Genderang Perang dari Wamena (1972) by Djokolelono: An Indonesian Children Fantasy #NovNov25

🥁 I have unexpectedly found this treasure while idly browsing through Google Playbook titles. It's a children fantasy novella by an Indonesian writer: Djokolelono. It has never been translated, so if you don't understand Indonesian, I can give you only my loose translation of the title. Genderang means drum; perang is war, and Wamena is a district in Papua. The story is told from point of view of two eleven-year-old boys: Adi and Yun (short of Yunanto). It's not clear where they live, but it is set in the 1970s. My guess is that they live in a small town. Adi has been living in the Netherlands; his father worked in a Dutch museum, and the family have only recently moved permanently to Indonesia. 

🥁 Yun is playing at his new friend Adi's, and it is a gloomy rainy day. They can't play outside, so Adi suggests they rummage at the backyard shed. One might find interesting stuffs in the shed - don't we know it! And they do! Opening a box in which Adi's father kept stuffs from the museum, they found a little drum. It's a traditional music instrument from Papua which is usually called tifa. Playfully one of them starts to beat it, and a strange thing happens. The player can't stop beating the drum, his hand goes faster and faster, while the other can't stop dancing on the tune. Then a white mist fills the shed, and the shed suddenly turns into a jungle. The boys are time-travelling to the jungle of Wamena in Papua, in the 18th century, following a Dutch expedition consisting of four white men and some locals.  

🥁 One of the Dutch men who was called Tristan van Allen, had stolen a drum, or tifa, a precious thing belonging to the chief of the tribe. The expedition leader told him to return it, as it would put the whole expedition in danger, but Tristan was adamant. Adi found from his father that the tifa came to his possession after being found years later by another group visiting Wamena, while the faith of the expedition itself was never revealed; they had just vanished. And now Adi and Yun are about to solve the mystery, as the tifa slowly reveals its history whenever the boys playing it. But it's not just a mystery, there's something menacing inside the tifa....

🥁 It was an exciting adventure to read! I kept forgetting that Adi and Yun are just elementary school students, they somehow sound more mature to me - like 17 or 18 years old boy, perhaps? Anyway, I was more interested in their one quarrel (the tifa foreshadows what's about to come; on the day the expedition members quarreled for instance, Adi and Yun quarrel too). The topic is about Dutch colonialism over Indonesia. Yun is expressing his hatred to the greedy Dutch, but Adi, who had been brought up in Netherlands, is saying that not all Dutch people are greedy, and that colonialism happens only when the locals aren't smart enough to detect their false politeness. This infuriates Yun, as his friend's implying that Indonesian are dumb. Well, I couldn't but pondering a lot about it afterwards, because it makes sense. And why the writer put it as the cause of quarrel? It might be a boyish quarrel (they are friends again the day after), but that was too serious a topic for a children read, don't you think? Anyway, this has been a fun read for me, and I can't wait to read more of the series. This novella is the sixth book from Weird and Wicked series, by the way.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Read for:

Novellas in November 2025

hosted by Cathy and Rebecca

In the Mountains (1920) by Elizabeth von Arnim #NovNov25

🗻 In the Mountains is an epistolary novella by Elizabeth von Arnim, which is structured as diary. The author, thus the narrator, is an English woman, who seeks refuge at her chalet on the Swiss Alps. It's post Second World War, and for some mysterious and dark reason, our narrator is depressed and longed for peace and solitude of the Swiss Alps to be cured. However, just when she feels quite refreshed after spending hours in languid nature while admiring the beautiful views and cold crisp air, our narrator becomes restless and lonesome. It's her birthday, and as she wants to be busy herself to avert her mind from "the thing", she gives the servants holiday. And it is when she's alone, two women clothed in black, arrive on the scene.

🗻 Mrs. Barnes and Mrs. Jewks are widows in their forties, who've been staying at a cheap pension on the valley. They are lost while searching for a better place, and what with the narrator's loneliness and the widows' apparent poverty, our narrator took them in, and they soon become friends, if not intimate acquaintances. The two women are opposite of  each other in personality. Mrs. Kitty Barnes is an upright honorable woman, while Dolly, her younger sister, is a charming, sweet creature who can't help marrying husbands-to-be, even when they were Germans. Her two failed marriages brought a scandal among friends and family, and that's where Kitty, unselfishly cut out her honorable life, and brought Dolly to a more neutral country: Swiss.

