Thursday, May 26, 2011

Indonesian school of Children's Literature?

Few days ago, I had two Indonesian friends come to my room for dinner. Pretty inappropriate though, since my room is always in a mess with lots of books scattered in all eight directions. Luckily, they didn't mind (or probably they were being polite and decided not to say it). One of them started to browse my bookshelf and grabbed Michael Rosen's Sad Book.

"Sad Book?" she asked me.

"Yep! It's depressingly beautiful!"

She skimmed through the book and closed it in the end. "What's the point of having this kind of book? Why should children read this kind of book? What will the children learn?"

At that time, I realized something. My fellow Indonesians still consider children's literature as a didactic device. For them, children need to get the MORAL message from everything they read. If it doesn't have good moral value, the book should be banned. Since Sad Book doesn't have any moral value to learn, my friend will never allow her future children to read it (thus the children will miss one of great children books. Shameeeee!)

That event got me thinking about the paradigm regarding children's literature in my home country. Driven by my curiosity, I went to consult dear uncle Google. "Kajian Sastra Anak Indonesia" (Children's Literature Study in Indonesia) was soon displayed on the textbox. I didn't expect much because I know not many people are interested in this field (especially recalling all their undermining gaze for me).

To my surprise, I found one opinion from Riris Sarumpaet - a children's literature scholar in University of Indonesia, one new book about children's literature (it is released this April! Whooa!), and one online published thesis on children's literature.

I read Riris Sarumpaet's article first. She is quite famous in Indonesia as a literature scholar and has encouraged the development of children's poetry. She deals with children, so she must at least know something. Yet, her statement shocked me. Children's literature is seen as a place to nurture and implant the existing ideology for children. Wait! So that means children are shaped by adults to be what adults want them to be? This really reminds me of what Nodelman (1992) argues about colonization in children's literature. If that is the paradigm, no wonder educational and moral values are still considered IMPORTANT.

Moving on to the review of that new book, I saw the use of structuralist analysis in it. Well, the whole book is based on the structural analysis. Oh, there is an additional point in it, MORALITY. So, basically the book talks about how children's literature should be constructed to effectively convey the moral values. The same thing also happen to the thesis. Structural analysis on several books along the moral values.

Sigh....... No wonder I never know Maurice Sendak or Beatrix Potter before I came to Cambridge. "Where the Wild Things Are" must be considered as non-educative book due to the lack of explicit moral value in it. And Anthony Browne. And Michael Rosen. And many others.

Sigh!

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

A question that I hate the most recently is, "When are you going back, sir?"

I wish I can answer that question by saying, "I'm not going back!" But I can't do that just yet. I have yet to find a job abroad, I have yet to set my life here. And at this point, I despise my nationality that much. Being an Indonesian means being limitted by visa to go everywhere, to work everywhere.

Now that I stay in UK, I saw people from Europe travelling easily across countries. Hell, they can even work in any EU country easily. Yet, I need to go through a long and demanding admnistrative process for my visa. Moreover, it pose me difficulty in finding a job. DAMN!

But comes another question. Why do I insist on staying overseas? Isn't Indonesia good enough for me to work in? Well, economically yes. There are many job opportunities there compare to this country. But that means I have to go back home.

So many reasons, so many untold stories, so many ballads and verses of staying away from home. Yet, I found a big reason. I need to save my brother. I want to bring him away from home......

Yes, we had lots of bro-fight. We quarelled more than you could imagine. Yet, he can be really sweet. By the time I feel like losing hope here, he was the first person telling me that I can do it. "I believe you can do it, because it's you!"

Sometimes when he told me his suffering, I am more and more motivated to take him away. But I have to find a way first to settle here, to prepare what I need to have.

I'm desperate to help him, yet I haven't been able to do anything.....

Monday, May 16, 2011

The Celestial Mother

The rosary beads slowly moved in my palm, causing soft frictions among my fingers. "Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blesseth are thou amongst women, and blesseth is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus..." Those words softly slipped away from my lips, floating in the darkness of the dawn.

Yes, the watch in my wrist showed number two, flashing in red. It was two in the morning, yet I could not close my eyes. Out of nowhere, my hands were tempted to reach for the white rosary next to bed. A rosary from home, something that I had never touched for a long time. It was white and shiny, each bead was made from pearl. As white as a baby soul should be.

