{"id":542504,"date":"2010-04-24T09:12:58","date_gmt":"2010-04-24T13:12:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookdragon.si.edu\/?p=9253"},"modified":"2010-04-24T09:12:58","modified_gmt":"2010-04-24T13:12:58","slug":"map-of-the-invisible-world-by-tash-aw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/542504","title":{"rendered":"Map of the Invisible World by Tash Aw"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Five years ago, Taipei-born Malaysian British Tash Aw<\/a> landed in the media spotlight with The Harmony Silk Factory<\/em><\/a>, complete with public speculations about an allegedly enormous debut advance. Decorated with multiple important prizes, including Commonwealth and Whitbread first novel awards, Aw\u2019s Factory <\/em>earned him both fortune and fame.<\/p>\n

Last May, Aw\u2019s sophomore effort, Map of the Invisible World<\/em>, arrived on British shelves, but took another eight months to cross the Pond. Without a doubt, as lauded as Aw\u2019s debut was, Map <\/em>is even better.<\/p>\n

At its core, Map <\/em>is a story about a family in search of home. Set mostly in Indonesia in 1964 during a tumultuous \u201cVivere Pericoloso <\/em>\u2026 Year of Living Dangerously\u201d as named by then-President Sukarno in his Indonesian Independence Day speech, the two-member de Willigen family comprised of father Karl and son Adam is torn apart by race and politics.<\/p>\n

Although Indonesia declared independence in August 1945 after centuries of Dutch colonialism followed by Japanese occupation during World War II, the Netherlands did not acknowledge Indonesia\u2019s sovereignty until 1949. Decades of turbulent transition followed for Indonesia\u2019s citizens \u2013 both native and naturalized.<\/p>\n

Born on a remote Indonesian island to Dutch parents, Karl desperately wishes (and almost believes) that he was his hired wet-nurse\u2019s half-Indonesian son. His need to belong to the only home he\u2019s ever known manifests in his longing for an Indonesian family: \u201c\u2019I want to have an Indonesian child. A boy. He\u2019ll be my alter ego, except better, and happier.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Years later, Karl\u2019s adoption of five-year-old native orphan Adam completes the de Willigen family. But for Adam, a new father means he must acknowledge he has forever lost his only other family, an older brother Johan he \u201ccannot remember the slightest thing about \u2026 not even his face.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2019My name is Adam and I have no surname,\u2019\u201d he used to announce to detach himself, but he eventually accepts that his \u201cPresent Life\u201d permanently includes Karl. In their idyllic house by the sea on the \u201clost island\u201d of Nusa Perdo, he settles into his new identity as Adam de Willigen, which \u201csounds just right.\u201d<\/p>\n

Refusing to acknowledge the growing xenophobia, Karl and Adam are caught unawares when Karl becomes one of thousands of Dutch Indonesians rounded up for forceful expulsion. One day, soldiers simply take Karl away \u2013 \u201cno violence, hardly any drama\u201d \u2013 as 16-year-old Adam helplessly watches.<\/p>\n

Ten days later, Adam tracks down Margaret Bates, an Indonesian-born, U.S.-national, university professor long domiciled in Jakarta. Hers is the only name he finds repeated in his father\u2019s personal papers and photos. \u201c\u2019I wasn\u2019t prying, you understand, I was just looking for clues. I need to find my father,\u2019\u201d he explains to a bewildered Margaret.<\/p>\n

And thus the search begins. Driven by decades-old memories of her 15-year-old-self, Margaret calls on an overly-complacent Australian journalist friend and an untrustworthy U.S. Embassy official in her desperate quest to find Karl \u2013 whom she finally admits to be her long lost love.<\/p>\n

In the big city for the first time, Adam falls victim to Margaret\u2019s enigmatic graduate student, Din, who hopes to one day write \u201ca secret history of the Indonesian Islands \u2026 a history of our country written by an Indonesian.\u201d His militant patriotism both repulses and fascinates wide-eyed Adam, while his promises to help Adam find his brother Johan lead the teenager towards grave danger.<\/p>\n

With controlled elegance, Aw lays out a multi-layered puzzle whose pieces create a haunting portrait of a splintered family working towards reunion. The militant Din tells Margaret of his visions of a \u201clost world where everything remained true and authentic, away from the gaze of foreigners \u2013 a kind of invisible world, almost.\u201d Din unmistakably refers to an Indonesia untouched, certainly uncontrolled by western colonialism.<\/p>\n

Ironically, Din\u2019s \u2018lost world\u2019 points specifically to the southeastern Indonesian islands, which include Buru where Karl was born, and the fictional Perdo where Karl has chosen to build his adult home. Only in Din\u2019s lost world \u2013 which Karl refers to again and again as \u201cparadise\u201d \u2013 can Karl and Adam be \u2018true and authentic\u2019 as father and son. But their Edenic existence proves fleeting, and both Karl and Adam are separately cast out.<\/p>\n

\u201cHome was not necessarily where you were born, or even where you grew up, but something else entirely, something fragile that could exist anywhere in the world.\u201d For Adam, home must be with Karl, with new hopes of being joined someday by Johan and even Margaret. To get there, these unlikely individuals must move beyond history, politics, skin color, barriers, and background \u2026 and find their way together, somewhere on that map of the invisible world.<\/p>\n

Review<\/strong>: The Bloomsbury Review<\/em>, Spring 2010<\/p>\n

Readers<\/strong>: Adult<\/p>\n

Published<\/strong>: 2010<\/p>\n

Filed under: ..Adult Readers<\/a>, .Fiction<\/a>, British Asian<\/a>, Malaysian<\/a> Tagged: Adoption<\/a>, Colonialism<\/a>, Coming-of-age<\/a>, Family<\/a>, Father\/son relationship<\/a>, Identity<\/a>, Love<\/a>, Parent\/child relationship<\/a>, Politics<\/a>, Race<\/a>, Siblings<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Five years ago, Taipei-born Malaysian British Tash Aw landed in the media spotlight with The Harmony Silk Factory, complete with public speculations about an allegedly enormous debut advance. Decorated with multiple important prizes, including Commonwealth and Whitbread first novel awards, Aw\u2019s Factory earned him both fortune and fame. Last May, Aw\u2019s sophomore effort, Map of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2824,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-542504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2824"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=542504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542504\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=542504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=542504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=542504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}