The Black Lake (Oeroeg) by Hella S. Haasse (1948) #WITMonth

🖤 The Black Lake was first published anonymously in 1948 as Oeroeg. It was the Dutch author Hella Haasse's first novel, and was translated to English by Ina Rilke. Set in Indonesia during Dutch colonialism in 1940s, Oeroeg is a story about childhood friendship gone sour over political and ideological differences.

🖤 The narrator (his name was never revealed) is a white boy, son of a Dutch Indies plantation manager in Sukabumi, West Java. He was born in Indonesia, and being an only child, his only playmate is Oeroeg. Oeroeg is a native boy, the same age as the narrator's. He's the son of the plantation's mandor (leader of the workers). Despite of their totally different backgrounds, the two boys spent their childhood together and were quite inseparable.

🖤 Then an accident happened, triggered by the drunken and irresponsible white men led by the narrator's father, whose reckless amusement on board of a inadequate raft on the Black Lake, caused the raft fell apart. Oeroeg's father died while saving the narrator's life from drowning. Because of that, the narrator's father sent Oeroeg to the same school and boarding house as his son. The seeds of disruption began at this point.

🖤 Oeroeg began to realize his inferiority from other students. He began to try imitating the white's style and seemed to be ashamed to be a native. Despite all that, the two students still studied and hang around together, though not as closely as before. The consciousness of the gap laid between them has finally dawn upon these adolescents.

🖤 Graduated from secondary school, the narrator was sent by his father to study in Dutch. This was the last straw of their friendship. While he's away, huge things happened. Indonesian youths began their resistance movement against Dutch colonialism; the narrator joined the army during World War II; and Oeroeg joined the Indonesian nationalist to fight for the nation's independence. When the narrator happened to return with the Dutch army to Sukabumi, everything has changed so drastically. He no longer found it the home he used to be rooted to, and most of all, he lost his best friend Oeroeg....

🖤 I found this novella quite thought-provoking. Growing up often means restricting our heart to so many rules and ideologies, that we often forget the human being underneath these thoughts. My heart ached over Oeroeg and the narrator's last scene. I understand Oeroeg's hatred towards the nation that had caused sorrows to his people. But how could he forget the one friend that at one time had shared his happiness?

🖤 I'm also wondering the roots of Indonesians' inferiority complex towards Western people. Is it a characteristic that is attached to our people? And made us so easy to be colonized by the European for centuries? Or is this character the result of centuries of colonialism? After more than 70 years of our independence, Oeroeg's behaviors still reflect on our modern people - trying to be identified as European, but also hating the Western.

🖤 All in all, this is an intriguing bildungsroman of friendship and identity searching, set in a turmoil era of colonialism, and loosely based on the author's experience of growing up in West Java during the same era.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Read for:

Women in Translation Month #WITMonth
hosted by womenintranslation.org

The Moomins and the Great Flood (1945) by Tove Jansson #MoominWeek #WITMonth #20booksofsummer24

👜 The Moomins are tiny creatures created from the Finnish author Tove Jansson's imagination. The Moomins and the Great Flood is the first book in the series, and the one that introduces us to the main characters: the Moomins family. We learn here that Moomins are house trolls who used to live behind kitchen stoves. It was translated by David McDuff from Swedish, its original title is Småtrollen och den stora översvämningen.

👜 Moominmamma and her only son Moomintroll are on a journey to find Moominpappa. He has been travelling with the Hattifatteners to look for a place to build a house. Hattifatteners are white tiny creatures who are always on the move and usually traveling through the sea in groups.

👜 The Moomins' journey is quite eventful, and they get to meet some new friends. "The Little Creature" is the one they first meet - a helpless, whinny creature who likes sparkling gems. Later on he will be named Sniff. Then they also meet Tulippa, a pretty young girl with shining blue hair who's been staying inside a tulip. She saves the Moomins and the little creature from a giant serpent while crossing a swamp. The four of them then continue their journey together.

👜 Later on they are joining a group of Hattifatteners who are crossing the sea by boat. But a storm strikes, and a sea troll helps them to navigate safely to an island, where they meet a boy who has seen Moominpappa. They are on the right track, then!

👜 A rainstorm seems to check their progress, but during the flood they find a message in the bottle floating their direction from Moominpappa, and by the help of a stork, they finally find him - safe and sound! Not only that, they later on find the house Moominpappa has built, which the flood has been floating intact to a valley, and where they finally decide to live.

👜 Considering this novella is the first of a series, it is quite an interesting introduction, although there isn't much 'substance' in the story if you read it as standalone. My favorite character is Moominmamma, she is just a typical wonder mom who always knows what her children need, and is always prepare for everything. I loved how, when Moomintroll's feet became wet from the swamp, she just takes a pair of dry socks out of her handbag for him. This handback is actually becomes a trademark for Moominmamma, as she always brings it everywhere she goes. To me it's also a symbol of a loving and caring mother (hence, the handbag emojis I use in this post ;)).