With my mouth recited Hail Mary constantly, my mind wandered around leaving my body and entering the ethereal field. Formless, weightless, bland. No eyes, but I could see my corporeal body moved like an automaton.

What was it that I was looking? I denounced my faith in any religion and I stripped myself off from any religious dogmas. But what on earth had encouraged me to recite the mantra of the roses?

Ah, it was not God the father that I was looking. No, the Father is nothing but a bastard! Afterall, Father is the figure of law, the limitation waiting to be killed. While the Queen of the Roses is a kind woman. She was the primordial mother, the womb of the earth.

Yes, I was trying to find my way back to that comfortable cave. I longed for the breast of Gaia, whose every drop of milk turned red and came penetrating our every vein. It's the forgotten mother, the earth herself.

And I saw her, naked in all her glories. She stripped away all of her tunic and went to the ocean. With her ripe breast, she seduced the might ocean, asking him to embrace her. She let the tide fondle her breasts, led her into celestial pleasure. Her long hair covered each coast line while she moaned joyfully. Her cries of happiness was in rhyme with the sound of waves and the whistling seagulls. The ocean rolled her along the sand, touching every spot of mother's body. She gasped as the salt water embrace her figure, drowning her in ecstasy. Her belly trembled with glee as the ripples caress her back.

It was the wildest intercourse ever imagined. Yet, it was very soothing and moving. A celestial love among the earth and the ocean. The sacred matrimony and the beginning of every life. The prime mother, that's what we've been forgetting all along. A nurturing God, not a condemning one. She who cares about the world and not set the law. The breast of life and the cave where people can reside safely.

Yes. The mother, the Queen of Roses, the Goddess of Mercy.

"Hail Mary full of grace....."
"Om Maha Kali, Shri Maha Lhaksmi, Maha Sarasvati...."
"Om Mani Padme Hum....."

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Binary Trouble

It's about stereotype for gender binary, guys. With the existence of Queer Theory, why do we still gender the stereotypes?

I am biologically my man, but what is my gender?
I certainly know nothing about Manchester United,
but I don't care either with the designer of Kate Middleton's wedding dress!
Yes I like to play video game and dislike playing Barbie doll,
but I am good at cooking and bad at mechanics.
I love opera, but don't ask me about fashion tips.
I dislike Twilight, Edward Cullen, Bella, and Jacob
the same way I don't like Saving Private Ryan.
But at the same time, I like The Butterfly Effect and Zatoichi.
I don't like Miyabi, but I favour Terra Patrick.
For me Brad Pitt is hot, but Jolie is not. Nicole Kidman is.
Yes, I watched Queer as Folk. But let me say that I also watch The L Word.
Don't get me wrong, I ogle on Power Girl's costume but Wonder Woman with pants is equally hot, while Superman is a steroid victim.

THE QUESTION IS, HOW IMPORTANT ARE THOSE THINGS?

I will still live on without knowing the detail for Manchester United or Royal Wedding. Jacques Lacan is far more interesting!

Eat your bashing stereotyping comment, dear friends. Gender is constructed, and not an innate thing. Stop bashing, stop the stereotype, and one day you'll know that there are more important things than the binary.

PS : I watch Glee, and I believe it might also be your guilty pleasure.

Monday, May 09, 2011

A Girl Who Kills Her Own Heart

“I’ve killed my own heart!”

That is the most shocking sentence I’ve ever heard. What does this girl mean?

“How can you live without a heart?”

She laughed.

“I am alive, that’s it!”

“But, how can you kill your own heart? Who’s going to regulate your blood circulation?”

“I am alive. Isn’t that self explanatory? I don’t need my heart to pump the blood!”

I was puzzled with her explanation. But she just smiled mysteriously.

“I took my heart out and crushed it. But contrary to the medical belief, I don’t have the blood in there. My colleagues were as surprised as I was during the surgery. But that is the fact. No blood!”

Silence.

“Tell me then, what is your secret?”

“My heart is the heart of the world. I crushed it and gave it to people suffering in remote parts of the world. Each piece grows into a new heart, pumping the blood into their already cold bodies, heating their mind and spirit. Each beat of their hearts becomes my heartbeat. Each drop of blood in their veins flows through my veins. They need my heart more than I do. On the other hand, I won’t have a heart attack or broken heart!”

