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A review by whimsicallyreading
Cantik itu Luka by Eka Kurniawan
3.0
torn between 2,5 or 3 but I'll give 3 for the nicely done strings between every character mentioned. don't get me wrong but IT IS A GREAT BOOK. Eka Kurniawan's writing is unnervingly amazing as usual, as I was introduced to it for the first time through his eerie and gruesome anthology, Cinta Tak Ada Mati.
BUT.
the intercontextual resemblance to One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez in this one is too uncanny to go unnoticed. when I started reading Cantik Itu Luka I was well aware of people's saying that CIL is Indonesian 100YoS, but boy I didn't expect it to feel like Eka Kurniawan took subplots or details from 100YoS and rearranged them while giving them some local twists to write this book. For instance, Rengganis si Cantik... Remedios the Beauty. There are other resemblances I can mention but that would be a long list.
I truly envy anyone who is reading/has read Cantik Itu Luka without the awareness of One Hundred Years of Solitude prior
BUT.
the intercontextual resemblance to One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez in this one is too uncanny to go unnoticed. when I started reading Cantik Itu Luka I was well aware of people's saying that CIL is Indonesian 100YoS, but boy I didn't expect it to feel like Eka Kurniawan took subplots or details from 100YoS and rearranged them while giving them some local twists to write this book. For instance, Rengganis si Cantik... Remedios the Beauty. There are other resemblances I can mention but that would be a long list.
I truly envy anyone who is reading/has read Cantik Itu Luka without the awareness of One Hundred Years of Solitude prior