CBR15Bingo: Asia & Oceania (all about Indonesia and experiencing the uprising that unseated Suharto)
I picked this up because I loved The People Who Eat Darkness, Parry’s later work about trying to catch a murderer in Japan. It is such a great book that I’ve been wanting to read other work by him, so I was happy to find out that he’d written this part memoir, part on the spot reporting about the time he’d spent in Indonesia as a young journalist. I didn’t know much of anything about Indonesia other than it being the world’s fourth largest country, that it’s very diverse, and that there are religious tensions, which always made me feel like I should know way more about it considering how big it is. It’s a real oversight in both American news media and our educational system that I can make it to 32 knowing so little about one of the world’s largest countries. So on starting this, I was excited both to read more from Parry and to pick up some more information about Indonesia itself.
This is a good book but it’s definitely a rough read. Parry doesn’t hold anything back in terms of describing the horrific violence and genocide that he encounters. I think his descriptions of the trauma this causes him and the expectations he had going into the situations of trying to be a sort of gonzo young journalist who wanted to appear that he could handle everything were moving and genuine. Parry arrives in Indonesia with very little knowledge of the country, which as a reader who also was entering the book that way, made this a more meaningful reading experience for me, as I felt like I was learning along with him. You also experience his descent into hell with him, which is pretty chilling. At first he feels like it’s all a big adventure and nothing can hurt him, even as he’s in the midst of extreme violence and seeing active cannibalism. This sort of remove is pretty psychologically understandable as a defense mechanism and also works well as a narrative device since as the reader, you are also removed. By the end of the book, Parry is trapped in an even worse situation, surrounded by killing and in legitimate fear for his life as journalists around him are killed. His nerves can’t take it anymore and he agrees to be evacuated. He grapples with this moment of collapse, feeling that he “found out exactly how brave I am, and no more.” In this way, the book serves as both a historical document and a coming of age narrative, and I believe it succeeds at both. I found it to be powerful and felt that I got at least a little bit of a grounding in Indonesia (although it’s such a complex country that I probably have a grounding of 1/10th of 1%). Your mileage may vary here since I think the narrative of Westerner coming and gawking at an Asian country is overdone and colonialist, but Parry’s personal experience is compelling and his writing is gripping. He’s remained a renowned reporter for a reason. He’s only written three books, which is a real shame, but considering how grim they all are I can understand why he can’t churn them out like Dame Barbara Cartland. I recommend this but just be prepared for non-stop, vivid descriptions of the most horrific violence.
Warnings for: cannibalism, murder, genocide and all that entails.
