The Year of Living Dangerously - Christopher Koch
Prejudiced snot that I am, I don’t read novels whose characters are unsavory types like urban professionals, college professors, and newspaper reporters. I made an exception for this 1978 classic by an Australian writer.
It is set in Indonesia in the months running up to the September 30, 1965 riots which killed about 500,000 ethnic Chinese merchants and their families, suspected communists and anybody with whom a rioter had a beef. With adjectives that never go over the top, Koch evokes the punishing climates, both natural and political.
The plot follows the ups and downs of Guy Hamilton, journalist, who's covering dictator Sukarno's Indonesia. Guy is assisted by Billy Kwan a Chinese-Australian cameraman. Both have issues about cultural identity. Guy is Singapore English but carries an Australian passport. He's yearning for lost empire. Passionately interested in westernization, Billy studies the politics of modernization. His daily battle is dealing with prejudice concerning his height and ethnic makeup. Guy, detached, figures that he can score career points working close to action but not get so deeply involved that politics will do him any damage. His career goals get mixed up in his love life with flawed Jill, an espiocrat in the British embassy.
It's a solid story that held my interest. The novel is narrated by Cook (Koch?) also known as Cookie. He is a western journalist too but is able to tell the story from a selfless point of view. He refers to Javanese puppet shows: his scenes are often backlit with dancing, fluid light and he sympathizes with Billy Kwan's rejection of egoistic striving. Cookie’s is the third way between Guy’s stance of incessant action to keep from thinking too much and competition and Kwan’s Zen-like extinguishing of desire.
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