PART THREE. FROM TJERITA TO NOVELS. CHAPTER 9. RIAU AND BALI IN MODERN INDONESIAN LITERATURE 9.1 Introduction In Indonesia the short story genre is a more extensive genre than the novel in terms of distribution. Moreover it is argued that it is a more organic genre, which has influence on the novel. Novelization is present in the short story too, with actuality, open-endedness and renewal. Novels exist mostly as a phenomenon of large commercial centres. And where there are many novels – the novel is considered by Moretti (1996:236) to be a predatory genre – other narrative forms become scarce. That is why Jakarta is the centre of the novel and regional and more isolated areas still have more traditional narrative forms. 388 Tjerita readings constituted the main literary genre in Indonesia next to the more written and more stylized hikayat, with no clear borders separating them, therefore the dialogue between the genres was intense. Today there is still a dialogue between traditional and modern narratives because literature is polysemic and authors make use of their heritage. The predatory genres that have devoured the tjerita and the hikayat are subverted from within by the heritage. 389 A simple but reasonable definition of literary quality in the novel, added to the definitions in 6.2.1, is the kind that makes us think and offers insight into the human condition, rather than being merely interesting or exciting. Quantitatively a novel is a narrative of at least 40,000 words, which defines Oka Rusmini’s Tarian Bumi (Sebuah novel) (2000) as a novella. 390 The great ‘encyclopaedic’ text and peak of the modern Indonesian literary project is the Buru quartet by Pramoedya A. Toer. When that position is temporarily occupied we should look for works with encyclopaedic qualities, which attend to a wide social and linguistic range, make use of a multitude of literary styles and conventions and become integrated into the market of books. 391 Let this be an additional measure of canonicity. The New Order regime, modernist and epic, was not conducive to the novel. It silenced polyphony through the SARA-laws and by stimulating both conformism and resistance. It can even be argued that the epic New Order battled the novel through censoring the novels which were deemed to be the best in the country. Post-modernism further erodes the modern Indonesian literary project but also connects with the heritage; fragmentation, one of its characteristics, was the norm in the legacy of continuing tales. The term novel is applied to a variety of texts that are published as such, from coherent structured narratives to collages of stories. The novel is a European form that has been incorporated into the literary evolution of non-Western nations, producing both what conforms to Western notions and what diverges from it. Indonesia is at the periphery of the world-system but integrated into it through 388 Jakarta is also the centre of the short story. Possibly, where there are many short stories other narrative forms become scarce. 389 We see this also in short stories. See for instance the stories taken up by R. T. Banua in 4.2.2 and 4.3.7. 390 See definitions in 2.4. 391 Compare with ‘Each major national culture in the west, as it becomes aware of itself as a separate entity, produces an author, one whose work attends to the whole social and linguistic range of his nation, who makes use of all the literary styles and conventions known to his countrymen […] and who becomes the focus of a large and persistent exegetic and textual industry […]’ (Mendelsohn 1976:1268).