Customer Reviews

A Tale from Bali

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
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Slightly dry but straightforward writing builds a fine drama about Bali's puputan (the horrific mass suicide of the royal court before a full assembly of attacking Dutch troops).

The novel's characters are nicely painted through their thoughts and deeds; Baum does not rely on elaborate physical description. In the style of Grand Hotel (which later spawned the genre of human interest disaster movies), the novel's characters are only human, poignant in their foibles. Among them are the pretty little dancer Lambon, her selfish but likeable brother Pak, the proud entertainer Raka, the bored Dutch bureaucrat Boomsmer. There is royalty and slavery and peasants and mystics: Baliphiles will love this re-release of a classic.

The book never belittles the Balinese with colonialist tactics, and Baum compiled the story from the meticulous notes left to her by Dr. Fabius (longterm resident of Bali). It is a fine story about human error, human virtue.

A bit fat and unwieldy, this paperback would be better read BEFORE you hit the road for Bali. Other good Bali reads: Island of Bali (Covarrubias) and Bali Behind the Seen (Cork).

Just wanted to add that my previous review has an error. In it, I credit a "Dr. Fabius" with supplying author Vicki Baum with invaluable cultural notes on the Balinese. Actually, as Adrian Vickers points out in his marvelous book, Bali: A Paradise Created (also available here through Amazon), Dr. Fabius is simply a pseudonym for the phenomenally influential German artist and long-term Bali resident Walter Spies.

This oddity is probably of little consequence to one's enjoyment of the novel by Vicki Baum. However, it is food for thought; Spies had a singular interpretation of what was the essence of Balinese culture. Artistocratic, gay, and cultured, Spies had firm ideas about what the Balinese needed from the outside world. In a position of ambassador between Balinese royalty and western glitterati, his guests included Baum, the electrifying Margaret Mead and Charlie Chaplin, and through these contacts he did much towards what he thought was best for Bali. He was a highly influential afficianado of Balinese art and music. Vickers suggests that as Spies would patronize one artist and ignore another, he was very strongly shaping the culture of Bali. It would have been in Spies' interest, also, to show Bali and its colonizers in a certain light. Baum produced a novel that highlights Spies' general views, interestingly very much like those of today's usual western visitor to Bali. So this novel is a significant part of the image we have, today, of Bali and its people.

Given this book at the age of 16, I was traumatised by the realisation of how one culture can be so unsympathetic of another...nevertheless it it still stands as the best book I have read in the last 45 years..

I loved this book which I bought in a used bookstore in Ubud and just finished reading this morning on a flight back to Singapore. Reading it in Bali made it all the more real and relevant to my efforts to understand the Balinese. I was hooked after the preface and introduction and my interest never wained. The writing was not brilliant but the story was.