The novel as a guide to Indonesian social history

Abstract

According to Islamic law, the power of divorce is in the hands of the man, but since in the Minangkabau system property descends in the female line, the woman cannot be left homeless. First he knows her as Nonja Eni; then she becomes Rohajah, a school sweetheart, and then Sitti Hajati, a popular singer. Go to Jah? Because , because he wanted to remember, to return to the past because . . . . . his mind groped around innothingness, his train of thought kept losing itself as if his mind were a radio with uncertain reception. [...]he has studied Thomism and contemporary Western philosophy. [...]he has unique qualifications for the novel he set out to write, a novel in which one system of thought and way of life, that of Hasan and his family, is set against the revolutionary socialism and anarchism of his f riends Kartini, Rusli and Anwar. 1 2 ibid, p. 111.