Not in a long time have I read a seemingly little book so slowly. I must confess I bought the paperback for fifty cents at a used book store for the romantic title (I love travelogues), a picture of a young Mel Gibson (but the
cover was the only piece of fluff in the book!) and because I was too cheap to rent the movie. I knew little about
either the 1982 movie (also featuring a younger Sigourney Weaver) or the poetic Australian author and
journalist, C. J. Koch.
Friendship, romance, idealism, obsession and ultimately betrayal are woven amongst historical and political intrigue as a group of foreign correspondents is stationed in Indonesia during turbulent 1965. Indonesia? I knew little more about this country since the time I lived in Kingston, Jamaica and one of my letters mistakenly posted to the capital city of the NEXT tiny island nation on the equator: Jakarta, Indonesia.
Let me leave you just enough detail about some of the characters to spark your curiousity: There's Billy Kwan, a half Chinese-Australian cameraman who happens to be a dwarf. His eccentric political philosophies loom large in comparison to his tiny stature. Billy's partner and idol, Guy Hamilton, is a Western journalist and an ambitious, solitary soul desperate to make a name for himself. Jill is an expatriate embassy secretary, suspicious, vulnerable and still naive after a succession of mismatched romantic involvements. Wally O'Sullivan, or "The Great Wally," as he is called, is the group's unofficial leader and respected news veteran. He is enormously fat and harbors his own secret sorrows despite the numerous parties he hosts.
Before the war in Vietnam consumed the world's attention, Indonesia had it's brief moment in the international
spotlight. The dictatorial, charismatic, Western-hating President Sukarno called upon his small, bitterly poor nation to defy U.N. convention and invade neighboring Malaysia. What happens to Indonesia's future if his plan succeeds is the crucible in which the fates of Koch's colorful characters are depicted. Intricately laced with many fascinating and unfamiliar elements, The Year of Living Dangerously is told in such a way that the reader can feel as if part of the tightly knit circle of "international press corps" who gather every day for Happy Hour in the Wayang Bar at the Hotel Indonesia to discuss the day's events or Sukarno's latest propaganda speech. Not a single character was ever who they seemed and exposing layer after articulate layer was half the pleasure of the trip. I was able to sightsee a little on that "other" island, one continent east, along the equator. Kochs describes it as the "Gate of the World. . . the most crowded island on earth [yet] as you fly into Java from Sumatra, over the Sunda Straits, [Indonesia] appears mysteriously devoid of human settlement. Indigo cones of volcanoes rise into the clouds from jade territories which seem as empty as those of the world's dawn. But these are the paddy fields and terraces the people cultivate to the very rims of the craters. President Sukarno tells us in his speeches that Java's spirit is the terrible volcano Merapi, which seems to sleep, but is always ready to explode in violence."
A few of my favorite passages follow: (in the opening pages) ... I awaited the appearance of a successor with
some interest. Kwan jerked around suddenly and squinted across the doorway where a tall man in a well-cut
tan suit had made the obligatory blind halt to adjust to the Wayang's night. 'This'll be Hamilton,' he said, and
dropped like an acrobat from his stool to the floor. Fists slightly clenched, elbows out from his sides, he
hurried off, with a ghost of that rocking motion peculiar to the large-headed dwarfs one sometimes passes in
the street. The newcomer's face, caught in the glow of the nearby candle, looked startled when he found
himself confronted by Kwan. The cameraman extended his hand, tilting his head back and offering his broad
Chinese grin. As he came with Kwan towards the round bar, Hamilton's tallness was fantastically
exaggerated. The spiky head only just reached his elbow; it was as the new man walked with a strange child.
(Later in the book) A silence fell in which they stood and looked at each other, as though trying to decide
something. A panel of sun lay between them on the glazed ochre titles of the floor; the dusty quiet took on an
illusion of tenderness as the blades of the aged fan gestured above their heads. After they became lovers,
they would look back on this brink, and admit that each had guessed the other's awareness. Despite past
affairs, they were both still young enough for the excitement which springs from sensing that a story has begun
whose end can't be foreseen; and they were both old enough to know that life could offer them few if anymore
such beginnings. ******************************************************** This as well as most of Koch's books may
be hard to find, but I assure you they're worth the wait and adventure.