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Java Essay
“The rich culture that Java has cultivated through her long history is outstanding. Having engaged in its study after retirement, I thought I should share my knowledge and passion with other people,” explains author Masatoshi Iguchi about the inspiration behind his book Java Essay.
Java Essay: The history and culture of a southern country encompasses many different aspects of the history of Indonesia, offering a unique and accessible insight into the Asian country and exploring how its history has impacted on its culture. Author Masatoshi Iguchi explores a panoply of historical events, ranging from the deportation of Japanese Christians in the early 17th century to Batavia – the Indonesian capital now commonly known as Jakarta – to the history of the kingdoms that built Borobudur and Prambanan.
“As a scientist, I have been lucky enough to be offered the opportunity to stay or go abroad throughout my career. Initially limited to Europe and America, I eventually found myself visiting Indonesia and various other Southeast Asian countries. It was there that I witnessed the indigenous culture of the Javanese people,” explains Masatoshi.
The book also includes the study of stone inscriptions from ancient and medieval times, as well as a number of old records and documents of both domestic and foreign origins, are intertwined with external reference sources and the author’s own insight and thought on the facts and events of Java – a country that he feels has not yet been fully investigated.
Java Essay: The history and culture of a southern country encompasses many different aspects of the history of Indonesia, offering a unique and accessible insight into the Asian country and exploring how its history has impacted on its culture. Author Masatoshi Iguchi explores a panoply of historical events, ranging from the deportation of Japanese Christians in the early 17th century to Batavia – the Indonesian capital now commonly known as Jakarta – to the history of the kingdoms that built Borobudur and Prambanan.
“As a scientist, I have been lucky enough to be offered the opportunity to stay or go abroad throughout my career. Initially limited to Europe and America, I eventually found myself visiting Indonesia and various other Southeast Asian countries. It was there that I witnessed the indigenous culture of the Javanese people,” explains Masatoshi.
The book also includes the study of stone inscriptions from ancient and medieval times, as well as a number of old records and documents of both domestic and foreign origins, are intertwined with external reference sources and the author’s own insight and thought on the facts and events of Java – a country that he feels has not yet been fully investigated.
342 pages, Paperback
First published January 28, 2015
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February 22, 2015
This book is a little difficult to review because it is extremely specific in certain aspects. For example, if you are writing a thesis on carved rocks, then this book will provide you will detailed sizes and locations of those rocks. But this isn't a book you can sit down and casually read to learn about the Indonesian island of Java. It's very tedious to get through.
One of the reasons my rating is so low is because of the overall format and construction of the book as a whole. This book was written by a Japanese writer who simultaneously (from what I understood) wrote a Japanese version. I used to live in Japan and while I was there I helped a friend translate a booklet (about 100 pages or so) into English. The Japanese version was littered with run on sentences and extremely disjointed paragraphs. She assured me that this was a very well written Japanese booklet and that's just how Japanese is written. But for the English version we couldn't just translate it sentence by sentence or even paragraph by paragraph. We had to completely rework the whole thing for it to make sense in English. That's what needed to happen to this book. It needs to be completely reworked so that the points the author is trying to make are clear to the reader. The way it stands now there are long paragraphs that ramble on without making any point while others just list lots of dimensions of things but with little context. Throughout the book the author jumps from history to mythology to a travel log style without much connection between to connect the ideas. It's almost if you are reading someone's journal and each page is a different day where they feel like writing about something else.
There are also many points throughout the book where the author references Chinese or Japanese histories of Java and wonders how the Asian characters should be written in the Roman alphabet- should an L or an R be used? I would expect that this happens all the time in Chinese or Japanese research, but the amount of space that it's given in the main text is really unnecessary in an English text. When a name it written, say Roro, a footnote can be added to say that it could also be interpreted as Lolo, etc. The author also mentions Japanese things throughout the book to give the reader a visual reference to an Indonesian artifact- for example the Buddha in Nara. But this doesn't really work for a western audience either unless they are also familiar with Japanese artifacts and locations.
Overall I think this book is probably a great reference for Japanese interested in Java- but then they would probably not bother with this English version. Or maybe it would work for a westerner studying carved stones. But for me, as someone very interested in Indonesia, I struggled to get through it.
One of the reasons my rating is so low is because of the overall format and construction of the book as a whole. This book was written by a Japanese writer who simultaneously (from what I understood) wrote a Japanese version. I used to live in Japan and while I was there I helped a friend translate a booklet (about 100 pages or so) into English. The Japanese version was littered with run on sentences and extremely disjointed paragraphs. She assured me that this was a very well written Japanese booklet and that's just how Japanese is written. But for the English version we couldn't just translate it sentence by sentence or even paragraph by paragraph. We had to completely rework the whole thing for it to make sense in English. That's what needed to happen to this book. It needs to be completely reworked so that the points the author is trying to make are clear to the reader. The way it stands now there are long paragraphs that ramble on without making any point while others just list lots of dimensions of things but with little context. Throughout the book the author jumps from history to mythology to a travel log style without much connection between to connect the ideas. It's almost if you are reading someone's journal and each page is a different day where they feel like writing about something else.
There are also many points throughout the book where the author references Chinese or Japanese histories of Java and wonders how the Asian characters should be written in the Roman alphabet- should an L or an R be used? I would expect that this happens all the time in Chinese or Japanese research, but the amount of space that it's given in the main text is really unnecessary in an English text. When a name it written, say Roro, a footnote can be added to say that it could also be interpreted as Lolo, etc. The author also mentions Japanese things throughout the book to give the reader a visual reference to an Indonesian artifact- for example the Buddha in Nara. But this doesn't really work for a western audience either unless they are also familiar with Japanese artifacts and locations.
Overall I think this book is probably a great reference for Japanese interested in Java- but then they would probably not bother with this English version. Or maybe it would work for a westerner studying carved stones. But for me, as someone very interested in Indonesia, I struggled to get through it.
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