79 Comments on “Short Stories”
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David Says:
August 31st, 2009 at 1:11 pmOk, had a hell of a job getting the poll to work this time hence the delay in publishing…I liked them both! I’ll be staying out of the voting this time….
Ross, this Ustad Basam fellow is of Yemeni extraction? I think I can find some common ground in both the stories – it’s all the Arabs’ fault!
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ET Says:
August 31st, 2009 at 4:39 pmI’m going to abstain from voting. Ross’s story is more aggressive, in line with the brutal reality of present-day islamist fanaticism while timdog’s story gives a more subdued melancholical account of the sneaky replacement of old cultural values and its alienating effect on different generations. From a literary standpoint, as far as a non-Anglo is able to judge, I think they are evenly matched. The contents however ring a totally different bell.
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timdog Says:
August 31st, 2009 at 7:15 pmBloody hell, I thought I’d crammed it in, but Ross seems to have condensed a whole novel into 1500 words. That is what you’ve done here isn’t it Ross, if I’m not mistaken?
DOGS I like; something vaguely Salman Rushdieish about that, though I hope in the full length version you’ve managed to create out of Ustad Basam a fully developed and suitably ridiculous satirical caricature. See for reference the character of Mainduck in Rushdie’s Moor’s Last Sigh (who is, incidentally, a caricature of Bal Thackeray). Actually, read all of Rushdie’s Shame (the model for a razor-sharp, grand-scale, utterly merciless political satire if you ask me).
And I very much like the fact that Duke (an autobiographical cipher perhaps?) ended up in Dili. Don’t know why, but I like that… I reckon you’ll get more votes…Patung:
it’s all the Arabs’ fault!
Question is, was it really the Arab’s fault? I’m not going any further than that because interpreting other people’s writing is silly enough; interpreting your own is positively preposterous. And anyway, I can see where I would be going if I did continue and it all looks disturbingly Naipaulian, which would require me to go outside and beat myself with a cricket bat for penance…
ET – seems in that case like I rung the very bell I was hoping to ring. Thank you.
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Ross Says:
August 31st, 2009 at 8:00 pmjust got home and my rendang’s cooking, so only time to glance through Timdog’s work; immediate resonance of a good piece of fiction by that Michael chap with the Greekish surname, and I enjoyed that, so I look forward to reading Timdog’s take on islanders’ inter-action at a more leisurely pace.
Clearly as different as different could be from my style!
Will give a more fulsome review after dinner. -
Ross Says:
August 31st, 2009 at 9:01 pmYeah, full up now, time to digest both the meat and the prose.
Yes, I like your story, Timdog, though my usual taste is for a bit of action, which is obviously on the horizon of that soporific sea you invoke. I could use your 1500 words as an intro to my NEXT book, which will be next year, at this rate.
As for the Duke, he is an amalgam of many people I’ve met here, many bules in Jakarta being not quite the full shilling, but mostly good-hearted. While his fictional antecedents are pretty close to mine, that’s okay, as one appreciates one’s own heritage better than others’ – as a rule.
But he ain’t me, Babe, no, no, no he ain’t’ me, Babe!
However, yes, as I declared about a week ago, he is the main protagonist in my new novel,
A VERY MAD JAKSA MAN
‘Hero’ would be going a bit far…and his exploits are certainly more than I could manage. It’s out this week.
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August 31st, 2009 at 9:27 pm‘Hero’ would be going a bit far…and his exploits are certainly more than I could manage. It’s out this week.
So you’ll be interested in doing some hard promotional yards including interviews!
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Ross Says:
August 31st, 2009 at 10:24 pmHeck, Patung, everybody knows where I’ll be next Saturday – InsyAllah – so come along and I’ll sell you – and sign – a copy!
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Ross Says:
August 31st, 2009 at 11:45 pmOya, congrats, Patung, you did a fine job with the lay-out and stuff. I’m not a hi-tech person, but I know a pro job when I see it!
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September 1st, 2009 at 4:19 amYou’re right timdog, you’re pretty subtle there, was a bit surprised by your story actually, thought you’d finally been convinced….although I suspect you were being a little tongue in cheek in places, naughty if so.
And why haven’t the Bitter House People already slaughtered the Swordfish People, or at least ‘encouraged’ them to leave…oh I see, they’ll be getting around to that shortly. And then the price of fish will go up…
Incidentally Madrotter has been pimping this post to his Dutch hip hop friends, http://www.theboombap.nl/theBoards/read.php?1,1317579, good on you Mad, although judging by the one response to his thread not all Dutch hip-hopsters can appreciate fine story telling. Translated version. Shame on that guy.