👜 The story is not overly fantastic, but it gets better on the next one (I have moved on to Comet in the Moominland, which I loved - review's following! 😉)

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐1/2

Read this book for:

Moomin Week

hosted by Mallika @ Literary Potpourri & Chris @ Calmgrove

Women In Translation Month 2024 #WITMonth
hosted by womenintranslation.org

20 Books of Summer 2024
hosted by Cathy @ 746 Books

Under the Tonto Rim (1925) by Zane Grey

🌳 Lucy Watson is a welfare worker who was assigned by the government to teach home and social skills to the mountainous backwoods families in the forest under the Rim Rock in South West. A city girl, Lucy is an orphan, and a sister is all she has in the world. Her rebellious sister Clara had eloped with a young man years before. Now all alone in the world, Lucy is determined to impart household skills and social etiquette the these simple backwoods people, to make their lives better. Would she be able to achieve her ambition?

🌳 Lucy's first obstacle is the backwoods young men - the wild and rugged of them - or so people, with whom she met before arriving at her destination, warned her. They predicted that one of them would soon marry Lucy before she finishes her job, just like few teachers before her. The young men's leader seems to be Edd Denmeade, the elder of the Denmeades' offspring, in whose family Lucy would work first. This adds to Lucy's apprehension.

🌳 This is neither a pure western world with gunshots and actions, nor adventure novel I've expected it to be. Rather, it's a romance, glorifying the power of nature and love. Lucy soon discovers, that when her 'pupils' have benefited from her guidance, she, too, has gained a lot more. First, that these people, some of them at least, show higher moral standard than city people. Second, Lucy learns the strength and comfort from the forest - its tree, its streams, its foliage and bush.

"She [Lucy] found out presently, that going into the forest was a source of comfort. When there seemed no comfort she went to the lonely solitude of trees and bush, of green coverts and fragrant wild dolls, and always she was soothed, sustained. She could not understand why, but it was so. She began to prolong the hours spent in the woods, under a looming canyon wall, or beside a densely foliaged gorge from which floated up the drowsy murmur of stream. All that the wild forest land consisted of passed into her innermost being."

🌳 You might imagine this book is a bit boring. It is not. Especially when Clara, the "lost" sister sent an appeal to come and live with Lucy. She comes in pale and dejected condition, but the woods and it's simple backwoods people soon mend her health, both physically and mentally. Unfortunately, the dark past follows her even into the woods, and its consequences is about to change her, Lucy, and the Denmeades' lives forever.

🌳 I was completely charmed by Grey's comforting prose and his minute description of the woods and nature elements. I felt like I was in the deep of woods with Lucy, every senses in me quiver with excitement as I experienced everything myself. If you ever need to escape in a book, this one will satisfy you!

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐1/2

When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit (1971) by Judith Kerr: An Audiobook

🐰 Anna was a Jewish 9 year-old girl lived in Berlin. The titular pink rabbit is her favorite stuffed toy. Did Hitler really steal it? Of course not! But he stole what the pink rabbit represents of Anna - her innocent happy childhood. Told from Anna's POV, this is a semi autobiographical story, derived from Kerr's own experience of fleeing from her home at the start of the Second World War.

🐰 Anna is the younger child of a prominent Jewish journalist who often wrote against the Nazis. Approaching the election, her father fled from Germany, as his name had been publicly targeted by Hitler once he's elected. Anna and her older brother didn't realize the upscale political tension in their country, they just saw Hitler's face glared out at them from street posters.

🐰 I love how Anna's parents hid the real dangerous situation from the children in order to avoid any distress and fear. When the mother took Anna and her brother by train to Switzerland, she made the journey just like a exciting, albeit secretly, one to meet their father. Though Anna witnessed how her mother had tightly clutched her bag during ticket inspection, but seemed more relaxed after passing the border, Anna didn't have any inkling how scared her mother had been, and what was the cause.

🐰 When Anna and her brother heard that Hitler has likely confiscated their house, they imagined how Hitler's playing with their board game and Anna's pink rabbit. They knew that Hitler was an evil guy, but never realized how evil he was.

🐰 After a brief stay in Switzerland, the family moved to France and started a new life in a Paris small apartment. They became poorer because Anna's father was struggling to get a decent writing job. Amidst the struggles in adapting to the new school and learning new language, not mentioning the money restraint, Anna felt happy enough because they live there together as family. It reminds me of my own feeling. My life was always wholesome because we lived it together as family, where there's always love and care. No matter what came our way, we could face it as we had each other.

🐰 This book isn't a childish reminiscent of one of the darkest times in our history; it is a story about resilience, about the power of love and family. It is also about hope and courage in navigating changes. It's a sweet and poignant testimony of humanity during dark moments. I am so grateful of having read this at this time of my life, for I wouldn't have appreciated as much had I read it as a child. I loved also the narrator of the audiobook I listened to; Tacy Kneale did a great job of bringing this classic into life!

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

#MustGetMonday: Vera Wong's Guide to Dating a Dead Man

I first saw this comparatively new meme from Davida @ The Chocolate Lady's Boom Review Blog. But the creator of Must Get Monday is Becca @ The Becca's Files.