She waved goodbye and went her own way.

She’s right. She kills her own heart, yet she’s more alive than many people.

Friday, May 06, 2011

The Dead Father and Symbollic Order

Well, this time I am fascinated by dear Jacques Lacan (and to think how I hated him before with all his difficult framework). My research leads me to read his concept of Name-of-the-Father. It is started as a psychoanalytical theory, but then it becomes really popular in literature. After careful observation, it turns out to be really interesting.

So, what is this Name-of-the-Father? According to Lacan, human grows because of the separation from the 'mother' and the taking up of a position with respect to the Law of the Father. 'Mother' here refers to the primordial sense of comfort and joy. Well, if we would refer to Freud, mother is the source of warmth and food while we are still in the infancy stage. However, the father then 'castrated' the child through the separation from the mother. Of course, this is done to nurture the child, right? But this separation will create a trauma for the child and led to an intense hatred. (Ooops, I'm going too far to Freud. Let's revert back!)

The main thing with Lacan is that in order to grow, the infant should be separated from the comfort of the mother and kill the Father. Yep! Killing the father. However, unlike Freud who took it literaly, everything in Lacan is symbolic. Well, we cannot deny that a dead father in many stories will open a possibility for the hero to harness and wield a greater power. I guess, the death of the father is a primordial desire nesting in our subconsciousness. No matter what you do, an offspring can never really escape from the shadow of the predecessor. The only way to stand on their own is to 'erase' the predecessor.

Now, in the concept of the 'Father', Lacan called it the figure of Law. As a figure of Law, 'father' is the determiner of everything. In some ways, some Lacan scholars compared the concept of 'Father' with Freud's Jewish God Yahweh. Both are the upholding yet demanding agency which never reveals its true face. A great authority, in short. Furthermore, Nobus (2000) defined Name-of-the-Father as a "culturally determined regulation of the natural order of things." The Order!

Well, if we see Name-of-the-Father as 'regime of the normal', then it justifies the movement of feminism and queer theory. Both talk about the struggle against norm. And what is the characteristic of norms? Dictating, regarded as a natural order, and full or authority. And in relation to Young Adult's text (which is my research object), the rebellion of adolescent is directed against various institution such as school, law, and religion.

Then, if we assume that human being is a group of adolescents, it is quite normal for them to rebel against the 'Father'. Afterall, without the rebellion, they will never trully understand their position within the power structure. Robert Samuels mentioned that "[i]t is through the castration complex that each subject must accept the intervention of the law and the desire of the Other, by either affirming or denying the role of the phallus in the determination of identity" (1993: 27). Some decided to succumb with following the oppression, and some decided to live outside the structure.

True, if we kill the father, we will be immersed into the order. Afterall, the death of the father is the entry to the symbolic Order, the so-called-pseudo-stability. Yeah, I am being sceptic here, since there is no such thing as a perfect stability. That is just a utopia!

In respect to my last article about drag and religion, the rebellion against Name-of-the-Father can also be paralleled with questioning the norm in religion. When we see the religion as the 'ultimate' law of humankind (which is happening right now by people worshiping religion and not God), therefore the growth can only be achieved through the death of religion. Afterall, in the evolution of religion, they are diminishing each other, by trying to kill the predecessor. Seeing the concept of Uber-man and Superman in Nietzsche, I guess it can be said that they have kill their 'father' as in religion. And why are they called super? Because they've already risen to the status of hero, just like in Campbell's Heroic Monomyth (1949).

But what is the consequence? Being fatherless means conquering the phallic figure but there is a shift from the oppressed into oppressor. When one kill one's father and rise to the symbolic order, one will be 'father' for other. Thus, other people will try to kill. (See, this is why I never thought that utopia will never happen). In terms of rebellion against religion (let's just say the atheist or agnostic), when they successfully topple the religions right now, automatically they will form new symbolic order.

I guess, that's why Pippi Langstrump although empowered by the absence of his father still maintain the fact that his father is still alive. Afterall, no challenge and resistance will make life's dull, eh?

(Again, what am I writing here???)