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Oigal Says:
September 1st, 2009 at 10:37 amAnd why haven’t the Bitter House People already slaughtered the Swordfish People, or at least ‘encouraged’ them to leave…oh I see, they’ll be getting around to that shortly. And then the price of fish will go up
Hey, I was there!! (ok I don’t think too many died, but the houses burnt well). Even give you the name of the place and time if you like.
Makes an interesting counter-point to the usual evil rampaging Muslim stories, aludes more to the oft told generational myth of tolerance. If you are a minority then you are only as secure as the intellectual maturity of majority allows.Gotta say tho, that particular week was full of the most bizarre circular conversations that one could only experience in Indonesia.
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September 1st, 2009 at 1:56 pmtimdog said
And I very much like the fact that Duke (an autobiographical cipher perhaps?) ended up in Dili. Don’t know why, but I like that…
I like it too. The hero leaves, but not entirely…
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Oigal Says:
September 1st, 2009 at 5:29 pmmany bules in Jakarta being not quite the full shilling, but mostly good-hearted
Well done guys, I enjoyed both and I think the above quote pretty much sums up 98% of Bule in Indonesia. Its one of the joys of living in Indonesia, bizarre people, bizarre stories of how they ended up here but mostly in essence good people even if their politics suck.
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Ross Says:
September 1st, 2009 at 9:10 pmGlad you enjoyed them, Oigal.
But for anybody who thinks by reading my story they have the plot for my book, think again. No way I could condense a yarn of book-length into 1500 words; instead I took Duke into his madness and launched him in various new directions after losing the lady.
(This entry is aimed at folks who won’t otherwise buy the novel!)
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September 2nd, 2009 at 6:07 amRoss – Michael chap with a greekish surname? Who’s that? The English Patient guy? Never read him, though with hindsight, amongst other glitches that need polishing up (such as my cringeworthily heavy-handed keffiyeh-slipping-off-moment) I notice that I unconciously raised an enormous flag of stylistic influence: a story about an old man – and a giant swordfish????? For f*cksake, I apparently don’t have an original idea in my head…
Patung:
thought you’d finally been convinced
I would have thought that it had long been apparent that I need absolutely no convincing that the institution of cultural inferiority complexes, the abandonment of old, firmly-rooted, locally contextualised beliefs and practices and their replacement with one of the global “brands” is something to be bemoaned. But there is a subtlety here: I firmly believe that it is the process of replacing which is primarily to be bemoaned; not necessarily the replacing entity itself. Too many people fail to see that distinction and then end up being shrill, banal, and all too often bigotted and offensive in their own way – and in doing so show very little genuine concerned for the replaced…
The focus of my story could just as easily have been the entry of the Ancestor People into the Bitter House, but I had pretentious, arty reasons to want it to be a small, isolated community of Muslims instead…My tongue wasn’t really in my cheek at any point, though I do confess to tossing in a couple of vaguely populist bones – knowing that I was up against Ross – that I wouldn’t have otherwise (I didn’t really need to make the Arab an impotent alcoholic, did I?)…
And why haven’t the Bitter House People already slaughtered the Swordfish People?
Probably because they haven’t been Bitter House People for very long; before that they were Ancestor People, but in truth were really just Village X People and Village Y People, and were far too busy killing each other (and occassionally killing Bible or gun-toting big-noses) to pay much attention to a little community of essentially benign outsiders… They still kill each other from time to time. But I would suggest that once they really do forget about the Village X and Village Y distinctions and really do start regarding themselves all as Bitter House People, then the Swordfish People might want to watch their step…
You may detect that I am making outrageous transgressions here back and forth across the boundaries of truth and fiction. For the record, the real Bitter House People live on an entirely different island from the real Swordfish People, and, just to confuse things still further, I kind of based the fictional Swordfish People’s traditional practices on those of their real-life neighbours, the Dragon People, who, despite a few of them having white skullcaps and red-and-white keffiyehs, seem still to be doing alright by the Dragon at the moment…
Oigal – on good-hearted, odd-ball bules, here’s a great line from the mighty Ryszard Kapuscinski:
the white man in the tropics is the worst, least reliable source of information about local peoples and cultures
which suggests, I suppose, that the whole lot of us ought to shut up and talk about football instead…
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Odinius Says:
September 2nd, 2009 at 6:35 amtimdog said:
here’s a great line from the mighty Ryszard Kapuscinski
…who was notoriously unreliable himself! Great writer, though…
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Ross Says:
September 2nd, 2009 at 8:56 amTimdog, I had to spend a few mins searching but here he is. It’s a darn good yarn, and I think you should enjoy it, as it is pleasantly written and without such harsh focuses as my little story.
