Footsteps

I agree that this third book of the great Buru Quartet should not be read first, as it would be not make sense, and therefore might be boring. Yet, it is the necessary transition between the early life of Minke (Toer's alter ego) in books 1 and 2, and the final summary book, House of Glass. It covers the important period when Menke becomes convinced that he must lead his people against the oppression of the Dutch Government, which he does by the power of the pen. I read 4 first - then 1,2,and 3, and I think this actually may work better than reading them 1,2,3,4. Taken as a whole, the Buru Quartet is a powerful, magnificent work, and we can see why it was earlier banned. It is an education in the history and culture of Indonesia, combined with several touching love stories, concentrating on the people of the Island of Java. The books may be more enjoyable if you are familiar with Java and more educational if you are not. Either way, even if read just as a novel, the writing is superb.

This book is a great novel about Dutch occupation of Indonesia. Very interesting and good history presented in novel form.

As we follow the developing story of Minke, we watch his footsteps leave the place of the former story and begin to explore the outside world through the study of medicine. It is clear that this study will yield for him government employment and the opportunity to help his fellow people. At the same time this is happening, he is constantly aware and being made more aware by those around him of his own people and how little he knows about them since his preference for Dutch language and education i.e. the filter of colonialism prioritizes everything and weights it in a certain manner. Influences from a developing China, the Philippines and a budding new anticolonial spirit begin to flourish in the greater environment and bring freshness, humility and depth to concepts previously understood only in a colonial fashion. In Footsteps we watch Minke grow in consciousness, develop leadership skills and independence and begin to listen to a different drummer both in terms of who his people are, and what he might best do, for them and with them. His path is changed and word by word, experience by experience, we are present at the birth of an organizer, a political journalist and a nationalist critic.