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A Shadow Falls: In The Heart Of Java
Andrew Beatty lived with his family for two and a half years in a village in East Java. When he arrived, he was entranced by a strange and sensual way of life, an unusual tolerance of diversity. Mysticism, Islamic piety and animism coexisted peacefully; the ancient traditions of the shadow play, of spirit beliefs and were - tigers seemed set to endure. Java appeared a mode
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Paperback, 318 pages
Published
May 1st 2009
by Faber & Faber
(first published April 2nd 2009)
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Community Reviews
(showing 1-30 of 55)
Fascinating account of life in East Javanese village anthropological work written as a novel, works well but unlike a novel little development of plot and no denouement. In some ways Bayu shares features with Anatolian villages, in other ways it is uniquely Javanese and I feel it gave me a new way to understand the many hundreds of thousands of Jakarta people who still have strong ties to their native kampung and who regularly return "mudik" for the Eed (Idul fitri). Also explains the rich, plur
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Andrew Beatty describes travel writing, with its inherent risks of oversimplification and misinterpretation, as “a strange and remarkable art.” He prefers the alternative: instead of ranging widely and treading lightly, the author stays in one place to observe it closely, producing the kind of book filed on “travel” shelves only because of its exotic locale. These books can, of course, be every bit as banal as the traditional travelogue — as countless tales of years in Tuscany, Bali and Provence ...more
A Shadow Falls in the Heart of Java
Here is the review I wrote in my blog:
http://jgrayman.wordpress.com/2010/02...
The first paragraph:
Less than a few chapters into Andrew Beatty’s ethnographic travel memoir A Shadow Falls in the Heart of Java the two Big Bads in the book emerge: The State & Reformist Islam. Through efficient descriptive vignettes about the people in a mountainside village just outside of Banyuwangi in East Java where Beatty and his family lived for several years, these twin t ...more
Here is the review I wrote in my blog:
http://jgrayman.wordpress.com/2010/02...
The first paragraph:
Less than a few chapters into Andrew Beatty’s ethnographic travel memoir A Shadow Falls in the Heart of Java the two Big Bads in the book emerge: The State & Reformist Islam. Through efficient descriptive vignettes about the people in a mountainside village just outside of Banyuwangi in East Java where Beatty and his family lived for several years, these twin t ...more
A great book capturing the richness of Javanese culture and the impact of "modern" Islam. A must read for anyone interesting in Indonesia
Interesting anthropology of a town in Java, and the changes that it undergoes with the advent of a harsh form of Islam. The author does a good job of capturing the essence of the place, and particularly its tolerant, syncretistic religious beliefs. However, the book is entirely a work of anthropology, and hence leaves out many of the background factors that led to the changes the author describes.
A British anthropologist lived in East Java in the 90s. He writes about the changes going on in the society especially related to religion and identity. It is frankly an outsider's point of view, but describes the complexity of the changes in that period.
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