Can’t quite follow your recent post…populist? I’ve been called worse, though I hope the reference to ‘impotent alcoholics’ isn’t aimed at my reasonably normal but (except maybe on the once-a-week free beer hour at the Highway) fairly abstemious self!THE SPICE GARDEN
by Michael Vatikiotis
Published by Equinox Publishing, Jakarta, Singapore, 2003
Paperback 253 pagesA COMMUNITY that has experienced a series of traumas will often turn inward and cover itself, unable to tell others of the hurt. How, when each word would only open the wound, rendering it raw again? Yet tell the members must, if they want to begin a healing process.
The whole community needs to lift the cover and together take a good look at each other, in order to identify the sources of the festering sores.Very few people can say that they have not heard of the bloody clashes in Maluku since 1999. News about these have, on many occasions dominated the print and electronic media. However in the grand scheme of things, these news items came and went, fleeting past us, as if all that happened to those involved was no more serious than the rough and tumble on the football field. It is almost impossible for outsiders to understand what actually happened.
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September 2nd, 2009 at 4:17 pmOdinius – of course he was! Rumoured to make things up, and the very archytype of the “white man writing about Africa” – in which every book title must contain the word “sun”, or the word “dark”, or possibly a combination of the two [I don't make things up, but I do occassionally steal things, and I stole that, though I can't remember from who].
But, judging by the line I quoted, he also seems to have had a healthy degree of self-awareness, which is something I always try to emulate…Ross – Oh that guy. Don’t know why, but I’ve never bothered to pick up a copy of that book. I will do so.
What I meant by “populist” was that, guessing (correctly as it turns out) that you would be producing a pretty fiery story, I knew I would need to toss in a few little crowd pleasers to prevent all my fey airiness being utterly obliterated by your admirably caustic sizzling. Crowd-pleasers in the form of faintly disapproving comments about jilbabs and chin-beards etc, and the figure of a drunk Arab (nothing to do with you, buddy). Surely making an Arab not only drunk, but also impotent would gain me howls of delight from the IM stalls, no?
In other circumstances I might have left them out, being as I am a great believer in the “iceberg theory” of short story writing, and the value of things left unsaid – also borrowed from that other old man-big swordfish guy. See – not a single original idea… -
Ross Says:
September 2nd, 2009 at 8:40 pmDon’t be too hard on yourself. Hemingway never was! Till the end.
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September 2nd, 2009 at 10:39 pmWell, it’s a tough one. While I like Ross’ playful “incensed Brit” tone, and share his disdain for the fundies, I like timdog’s sort of “cultural anthropologist’s lament,” and prefer his prose style.
On a critical level, I did feel like both lacked any sympathetic characters amongst the orthodox Muslims, which has the effect of “othering” an incredibly broad category of people. But I’ll chalk that up to space issues than anything more deliberate. I know both of you understand this point very well already.
So for me, it’s a tie!
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Ross Says:
September 3rd, 2009 at 11:13 amTrue, and fair crit. I have in the past, Westerling’s Legacy, tried to let a character put forward views like theirs with clarity and conviction, but given a week or two to produce a 1500 word short story, i admit i fell short on several fronts.
I am not without some sympathy with the ‘orthodox Muslim’ social stance – it’s the hoodlum tactics i detest.
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September 3rd, 2009 at 11:17 am@ timdog
Crowd-pleasers in the form of faintly disapproving comments about jilbabs and chin-beards etc, and the figure of a drunk Arab
Never met a drunk Arab and it seems rather unplausible given their draconian shariah laws. And impotent is a bit below the belt and got nothing to do with their general attitude. As a crowd-pleaser I would have prefered a comment about jilbabs and goatbeards, especially jilbabs, as it is more in line with the general tenet of your story about the abandonment of old, firmly-rooted, locally contextualised beliefs and practices.
