ENERGY OF NOVELS SAMAN, NAYLA, AND PETIR IN LITERARY PUBLISHING INDUSTRY

Sugiarti1, I Nyoman Kutha Ratna2, I Nyoman Weda Kusuma2, Ayu Sutarto3

  • 1Postgraduate Program, Udayana University

  • 2Department of Linguistics, Faculty of Letters, Udayana University 3Department of Englilsh Literature, Faculty of Letters, Jember University Email: [email protected]

ABSTRACT

The research was based on the notion that novels Saman, Nayla, and Petir have uniqueness in the exploration of ideas, narration style, and such typical techniques that created new esthetics. Besides, the literary works were written by three creative, innovative and knowledgeable young women who, in expressing their ideas and thoughts, were able to totally frame story and give energy to the novels Saman, Nayla, and Petir. In the history of Indonesian contemporary literary works, they (Ayu Utami, Djenar Maesa Ayu, and Dewi Lestari) were known to have produce monumental works, which in turn received good responses in Indonesian literature publishing industry.

This research is aimed at describing (a) thematic aspect and energy of the novels Saman, Nayla and Petir, which encourages literature publishing industry to publish; (b) readers’ reception of the themes novels Saman, Nayla, and Petir in social and cultural change and publishing industry; (c) relevance of cultural industry and economic praxis of readers, book market and publishing industry of literary history. The research method used was descriptive with qualitative and hermeneutic approaches. Meanwhile, the data was deeply analyzed in the understanding, content, and context. The analysis was conducted in cyclic and counter balanced ways to gain deep understanding of writers’ thoughts, readers’ responses to the literary works, and the role of publishing industry with available market prospect. The research was based on theory of post structuralism, reception, intertext, and cultural industry in literature.

The research results showed that (1) thematic aspects and energy of the novels Saman, Nayla, and Petir as a context described women’s concern about social and cultural structure, patriarchy culture, and conflicts between traditional and modern structures. There were vulgar and jumping expressions, contrasting dictions, fantasy and symbolic language, the use of natural style, free narrative, surprising and scientific techniques. The narative strength, characteristic, and uniqueness of the novel Saman, Nayla, and Petir have motivated the publishing industry to publish them ; (2) readers’ reception to the themes of the novels Saman, Nayla, and Petir in relation to social and cultural change, and literature publishing industries in Indonesia, could be categorized into two parties, pro and contra. The socio and cultural change has caused the literary values not to be bound by time and space. Such values keep growing and changing ; (3) relevance of cultural industry and economic practice of readers’ book market and publishing industry of literary history, it could be seen that model became collective, business and ideological oriented instead of other more important things. Indonesian literary history has experienced reduction as a result of the development of cultural industry, regardless the fact that it was still based on esthetic standard.

Key words: energy of novel, public responses, cultural industry, publishing industry

  • 1.    Background and Problem

Ayu Utami, Djenar Maesa Ayu and Dewi Lestari are the young writers who are very creative, innovative, and wide minded in exploring their ideas or thoughts. These are shown through the novels Saman, Nayla, and Petir. Their tallent and skill in picturing related events of the stories could attract publishers to print the novel repeatedly based the demand of the market. Ayu Utami puts the cultural stigma on the role and position of the women and women’s hidden desire to break social tradition. Djenar Maesa Ayu focusses on sexual problems to expose bad behaviors which cause many victims. And Dewi Lestari offers a new mainstream in the map of Indonesian novel by making scientific description as integral part of story.

This research is aimed at describing (a) thematic aspect and energy of the novels Saman, Nayla and Petir, which encourages literature publishing industry to publish; (b) readers reception of the themes novels Saman, Nayla, and Petir in social and cultural change and publishing industry; (c) relevance of cultural industry and economic praxis of readers, book market, and publishing industry of literary history. In general, this study aims at giving the overall picture of the novels Saman, Nayla and Petir and the responses given by the reader and the literary publishing industry.