🗻 At first the three ladies spent, if not very amiable, a tolerable existence. But after few weeks, our narrator begins to feel the strain of being hostess. What with Mrs. Barness 's profuse gratitude for the hostess' generosity, but on the other hand tyrannically forced her will in the household cost-savings; not mentioning Dolly's meek smiles and agreement to all her sister's decision. In short, the narrator longs for a friendship instead of hostess-lodgers relationship, and the sense of sacrifice one must always endure. Meanwhile, secrets begin to unfold as the story's progressing - the guests' secrets at least; the cause of the narrator's grief and anxiety were never disclosed. 

 🗻 The Swiss chalet here served as the Italian castle in The Enchanted April, that is as a cure to whoever is staying in. One comes with a heavy heart, and after staying several months, one leaves it refreshed and, as in In the Mountains, with new and hopeful prospect for brighter future. And although this novella couldn't be compared with The Enchanted April - it's a bit dull, I must say - but I enjoyed the charm of the Swiss Alps, especially when the narrator's enjoying a peaceful, solitude, charming times alone there. The ending is perhaps a little bit forced, but it brings a sprinkle of sweet charms to the rather gloomy atmosphere - despite of the Swiss Alps - otherwise.

Relatable Quotes:

"It's true that the worst pain is the remembering one's happiness when one is no longer happy."

"Oh, I do so want to be wholesome inside again! Nicely aired, sunshiny; instead of all dark, and stuffed up with black memories."

"A man does seem to have more to say that one wants to hear than a woman. I do want to hear what a woman has to say too, but not for so long a time, and not so often. [...] A woman when she talks seems usually to have forgotten the salt. Also she is apt to go on talking; sometimes for quite a little while after you have begun to wish she would leave off."

"I don't know anything more happy than to be where it is beautiful with some one who sees and loves it as much as you do yourself."

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐1/2

Read for:

Novellas in November 2025

hosted by Cathy and Rebecca

Notes from an Island (1996) by Tove Jansson & Tuulikki Pietilä #NonficNov25 #NovNov25

🐚 For thirty years Tove Jansson, the Finland author who's famous for the Moomin series and The Summer Book, spent her live together with her partner on an island. This 96 pages book is a memoir of that phase of her life, illustrated by her beloved partner Tuulikki Pietilä, or Tooti, a graphic artist.

🐚 Tove and Tooti, who longed to have a simple and peaceful live, decided to move onto an island. The first island they chose, Bredskär, was a perfect one, 'leafy and welcoming'. The way Tove described it, you'd think they have lived in paradise; 'with a little forest with a woodland path, a little beach with a safe place for the boat, even a little marsh with some tufts of cotton grass'. But unfortunately, they boasted about it to friends and relatives, and soon enough, people were coming to their island on holidays, and their live began crowded once more. The only solution is to find another inhabited island which would give them the solitude they had been craving. They found it in Klovharun, a skerry in the Gulf of Finland, that's 'shaped like an atoll', complete with a lagoon in the middle. For me, it is less inviting than Bredskär, and I wonder whether Tove and Tooti had not regretted that they didn't keep secret about it in the first place - I would! Anyway, to make Klovharun habitable, they need to build a cabin. Problem aroused, they need permission from the Government to build, so they erected a tent meanwhile - it could be long to come, or didn't come anyway.

🐚 Then enter Brunström, who would help them building the cabin, and proved to be their true friend for thirty years. Brunström told them not to wait for permission, but start building anyway, which they did. The book consists of logs by Brunström and Tove, telling us how the cabin progressed. Midway building, the permission finally arrived, which they celebrated together. Later on Tove brought her eighty-year-old grandmother Ham to live with them on the island. I was afraid at first, it's hard for an elderly to live a rugged living on the island. But Ham is a bad-ass grandmother. I chuckled reading how, when the tent where she lived was flooded, she just laughed while wading ashore. 🐚 My favorite part is when Tove and Tooti took a helicopter to another part of the island to experience the breaking-up of the ice - 'Unbelievable tabernacles floated by, driven by a mild south-west breeze, statuesque, glittering [...] And they changed colour whenever they felt like it - ice blue, green, and in the evening, orange. Early in the morning they could be pink'. It must have been a once-in-a-life-time experience, and it felt serene and magical. Pity they didn't witnessed the moment when the ice did crack. But maybe it would have been too much for them. They lived on the island until their seventies, when Tove realized that she was becoming afraid of the ocean and its power. It's time to say goodbye! Though living on that island doesn't seem attractive for me - too demanding - this little book is realistic and unique, written and illustrated wonderfully.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐1/2

Read for:

Nonfiction November 2025

hosted by Heather, Frances, Liz, Rebekah, and Deb

Novellas in November 2025

hosted by Cathy and Rebecca