Reviews

Cantik itu Luka by Eka Kurniawan

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meggles's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

msmagoo502's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

meghaha's review against another edition

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2.0

"One afternoon on a weekend in March, Dewi Ayu rose from her grave after being dead for twenty-one years."

cw: sexual violence

Beauty is a Wound has a great opening line. Eka Kurniawan is an ambitious writer, and similarly to how I felt when I read Zadie Smith’s White Teeth, it amazes me that someone around my age (he must’ve been 25 or 26 when he wrote Beauty is a Wound) could pen something so sprawling and self-assured. Kurniawan possesses an impermeable confidence as he wryly narrates events that occurred long before he was born. He has a willingness to write about an large array of characters — the major ones are a prostitute and her children, a communist, a solider, and a criminal boss. And he attempts to inhabit many minds over many years.

The last is where he fails. Because unfortunately, I don’t think Kurniawan is capable of writing women without his misogynistic baggage coloring the narrative. And that's why I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone.

This was my first venture into Indonesian literature, and it pains me that it wasn’t a successful undertaking. Indonesia is the fourth most populous country in the world, and yet I know very little about it. I’ve realized there aren’t as many Indonesian immigrants in the US as one would expect compared to relative share of population and other Asian immigrants, and perhaps this accounts for some of my staggering unfamiliarity with the country and its culture and history.

This book, at the very least, was informative. I appreciate that Kurniawan wrote about the effects of Dutch colonization and of Japanese occupation during WWII. Also, I’d never heard about the 1956-1966 Communist purge that resulted in an estimated 500,000 to 3 million deaths until I read about it in Beauty is a Wound. Perhaps this is tangential, but I want to note that when I looked up the wikipedia article to get the statistics to include in this review, I saw a section on US complicity.

While the exact role of the United States government during the massacres remains obscured by still sealed government archives pertaining to Indonesia for this period, it is known that, "at a minimum," the US government supplied money and communications equipment to the Indonesian Army that facilitated the mass killings, gave fifty million rupiah to the KAP-Gestapu death squad, and provided targeted names of thousands of alleged PKI leaders to the Indonesian Army.

I suppose I should’ve realized. Pretty much whenever there’s been a coup, revolution, or mass violence against communists or socialists in the world, the U.S. was lurking in the shadows — financing, training, and providing support. It's morally bankrupt actions like these, committed both in foreign lands and within the country, that makes it impossible to say "yes" to the ever present question, "Are you proud to be an American?"

But back to the novel itself. Much of why I didn’t like this book was the amount of sexual violence and how it's depicted. I know that’s rich coming from someone who once rated A Game of Thrones five stars (though I suspect if I were to reread it now, I wouldn’t tolerate it so well). It’s not that I think rape shouldn’t be portrayed, but how it’s portrayed is crucial, especially when the writer is a man writing about women. I mean, there’s passages like this:

"After such a brutal rampage of being raped by five homeless bums, the girl now showed herself to be a wild lover. "

What? I know that this book is supposed to satirical and allegorical and full of lofty artistic devices, but I don't get it. Is this supposed to be satirical because it’s so over-the-top, the idea that someone who’s just been gang-raped is going to make love to the next guy she sees? Is that what Kurniawan is trying to say? Or is he just being a misogynistic male writer? Unfortunately, I’m more convinced of the latter. Because later on, a wife who’s been raped by her husband many times gives consent for the first time and there’s a long sex scene described in loving detail. Just, no.

There’s also the disturbing way Kurniawan describes young girls and teenaged girls. One of many examples:

"Year after year passed, and the little girl began to grow into an adolescent. She was already much taller, her body had filled out and her breasts were developing perfectly.”

This is so creepy. There’s so much sexualization of teenaged girls, in the narrative itself. If Kurniawan trying to make some higher point, I didn’t get it, and all I felt was extremely uncomfortable at various points in the book and wary of his intentions.

I don’t think I’m a particularly squeamish reader — I can read horror and I can read grotesque books and still appreciate them for their literary worth even if they were unpleasant reads. That’s why the blurb didn’t faze me. But this was just too much for me to take in one book, because in addition to the endless sexual violence and mass killings, there’s bestiality, pedophilia, murder, and hundreds of dogs killed. It’s an unrelenting onslaught of disgusting and horrific events.

I will say that I did like the magical realist elements: a bullet-proof fighter who is lured to Halimunda in search of the most beautiful princess in the world, only to find out she’s been dead for centuries. A pig, once killed, who changes into a man. As well as the communist ghosts and the curse/haunting that’s at the center of the book, which goes partly (but only partly!) to explaining why Kurniawan degrades his female characters in every way imaginable.

I’m curious what Indonesian women think of this book. I really regret not specifically finding an Indonesian woman author to read as my introduction to the country's literature. This has been a reminder to me of the importance of intersectionality when seeking diverse reads.

bibliofienna's review against another edition

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5.0

Buku yang absurd dan penuh tragedi cinta yang masuk akal di akhir cerita.

Buku ini bercerita tentang seorang wanita yang hidup kembali setelah kematiannya 21 tahun yang lalu. Bercerita tentang tragedi keluarga dari bagaimana Ia bisa dilahirkan, bagaimana Ia menghadapi kehidupan masa perang dan setelah perang hingga diceritakan juga nasib dari keturunannya.

Bingung ga kenapa bisa orang bangkot dari kubur? Sepanjang jalannya buku, kamu juga akan dibuat bingung dan merasa absurd karena ke-vulgar-an kata dan cerita buku ini. Sebenernya tokoh di dalam cerita ini juga dibuat sadar bahwa hal-hal tersebut absurd tapi yaudah memang selalu terjadi keajaiban dalam dunia Cantik Itu Luka, jadi ya kita akan lama-lama terbiasa

marie_adina's review against another edition

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5.0

Excellent story weaving

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and its circular story telling. It was satisfying to see how it all tied together in the end.

rtcrook's review against another edition

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DNF'd at 47%. I'm all for uncomfortable reads and have pretty thick skin when it comes to books. I enjoyed parts of this - I liked the characters, the history of Indonesian colonialism, and the writing style - but graphic SA once (or more) times a chapter is a lot to ask any reader to handle. I could probably make it to the end without too much mental harm done but I'm trying to DNF things I don't want to read rather than slogging through them.