Theoretically, the results of this study has significant contribution as they can be used to (1) enrich the information on the themes of literary sociological study and literary discourse, (2) enrich and widen the application of the theory of post structuralism and cultural analysis especially of the modern and contemporary Indonesian literary discourse, (3) find out the concepts which can be useful to the historical and socio economic development of the contemporary Indonesian literature, (4) develop the critical analysis concept of the contemporary novels which are represented through literary discourse (5) apply the style of the language used covering words, stylization, the writer’s narration style as an important strength if related to the socio and cultural change and the publishing industry of Indonesian literature;

In practice, the results of this study can give meaningful contribution as they can be used to (1) apply the reception of the community of readers of the contemporary

Indonesian literature; (2) be one of the references for motivating the literary researchers who so far have always focused on the intrinsic research, can be the influential alternative model of the extrinsic literary study and be the approach when conducting further research with different focuses; (3) be useful to the writers when creating their next works; and (4) motivate the female young generation of writers to write.

  • 2.    Material and Discussion

The method used in this study is descriptive method with qualitative and hermeneutic. The reason using the approaches is that the problems of the study are related to texts and field study. This study is conducted in Jakarta, Bandung and Bogor (the cities where the writers and the publishers reside). The data used were primary data (the data which were obtained through interviews) and the secondary data (the data in the form of texts). The data were collected from library research, interviews and discussions. To obtain the data in the field, the informants were purposively chosen (purposive sampling) and based on several criteria instead of arbitrary. To comprehend the deep meaning, the content and the context were analyzed. Reciprocal and circling analysis was made to comprehend the deep meaning of the writers’ thought, the responses given by the readers to the literary work and the role of the publishing industry with the available market opportunity. The results of the analysis were formally and informally presented. The formal form includes tables of figures and words or verbal phrases. The informal form is in the form of narration.

To answer the problem of this study several theory are used such as post structuralism theory, reception, inter textual and cultural industry in literature.

Post structuralism is the positive development of structuralism. Furthermore, post structuralism is developed because lives also developed so fast, and post structuralism is employed to comprehend the universal cultural phenomenon. Therefore, other knowledge is needed to comprehend it due to the structural roles that form it. Luxemburg et al (1984) and Rimon Kenan (1983) state that the discourse structure and the narrative text are all discourse of the texts which contain the sets of events that can be classified into fiction narrative structure and non fiction narrative structure. Post structuralism is employed to analyze the novels

as the texts based on the structure that form them based on the coherence of events in the novels Saman, Nayla and Petir. In addition, post structuralism is also employed to analyze reveal the verbal aspects related to the use of the signified and the signifier in the form of language in the novels.

Literary text deal with two different parties; they are writers and the readers. The readers’ reception plays an important role. This is based on the opinion that literary work is created to be read. Literary works constitute an effective means of communication between writers and readers. Reception was employed to explore the responses given by the reader to the themes of the novels Saman, Nayla and Petir in their relation to the problem of social and cultural changes and the literary publishing industry in Indonesia.

A text does not have a single meaning that is determined by any single context. A text is determined by various frameworks and contexts that makes it have some meanings. The inter textual aspect is the context which is employed to read a change within the text continuously. Meanwhile, the texts try to put themselves in such a way to control the interpretation given by the readers by creating proper frameworks (Chambers, 1984).

The power of ideology in cultural industry becomes so wide that conformity replaces consciousness. The worse toward conformity cannot tolerate any form of deviation or any contrast form, nor with any alternative vision in the structure of the society. So, it can be said that cultural industry has nullified the social values already standardized.

