Various Novels by Takdir and Nur St. Iskandar

Abstract

However, the marked development we see in these important novels is not typical of Indonesian literature as a whole, and it is hardly possible to subdivide or periodise Indonesian novels along the lines suggested by those four or five books. In the case of some writers, e. g. Takdir Alisjahbana⁹⁵and Nur St. Iskandar, it is possible to discern some more or less clear development in their own work. Takdir’s best novel was preceded by three others, the first being: Ta’ Putus Dirundung Malang (Endlessly Dogged by Bad Luck) of 1929, written when the author was barely 20 years old. It is a sad story of two orphaned children, who have to leave their native district on account of all kinds of indignities inflicted upon them by an uncle. They go to Bangkahulu (Bencoolen). There the boy is put in jail on a false accusation, and the girl, bereft of his protection, falls prey to a villain, and out of shame and misery she commits suicide. Then the boy, after he has been released, becomes a sailor, surly and lonesome, until he finally drowns in the same sea where his sister ended her life. No less tragic is Takdir’s second novel, Dian jang ta’ Kundjung Padam (The Lamp which will Never Go Out, 1932), which tells of the love of a poor boy Jasin for Molek, a rich girl of Palembang nobility; a love doomed to failure because the girl was forced to marry a rich Arab. The epilogue is characteristic.