Looking Up High, Wondering . . .

The prolific writer Ratna Indraswari Ibrahim (cordially called Mbak Ratna by her associates) launched another book on her 48th anniversary. Entitled Batu Sandung (Stumbling Block), this book is composed of three novellas she has never before published in book. The title 'Batu Sandung' owes from the title of the first novella. The rests are 'Garis Ibu' (Mothers' Destiny) and 'Hari-hari yang Tercecer' (The Scattered Days).

Having written around 400 short stories, novellas, and novels, Mbak Ratna has secured people's recognition as having feminist perspective in her works. It might be right, to some extent. Yet, Mbak Ratna herself admitted in the book launching, held in her residence in Malang known as Mbak Ratna's House of Culutre, that what she actually fought for was not women in particular, but all the marginalized. In certain cultures, the marginalized takes the form of women, but at times it takes the form of diffables (a clipping made of two words "differently able," people with physical handicaps), or others. Simply put, Mbak Ratna fights through her works.

We can see this in 'Batu Sandung.' In this story, we can see how a girl who is compelled to use clutches fight her own ego and strive to prove that she is actually as normal as other people. She believes she is not the kind of girl people should take pity of. She really hates when her mother cries about her being limped by polio or about her spinsterhood. She fights hard to win her father's employees' (also her employees halfway through the story) respect as they consider her a young, handicapped girl at the beginning. She objects obstinately when her mother convinces her to love Adis, her closest friend-cum-fellow employee in her father's company. There is a bit of feminist perspective and more on the fight against marginalization of diffables.

In 'Garis Ibu,' readers will take a dip into the turmoil in a mother's emotion. This mother wants to make her children happy, on one side, but she also wants to realize her dream of having a dream daughter--she is a mother to two sons without any chances of having daughters due to a tumor in her tomb following her second and last pregnancy. When a daughter of the closest friend's lives with her family for preparing her university education, and both of her sons love this girl, and therefore have a broken heart, the mother has a conflicting feeling in her mind. She desires a daughter—for which this young lady would be a good one—, but she now hates this girl because she makes her sons conflicting to each other. In it, we can see a woman's fight against her emotion and, towards the end of the story, another fight of a diffable to win people's acknowledgment.

Readers will find 'Hari-hari yang Tercecer' the strongest of all in this novella collection. This novella tells about a mother of two kids, son and daughter, who does not have 'the chemistry' with her husband anymore. This story proves itself to be a good example of an Indonesian story embedded with feminist perspective in a sublime way. It is not a fight of a woman against man's superiority decreeing that she stays at home and takes care of her children. It is about a woman who obtains abundant love from a teacher-like husband. This husband is too superior in character that the women became muffled. He loves the woman, but with a love that does not set someone free. She is a woman who is made into object not because of insults, but because of love. Besides, this story also has a question for man's too realistic mind that does not tolerate a woman's lengthy sadness for her twin sister's death.

However, there are some points which Batu Sandung lacks, that is, among a few, details of spatial settings. We will feel these stories charged only with stories with minimum imagination-stimulating descriptions of a dreary room, windy beaches, the smell of grass, etc., which actually even strengthen reader's emotion, make it easier for readers to unconsciously identify themselves with the characters, and help create a sense of involvement on readers' part.

During the book launching and discussion, Tengsoe Tjahjono, a literary lecturer in several universities in Surabaya, said that Mbak Ratna's works were works of thoughts. It is quite right. We can see that the three novellas focus on the ideas with minimum care for linguistic beauty. Batu Sandung is not an exception; we can see how language is merely a means to express ideas. We can find disturbingly serious and formal sentences.

All in all, Mbak Ratna once again hits right through the prevalent issues in life, that is, marginalization. But the good thing is she can express her ideas in a story, a real story. It is far from teaching. It does not tell, as Natalie Goldberg says, but it shows. This book wants to tell a great deal of teachings of anti-marginalization, but they are planted in the stories; therefore, readers will not find this work teaching them as a how-to book does. Readers find the teachings in between the lines. A fight this book is, but a gentle kind of one.