Thematic aspect and the energy of the novels Saman, Nayla and Petir and the worse what has motivated the literary publishing industry to publish them can be revealed as follows. The novel of Saman written by Ayu Utami has produced meanings which can explain what the female characters are concerned about. They wished to break the restrictions created by traditions, social norms and religion related to sexuality (physicality, virginity, sexual intercourse, sexual desire, marriage, sexual betrayal, and rape). The style of expressing the story tends to be innocent, although sometime using symbolism, and unlinear events. The novel of Nayla written by Djenar Maesa Ayu has

the meanings to faith against patriarchal culture. The language used tends to be innocen. and the problem of sexuality is considered as “deviation”, such as sexual intercourse without marriage, masturbation, sadomasochism and free sex. The use of contrastive words; the expressing style is rich of symbolism and fantasy. The novel of Petir written by Dewi Lestari clearly reflects spiritual journeys portrayed through the characters. The questions about to God is existence, the meaning of life, and the like. The events presented show the ability of the writer to integrate the themes and dictions properly, to connect the plots using polite language, to arrange conflicts with pleasant explosion, to use stylization mixed with nature, and to reveal science and philosophy. The motivation of publishing industry to publish novels Saman, Nayla and Petir is the power of narration, characteristics, and uniqueness of the novels.

The reception of the readers of the themes of the novels Saman, Nayla and Petir concerning the problem of social and cultural changes and the literary publishing industry in Indonesia can be categorized into two parties. They are the pro and the contra parties both sides described as follows.

According to the reception which is pro toward the existence of the three woman writers and their works. The three writers use composition technique which is not conventional The stile of the expression is open and tends to be innocent (Ayu Utami and Djenar Maesa Ayu) but that is the victory after being handcuffed by politeness for a long times. The unlimited space and time, introvert and extrovert dialogues complex in fact, parallel with the content of the story, location and cultural of the era. In addition, they also reveal the contemptible politics known as development and socio tragedy, philosophy of life, theological interpretation, conflicts and the felling of longing. Poetic language features and rich the contemporary Indonesian stories. Viewed from the content point of view, which used to be in doubt, turns out that the content is amazing. Narration, essay and poem are composed in such a way that they attract attention. In addition, they also contain contemporary ideas, pay much attention to the marginalized groups and contain criticism and auto critics.

To the party which disagrees, the works written by Ayu Utami and Djenar Maesa Ayu symbolize Gerakan Syawat Merdeka (Freedom Syawat Movement), which plays a significant role in degrading the morality of the Indonesian nation. The sexual themes

they talk about prove that they are free people. The works written by them serve as the flavoring spice, expose genitals freely, esthetically less educative and may negatively affect students as psychologically they are not stable. The socio cultural changes taking place cause the literary values not to be bound with time and space. Such values keep on growing and changing.

The relationship among cultural industry with the practice of economy of novel market, the readers and the publishing industry in the level of the history of Indonesian literature can be described as follows. The image has become the collective orientation, business and even ideology instead of the other things considered nobler so far. In Indonesian literature, the appearance of the female writers has made the writing tradition more colorful. Nowadays the publishing industry is economically for capitalism. This is particularly applied to the works which have promising prospect. Viewed from the substantial point of view, their works offer new things which used to be relatively taboo to expose. In addition, modern culture gives the freedom of imagination offered by the era, and at the same time prepares empty space wished by the community of readers. In this way, the readers find what they really wish.

  • 3.    Research Novelties

  • (1)    The novels of Saman, Nayla and Petir have the power to present existed characters in the space and setting constructed through narration and elastic and dynamic dramatization. All the events are presented through such empirical and spiritual experiences with brilliant language is produced.

  • (2)    The female writers have sensitive intuition in responding the spirit of the era that create pop cultural construction. The esthetic matters offered by the female writers do not only have anything to do with the finding of good and alternative pronunciation but also the braveness to experience something which offers different impressions.

  • (3)    The popularity of literary work in contemporary community is not only autonomously made by its quality but also by the energy outside it, that is, the publishing industry. The relationship among the writers (as the cultural workers), the market (the

community), and the publisher (the capital owner) cannot be hindered as they are simultaneously and complementarily related.

  • (4)    Saman, Nayla and Petir are narrated by using postmodern style and by breaking puritanism; however, the narration is not beyond heterosexuality. The responses are made by adding fresh inspiration that motivate us to take part and act the uniqueness of the global culture itself.

