The Mute's Soliloquy [Hardcover]

Pramoedya Toer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 28, 1999

From the author of the Buru Quartet and one of the greatest writers of our time comes a remarkable memoir of imprisonment and survival.

In 1965, Pramoedya Ananta Toer was detained by Indonesian authorities and eventually exiled to the penal island of Buru. Without a formal accusation or trial, the onetime national hero was imprisoned on Buru for eleven years. He survived under brutal conditions, somehow managing to produce his masterwork, the four novels of the Buru Quartet, as well as the remarkable journal entries, essays, and letters that comprise this moving memoir.

Reminiscent of the work of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Mute's Soliloquy is a harrowing portrait of a penal colony and a heartbreaking remembrance of life before it. With a resonance far beyond its particular time and place, it is Pramoedya's crowning achievement--a passionate tribute to the freedom of the mind and a celebration of the human spirit.

"A haunting record of a great writer's attempt to keep his imagination and his humanity alive."-- The New York Times Book Review

"A story too vast and serious to ignore."-- San Francisco Chronicle (front page review)

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Only its fragmentary structure (for which there is good reason) will keep Pramoedya's memoir from being ranked with Eugenia Ginzburg's Journey into the Whirlwind among the great documents by 20th-century political prisoners. Written on Buru Island penal colony, where Pramoedya spent 14 years doing forced labor (1965-79), the book is the great Indonesian novelist's first work of nonfiction to be published abroad. Pramoedya relates the horrors of the bloodbath in which the Suharto military regime murdered a million innocent people and imprisoned a million more following the overthrow of President Sukarno. Beaten so badly at the time of his arrest that he remains nearly deaf today, held incommunicado from his wife and children with no trial and no formal charges levied against him, Pramoedya managed to smuggle out of prison these notes, essays and letters. "These are personal notes, nothing more. There is no grand plan here," Pramoedya writes in a foreword. Together, these writings constitute a rough-hewn autobiography composed with astonishing equanimity and punctuated by passages of acute lyricism. Pramoedya traces the influence of his self-sacrificing mother and his father, a nationalist revolutionary; frankly discusses his tumultuous first marriage and happy second marriage; relives the travails of Japan's occupation of Indonesia (1942-1945); and muses on death, religion, politics and caste oppression. His closing "Table of the Dead and Missing," a detailed listing of the victims of Buru Island, stands, like the book itself, as a monument to the struggle for human rights. In a fetid prison designed to strip him of his humanity, Pramoedya found his true literary voice, producing several novels, including the epic Buru Quartet, and one drama. That resilient voice, humane and observant, demands to be heard. (Apr.) FYI: The Mute's Soliloquy, as well as The Dragon Hunt by Tran Vu, marks the launch of Hyperion East.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

In 1965, Indonesian novelist Toer was sent to Buru, a prison island where he would spend the next 17 years for reasons never actually explained to him, though surely his populist critiques of an oppressive Indonesian regime were at the root. While a prisoner, Toer felt himself a "mute," unable to exercise his literary voice through his novels. But he did secretly jot down this collection of letters, essays, and notes, and in them life on Buru is shown in terrible precision, from the near-starvation conditions that cause men to lose fully half their weight, to the slave labor they perform for tyrannical guards, and the many interrogations Toer endured. Not surprisingly, he contemplates the serenity of death, but rejects this way out, affirming the life he once had and hopes to regain. Strangely calm, often wry, and deeply moving. Brian McCombie

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: Hyperion; 1st edition (April 28, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786864168
• ISBN-13: 978-0786864164
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #957,819 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I thought Indonesian literature had no hero, August 24, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Mute's Soliloquy: A Memoir (Mass Market Paperback)

As a gen-xer, I grew up in Indonesia not knowing anything about Pram. He was a figure who popped up in the newspapers once in a while for receiving this or that award or when each of his new publication was banned by the regime. Possessing his book was a crime punishable by law. As a teenager, I saw his book, "The House of Glass" (rumah kaca) in a Singapore library, I was really curious, and felt compelled to pick it up. However, I was brought up never to challenge the authority so I stared from afar, hesitating whether to pick it up or not. I decided against it.

Years from then I would see that picture of young me in "The Mute's Soliloquy." A boy timid from intimidation. A boy raised in fear, never realising that the only thing to fear should have been fear itself. Pram, in a free world, I would grow up just like you didn't want your children to grow up. Pram, in a country I loved, I was told not to love it because it has no love for me. You wrote about the plight of a Hoakiou like me and that landed you in jail. I thank you for that.

In Indonesia, hardly anybody feel the power of a book anymore. Not me, Pram, I was with there with you through your sufferings. I was there with you in your tiny little house in front of the swamp cabbage. I never knew how much I love the country until I picked up "This Earth of Mankind." It came a little too late in my life, but, still I want to thank you for it.

It is a little sad for me to only be able to express all my admiration and gratitude in a forum like this. I hope this reached you one day, in whatever form it might be. I want to let you know that they might have taken away a large chunk of your life, but they will never take away your spirit and ideals. They are alive and well with me and many other readers who feel the same way. God bless you, Pram.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Story of Survival in the Indonesian Gulag, December 20, 1999

By 

Joseph Schechter (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Mute's Soliloquy (Hardcover)

I had not read any of Pramoedya Ananta Toer's books before this one, but I will now try to read them all!

This volume is a compilation of various materials that Mr. Toer was able to write during his imprisonment (without trial) for 13 years. Most of that time was spent on the remote island of Buru, where he and other prisoners were used as corvee' laborers to reshape the island. They did this at a huge price in human suffering and death.

However, I would emphasize that the artistry and raw beauty in Mr. Toer's writing in The Mute's Soliloquy, shines through the misery and isolation faced by the author and the other prisoners. Mr. Toer gives us an idea of how he and some of other prisoners managed to maintain their basic humanity in the face of deprivation, torture and brutality. Mr. Toer's letters to his children, in particular, are moving, sometimes humorous, and insightful.

His book is a worthy companion of those by Primo Levi, Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, and Elie Weisel.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A very moving & honest book!, August 20, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Mute's Soliloquy (Hardcover)

As usual, Pramoedya succeeds in giving a very moving and honest portrayal of life in Indonesia. This book evokes emotions deep within one's heart. It brings out one's compassions for the writer, his family, and his fellow prisoners. It also gives a very good description of how successfully had the Soeharto's regime oppressed the minds of Indonesian people. When reading this book, as with reading any of Pramoedya's books, one gets the sense of how passionately he loves Indonesia, how great a hope he has for the country and the people despite of all the atrocious treatments he has received from the government. However, the average readers will need to have a basic knowledge of Indonesian modern history from the year 1945 to be able to better enjoy this book.