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September 3rd, 2009 at 4:53 pmRoss – much better to be hard on oneself now than save it all up for the end like Hemingway. And probably better not to drink quite so much. And probably better not to have a deeply confused sexuality burried beneath layers of machismo. But still, the old bastard could certainly write.
Now here’s a fine fantasy – a session on Jaksa with Hemingway – in Pappa Cafe, naturally. That would be fun…Odinius – delighted that you like my style. It’s all about style really. I’d rather read a book with a deeply flawed structure and a troublesome narrative that is written beautifully (like Bruce Chatwin, for example) than the other way around…
As you obviously realise, the lack of developed characters amongst the Muslims was entirely down to space. Under other circumstances I would have left all the history and context to the iceberg theory and made it entirely about the old man – who if not sympathetic as such, you are meant to sympathise with.ET:
Never met a drunk Arab and it seems rather unplausible
I take it then that you’ve never spent an evening in the Bar Karnac off Martyrs’ Square in Damascus? Or in the cafes in Beirut? Or in downtown Cairo or Alexandria of a Saturday night?
And I made him impotent as a cheap and easy way to make it clear that the Muslims in my story had no Arab blood.
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September 3rd, 2009 at 11:41 pmtimdog:
Odinius – delighted that you like my style. It’s all about style really. I’d rather read a book with a deeply flawed structure and a troublesome narrative that is written beautifully (like Bruce Chatwin, for example) than the other way around…
As you obviously realise, the lack of developed characters amongst the Muslims was entirely down to space. Under other circumstances I would have left all the history and context to the iceberg theory and made it entirely about the old man – who if not sympathetic as such, you are meant to sympathise with.Yeah I figured as much. Ross too. But the critic must point out what the writers missed, whether intentionally or not!
I take it then that you’ve never spent an evening in the Bar Karnac off Martyrs’ Square in Damascus? Or in the cafes in Beirut? Or in downtown Cairo or Alexandria of a Saturday night?
Good point. Alcohol is freely available in Syria, Egypt and Lebanon.
But can find plenty of drunk Arabs in London, Paris and New York too.
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Ross Says:
September 4th, 2009 at 12:33 amI think, Timdog, Hemingway would like Jaksa, especially Pappa. He was not always right, but chose to enjoy his life.
You are surely not implying Hemingway was a poofter! He was a good bloke, despite his obvious idiosyncrasies! -
September 4th, 2009 at 12:49 amRoss,
Let’s examine the evidence:The beautiful but somewhat androgynous girl “with her hair cut short, like a boy’s” is an endlessly repeated Hemingway motif.
Connected to that, take a look at Wife Number 2 Pauline, and to a lesser extent, Wife Number 4 Mary.
Also connected to that, have a read of the flawed – and downright odd – posthumously published The Garden of Eden, and the weird “now I’m the boy and your the girl, or maybe now we’re both the boy” sex games of its obnoxious protagonists.
Bullfighting. Have you ever seen a bullfight??? You don’t get much more overtly, mind-bogglingly homoerotic than bullfighting.
And finally, all that machismo stinks of British rugby player-style over-compensation.
Great writer though, and he certainly lived, and I’d love to have gotten drunk with him.
You are aware of his politics, right? Despite being an inately right-wing personality, politically speaking he was always hard left… -
September 4th, 2009 at 12:54 amHere ya go….
Pauline
Mary
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September 4th, 2009 at 12:56 amWhy couldn’t he have gone in for, someone like Indah here
It’s late…
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September 4th, 2009 at 1:39 amYou see what I’m saying, right…
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Ross Says:
September 4th, 2009 at 9:26 amOke, Timdog, Hemingway was a lefty, as his participation in Spain’s conflict showed. So was Orwell, and they were both great writers. I am not so far right that I can’t recognise quality on the other side of the canyon. Also some of my best drinking buddies have been bolsheviks of one brand or another.
But the fact that his various womenfolk did not measure up to other people’s ideas of perfect womanhood scarcely makes him a gender-bender!I have been to a bullfdight, once, and that was enough..I was a bit naive back then and foolishly imagined that the bull had a fair chance. I was not impressed when I understood that he gets done in no matter what!
But I didn’t see anything remotely poofy about it, though clearly if a guy turned up in Pappa Cafe dressed like a toreador, I’d be a tad wary. -
September 4th, 2009 at 9:55 amOf course, Hemingway was fighting for the Spanish republic, not for the Communist and Anarcho-Syndicalist factions within it.
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