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House of Glass Buru Quartet Pramoedya Ananta Toer Max Lane Books

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House of Glass Buru Quartet Pramoedya Ananta Toer Max Lane Books

Volume 4 of the Buru Quartet gives us a startling change of perspective. This time, the narrator is not Minke, the native journalist and nationalist in the Dutch East Indies of the early 20th century, but the policeman, who arrested Minke at the end of volume 3.

The narrator is a troubled soul. He is the highest ranked native in the colonial police force, and he suffers badly from doing the colonial oppressors' work against his own people and against his inner leanings. He admires Minke and resents what he does to him. As Kurt Vonnegut says about the double agent in Mother Night, which I reviewed recently: be careful what you pretend to be. (It might grab your soul.)

As a reader, I have this problem with Pramoedya's man: he can't say or do anything in a straight way. As a typical Indonesian, everything comes in a roundabout manner. He does get on my nerves at times. Case in point: his boss in the police gives him two official letters. The first tells him that the government retires him from the police force. That depresses him so badly that he doesn't want to read the other one. He nearly misses the great news that he gets appointed to the colonial administration staff with a nice raise. What a dork.
In fact, he becomes the chief analyst of the political police and gets more and more eager to win the battle against rising political forces that threaten the colonial rule.
As we know with hindsight, the Dutch lost this war of attrition, but not quickly.

In case that you attempt to read this as a thriller, beware of the following spoiler!
The narrator develops his destructive potential more than his shrinking 'good core'. He becomes an outright sadist, enjoying his power and the abuses that he can get away with.

The annoying mindset of the narrator doesn't damage the novel, which is a suitable closing chapter to Pramoedya's magnum opus. Admittedly, some chapters in this volume are a bit dry, but I have yet to see a better literary introduction to this irritating country.

Finally a critical word about this Penguin volume. The glossary isn't as good as in the first three volumes. I looked up quite a few terms from the text, that were not explained.


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House of Glass Buru Quartet Pramoedya Ananta Toer Max Lane Books Reviews

Honestly I will read nearly anything and this self-endulgent novel is dreadful, a cure for insomnia if you need one.
This is the final book of a four book set that Pramoedya composed while a political prisoner. It's the best combination of drama, political satire and real history that I've ever found. Truly an amazing writer that everyone should read at least once (start with This Earth of Mankind).
Meet my expectation
Interesting book that ends the quartet. As with the preceding three, Toer
invites your curiosity to turn yet another page to find out what happens next. His play of historic events with the character Minke pulls the reader into the story and the history of colonial Indonesia. This series
should be in the movies.
The last of the Buru Quartet, which has a different narrator than the first three books. A fitting conclusion to a very well writen Historical Fiction about a colonization, Indonesia, and various nationalities and ethic groups.
Those who know Java will probably most appreciate this tale of Javanese politics before and during WW1. However, it is a very well-written and extremely poignant story of how the oppressed gradually free themselves through the valiant, but often misguided, efforts of heros, and also how "power corrupts" even those who are aware of the homily and start out to be incorruptable. I read this last book of the Buru Quartet first, and it seems to not be a bad way to do it. I will go on to the first one. Most likely these are going to be classics in the fields of Literature, Socialogy, and Political Science.
Fourth and final book in Buru quartet, narrated by the police commissioner Pangemanann. He becomes the leading theoretician to guide the colonial government in controlling the local social and political movements before they become a danger to the regime. He is an admirer of Minke secretly but also wants to rise in the ranks of government officialdom. Often he is conflicted but his self-interest as he sees it wins out.
Volume 4 of the Buru Quartet gives us a startling change of perspective. This time, the narrator is not Minke, the native journalist and nationalist in the Dutch East Indies of the early 20th century, but the policeman, who arrested Minke at the end of volume 3.

The narrator is a troubled soul. He is the highest ranked native in the colonial police force, and he suffers badly from doing the colonial oppressors' work against his own people and against his inner leanings. He admires Minke and resents what he does to him. As Kurt Vonnegut says about the double agent in Mother Night, which I reviewed recently be careful what you pretend to be. (It might grab your soul.)

As a reader, I have this problem with Pramoedya's man he can't say or do anything in a straight way. As a typical Indonesian, everything comes in a roundabout manner. He does get on my nerves at times. Case in point his boss in the police gives him two official letters. The first tells him that the government retires him from the police force. That depresses him so badly that he doesn't want to read the other one. He nearly misses the great news that he gets appointed to the colonial administration staff with a nice raise. What a dork.
In fact, he becomes the chief analyst of the political police and gets more and more eager to win the battle against rising political forces that threaten the colonial rule.
As we know with hindsight, the Dutch lost this war of attrition, but not quickly.

In case that you attempt to read this as a thriller, beware of the following spoiler!
The narrator develops his destructive potential more than his shrinking 'good core'. He becomes an outright sadist, enjoying his power and the abuses that he can get away with.

The annoying mindset of the narrator doesn't damage the novel, which is a suitable closing chapter to Pramoedya's magnum opus. Admittedly, some chapters in this volume are a bit dry, but I have yet to see a better literary introduction to this irritating country.

Finally a critical word about this Penguin volume. The glossary isn't as good as in the first three volumes. I looked up quite a few terms from the text, that were not explained.