fuhhlarzablur 's review for:

The Year of Living Dangerously by Christopher J. Koch

4.0

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Mixed feelings about liking this so much, mainly because it parrots the Suharto account of G30S so readily - inventing a Chinese arms shipment to the PKI, reproducing sensational claims of mutilation by Gerwani witches, and so on. Not that alternate narratives were yet widespread by the late 70s but you'd think the newsman narrator, at least, would be a little less credulous towards the junta's line. That aside, gorgeous novel. Orientalist but selfconsciously so, narrated sometimes omnisciently, sometimes ambiguously, and stocked with deeply flawed but irrepressible characters, foremost Billy Kwan.