The purpose of Must Get Monday is to spotlight some of those books you simply CAN’T WAIT to get your hands on… but might have to if you’re waiting for them to release.

The book I'm featuring today is the sequel of a cozy mystery I have read and loved last year: Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto. I've been hoping for a sequel, and the other day I saw this exciting news from the author's IG while browsing my IG feed:

VERA WONG'S GUIDE TO DATING A DEAD MAN

Blurb:

Put the kettle on, there’s a mystery brewing…Tea-shop owner. Matchmaker. Detective?

Vera Wong, tea house owner and occasional sleuth should feel content. Her son Tilly has moved in with his girlfriend, and the shop has been inundated with customers.

But Vera can’t help feeling a little… bored. Sometimes, all an old lady wants is a murder to solve. Is that too much to ask for?

Then Vera comes across a distressed young woman called Millie, whose friend Xander has gone missing. Is this Vera's chance to get out her trusty notebook and solve another mystery?

Do you know that Warner Bros. TV has just acquired the 1st book rights, with Oprah Winfrey's and Mindy Kaling's production houses to produce a TV series? I wonder who would play Vera Wong! She's a Chinese elderly woman who lives in America, and the owner of a tea shop. A dead body was found one day inside her tea shop, and that's how she began her amateur sleuthing. Sutanto's depiction of Vera Wong's character felt genuine. It's no wonder, because later on I learned that Vera Wong was actually inspired by Sutanto's own mother - a Chindo (Chinese-Indonesian). And Vera Wong is really a typical warm and affectionate Asian mother that you'd miss a lot after several months.

This second book will be published in April, 2025, so now I just have to wait patiently... :)

Have you read the first book?
Do you have book(s) you just can't wait to get into?

Sparkling Cyanide (1945) by Agatha Christie: A Re-read

🍸 Rosemary Barton has been dead for a year now. Yet, the six people, who gathered around the table at Luxembourg Restaurant to celebrate her birthday when she suddenly collapsed and died, could not forget her still. The coroner's verdict was that she had put the cyanide into her glass by herself, a suicide due to post-flu depression.

🍸 But was it really suicide? Or was it murder, as was hinted in the anonymous letter received by Rosemary's husband George Barton? If so, who, among the six people, was the murderer? Was it the husband himself, out of his rage of Rosemary's love affair? Her little sister Iris, to gain a large inheritance? Or was it Rosemary's male friends, Anthony or Steven - which one was her lover? Maybe it's George's secretary, Ruth, who loved George? Or Sandra, Phillip's wife - did she know of her husband's infidelity? Whoever it was, all six had strong motive to murder Rosemary.

🍸 Agatha Christie had done it again! Sparkling Cyanide (first published in the US in 1945 as Remembered Death) is everything we love in Golden Age detective fiction, especially in Agatha Christie's. Rosemary's character is an important key on this murder case. She was a self-centered, shallow-minded woman who knows how to ensnare men into her net. She reminded me a little of Rebecca de Winter (in Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca). Not the exact personalities, but her power over others that makes her loved and hated at the same time, and how her influence grips the others, that her name evokes some emotions in their selves, long after she died - it felt like she's always present, just like with Rebecca.

🍸 Colonel Race's involvement is pretty small here. He was invited to the second birthday party at Luxembourg - this time for Iris' birthday, but George Barton used it to decoy the murderer by a scenario which he refused to reveal to anyone, which of course would alarm the murderer. Would he succeeded? Or would he be the second murder victim? Quite a proper murder mystery, eh?

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐1/2

Read for:

20 Books of Summer 2024

hosted by Cathy @ 746 Books

Mini Reviews for #AgathaChristieSS24: August

The Gate of Baghdad

Parker Pyne is on holiday in the Middle East. During a long motor trip journey from Damascus to Baghdad, just when everyone is sleeping of boredom, one of the passengers, a Captain Smethurst is found dead, stabbed at the back of his neck. This time Parker Pine must use his brain, not to solve a romantic or household affair, but a murder! Luckily he has a useful habit of listening to people's talk, that it helps him this time to point out the murderer. A simple, clever, and amusing mystery.

The Man Who Was No. 16

Tommy and Tuppence are helping Inspector Carter to catch the great Russian spy, the number 16. Tommy shines in this case, after borrowing Poirot's famous method of using his grey cells, to locate the villain and releases Tuppence. A good story involving disguises, some actions, red herring, and some clever and hilarious scenes. I loved the smart conversation between No. 16 and Tommy, using a lot of the number sixteen as the password. If you haven't realized yet, I also purposely posted this mini review on the 16th! I think this is going to be my favorite from Tommy & Tuppence stories - clever, witty, with perfect proportions of actions, mysteries, and humour. And it's nice too that once and a while Tommy shines over Tuppence - though in this case she was powerless to do anything, but still.... Finally, Tommy could be the Poirot of Tuppence's Hastings! :D