kinch Says:
June 18th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
As fragrant as a fish market at noon.
Achmad Sudarsono Says:
June 18th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
Fear and Loathing in Tangerang: a Gonzo Journey.

by Achmad Sudarsono

Tangerang. We were somewhere on the outskirts of the last Sawah when the Kratingdaeng began to take hold. Back there in the trunk was a collection of the most noxious substances known to man, M-152, Acehnese ganja, dodol, Kopi Tubruk, Temulawak. And believe me when I say there is nothing, nothing more deprived than a man in the depths of a Krating Daeng binge.

Bats, bats, bats. No, wait. Kerbau. No, wait goats.

Splat. Ok. Goat.

My attorney, Johannes Simanjuntak-Simatupang-Lubis-Purba-Hutapea was cackling like a madman, gyrating behind the wheels of the Metro-Mini bus that only we had the courage to ride.

Courage. We were embarked on a ride into the heart of the Indonesian dream. That’s right. Screw the American dream, ’60s crap, best left to go the way of ether, LSD, and unshaven armpits. We pioneers, dumb enough be totally confident.

A pengamen comes onto the bus, strumming a guitar, some stupid Koes Ploes number.

“I’ll show you how to strum,” I said, grabbing him by the scruff of the Golkar-T-shirt, grabbing my ukuele, and strumming like a maniac, like it was the Nixon campaign of ’74 all over again.

“Call me Dr. Gonzo,” I told the worthless loser, eyes bulging like a Kucing Garong on ether.

“What are you talking about, you look like Sumanto,” he said, running for his life into the macet, the traffic and the slums.

Yes, friends, 20-bottles of Kratingdaeng makes a toll road look different, somewhere between a Stanley Kubrick space-station and a discarded scene from a movie like, “Jembatan Hantu Ancol.”

But we didn’t care.

We were going into the heart of the Indonesian Dream and nothing was going to stop us.

Right Johannes ?
janma Says:
June 18th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
I once climbed a fence and crossed a toll road and before I realized they weren’t to be crossed 30 people had followed me….. it was Rendra and good poetry but bad pick up lines that did it.
timdog Says:
June 19th, 2008 at 3:34 am
Achmad – I would be willing to pay for a whole 100 000-word book of that – seriously…
Let’s keep going; maybe we could build a whole collection and then get them published… we could have a book launch somewhere poncy in Kemang and get all the Jakarta literati to flounce around telling us how wonderful we are… no! What am I thinking – we could have the book launch on Jl Jaksa… That would be much better…
Achmad Sudarsono Says:
June 19th, 2008 at 10:20 am
Timdog,

What – maybe a literary anthology, something like penguin classics, or 100 greatest books of all time, with

Charles Dickens
Herman Melville
Chekov
John Steinbeck
Jack Keruoack
Gabriel Garcia Marquez

See how we go after Salman Rushdie & Ernest Hemingway, perhaps. Might be fun to do some more Indonesian writers – luke Gunawan Mohammad. Yes…

Any takers for Mas Goen ?

I’ll do Rendra the Poet.
Janma Says:
June 19th, 2008 at 11:18 am
I’ll do Rendra the Poet.

you see, that’s where I drew the line…..
Achmad Sudarsono Says:
June 19th, 2008 at 11:59 am
Well, Janma, I’m hoping my own poetic prowess can sustain my seksiness into the golden years. Va Va Voom !
Janma Says:
June 19th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
Well, Janma, I’m hoping my own poetic prowess can sustain my seksiness into the golden years. Va Va Voom !

well you need to change your pic! And get rid of the vacuum cleaner byline….
Purba Negoro Says:
August 27th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Timdog- you have a talent.
Hysterical.
But actually better than Pram.
But how did you hack Pak Achmad’s email?