  • (5)    Ayu Utami, Djenar Maesa Ayu, and Dewi Lestari, in revealing the ideas of the stories, tend to show the characters from the marginalized groups, multicultural culture and metropolis life. The exclusiveness and uniqueness of their works meaningfully contribute to the development of the history of Indonesian literature.

  • 4.    Conclusions

The conclusions which can be made are as follows (1) the thematic aspect and the energy of Saman, Nayla and Petir and what has motivated the literary publishing industry can explain how the female characters are concerned about breaking the social norms and tradition and about opposing the patriarchal culture. They can also explain the spiritual journeys made by the characters in the stories. The expressing style is vulgar and irregular and is rich in fantasy, symbolism, science and philosophy. The contrastive words and stylization mixed with nature are used. The narrative strength, characteristics, and uniqueness of the novels Saman, Nayla and Petir have motivated the publishing industry to publish them. (2) The reception of the readers an novels Saman, Nayla and Petir in relation to the socio and cultural change, and the literary publishing industry in Indonesia can be classified into two. They are the party which agrees and the party which disagrees. The socio and cultural change has caused the literary values not to be bound by time and space. Such values keep growing and changing. (3) The relevance of the popular cultural industry to the practice of the economy of novel market, the reader and the publishing industry in the level of the history of Indonesian literature, can be stated that the image has become collective orientation, business and even ideology instead of the others so far considered nobler. From the substantial point of view, the works written by Ayu Utami, Djenar Maesa Ayu and Dewi Lestari offer new things which used to be relatively taboo to reveal, and the modern culture including freedom of imagination

offered is in accordance with what is expected by the era and offers empty space intended by the community of readers.

  • 5.    Acknowledgement

Praise to God that that blesses the writer good health to finish the dissertation entitled “Energy of the Novels Saman, Nayla and Petir in the Literary Publishing Industry”, as one of the requirements to complete the Doctoral Program in Linguistics, Literary Concentration of the Postgraduate Program of Udayana University can be completed.

The writer owes many parties for the completion of this dissertation. Therefore, in this opportunity the writer would like to thank the Rector of the University of Muhammadiyah Malang (UMM), his Vice-rector I, II and III who have motivated and provided the writer with facilities for this study. The writer would also like to extend her thanks to the Dean of the Faculty of Teaching and Education and his Assistants I, II and III and to all the teaching staff of the Faculty of Teaching and Education the University of Muhammadiyah Malang (UMM)

The writer would also like to give her high appreciation to the institution which has provided the writer with scholarship through BPPS (P2T) of Udayana University, and to the Rector of Udayana University, the Director of the Postgraduate Program and his staff, Head and Secretary of the Doctorate Program of Linguistics, and Head of the Literary Concentration of Udayana University and his staff.

In all sincerity, the writer would like to extend her thanks to Prof. Dr. I Nyoman Kutha Ratna, S.U., as the promoter, Prof. Dr. I Nyoman Weda Kusuma, M.S., as copromoter I, and Prof. Dr. Ayu Sutarto, M.A., as co-promoter II who have attentively, patiently and thoroughly motivated and supervised the writer from the beginning to the final stage of completing of this dissertation.

In this good opportunity, the writer would also like to be thankful to the team of the dissertation examiners such as Prof. Dr. I Nyoman Kutha Ratna, S.U., Prof. Dr. I Nyoman Weda Kusuma, M.S., Prof. Dr. Ayu Sutarto, M.A., Prof. Dr. I Made Suastika, S.U., Prof. Dr. I Wayan Cika, M.S., Prof. Dr. Aron Meko Mbete, Prof. Dr. Drs. Ida Bagus Putra Yadnya, M.A., and Dr. I Nyoman Suarka, M.Hum. who have provided the writer with meaningful criticism, suggestions and input to make this dissertation better.

Finally, the writer would also like to thank all the parties who have supported the completion of the writer’s study at the Doctoral Program, Postgraduate Program of Udayana University, whom cannot be mentioned one by one.