The Year of Living Dangerously

ISBN: 0312896239

Author: C. J. Koch

Condition: Used

In 1965, Indonesia's fantastic beauty conceals a grim atmosphere of tension and unease. Sukrano, the charismatic god-king, placates his impoverished subjects with threats of war and gestures of magnificence, declaring his love for the suffering peasants, his defiance of the whole Western world. This new year, he insists, will be the climax of his reign, the year of confrontation--THE YEAR OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY.

Meanwhile, in the sordid atmosphere of the Wayang Bar, beleagured Western newsmen take refuge from the seething streets of Jakarta and strike up unlikely friendships. Guy Hamilton, an ambitious Australian broadcaster, is thrown together with Billy Kwan, a brilliant and secretive Eurasian dwarf who is Guy's most effective cameraman. Hamilton is intrigued by Kwan, and is gradually drawn into the mysteries which enshroud Kwan's life. Why does Billy encourage Hamilton's affair with the English girl whom Kwan himself loves? And how genuine is Kwan's provocative admiration for President Sukarno?

Characters and events in this masterful novel move against the background of a nation in crisis, in the exotic pattern of the wayang kulit, the Javanese shadow-show. Billy Kwan's secret life is revealed through his files--astounding dossiers where Kwan has recorded the activities of his friends and his own eccentric speculations.

As violence engulfs the bankrupt government, Kwan builds impossible expectations around his two heroes: Sukarno will be the savior of his people; Hamilton will be the instrument of Kwan's fantasies. But when both heroes fail him, the tortured cameraman turns to desperate action, and Hamilton begins to grasp the pervasive mystery which had been at the core of his friend's ramblings all along.