Review: ENTROK by Okky Madasari
Have you ever read a book that gets you so mad you feel the need to stab someone?
I think that's just how big the effect Entrok had on me.
This book tells the story about a mother and daughter, Marni and Rahayu, completely different individuals who grew up in different era, with different beliefs and moral values, yet they are the same. Blood is thicker than water. Living under the corrupted New Order regime, they fought hard against injustice and found their way back to each other, although things doesn't always end the way they wanted.
As a young person who had never tasted Soeharto's regime, this book enraged me so much. It's a known fact that those years violated the freedom of speech and human rights big time, but I've never really considered how it affected the people at the time. Especially people living in villages, who still holds the old-fashioned way of thinking and customs, making it relatively easier for the people in power to control them.
This book provides a much more personal point of view of the dictatorship era. Marni's struggle to run her business and defend her own pride against the patriarchy at the time, only to watch the soldiers and the men in his life taking all her hard work away. Being the only one who questions justice, only to be told to shut up and play along. Rahayu's realization on the terror that had been going on forever in this country, and her courage to step up and defend people's right till the end of the line.
What hooked me to the story was the harsh truth it spits, the fact that it might've had happened somewhere in the past. It brought the sentences alive, powerful, and drenched with emotion. Everything made me so angry and I felt like a princess living in a fairytale land for not knowing the dark past of my own country. Also I have a soft spot for female characters struggling against the inequality within their traditional customs. Basically, there are lots of reasons of why I love this book so much that I'm letting the frigid writing style (boring, highly descriptive, less showing and more telling) go.
I love the flawed, in-depth characterization: Marni and Rahayu both had the strong feminist traits, they both yearn for justice, but they also had their moments of vulnerability and doubt, and their needs to be loved as a wife. Even they could not tolerate each other's difference, which lead to their parting ways.
The title itself means 'bra' in Javanese. At the start of the story, Marni, entering her early teenage years, couldn't afford a bra. She worked as a carrier in the market to earn the money, and later she expands her business to reselling household items and owing debts. Bra was literally the first thing that got her into wealth at the first place. I also like to think that the bra is a symbol to growing up--realizing that the world isn't such a perfect place after all, that you're no longer a child and no one could protect you because the authority is fucked up. You take on your own responsibilites and fight for your own rights.
So, yeah, definitely recommended for everyone. Especially if you're concerned about social justice and feminism issues, or New Order cases. This book will piss you off your chair, sure, but as they say: if you're not angry, you're not paying attention.
[Just my personal thing, but I think the ending is hauntingly perfect. It emphasizes the length this life would go through to ruin someone's life just to prove that it is, in fact, not fair. And as soon as you realize what it's got to do with the opening scene, you'll feel goosebumps on your neck and would immediately throw the book away. (At least I threw mine on the floor. I know. Not cool.)]
