Catatan-Catatan dari Bulan
'Notes from The Moon' is an anthology of poems on the various ordeals of life like depression, loneliness, death, and notably some interesting poems on the author's experience in relation to her gender. I'd describe it as life in the blood-tinted lense of hyperfeminization.
Crafted disturbingly with Rieke Saraswati's corporal, gorey, ocasionally edgy diction, I think this made the reading somewhat unpleasant but all the more captivating. It's like she's describing the curse of feminity and the vileness of womanhood that every girl unfortunately has to deal with, and it is absolutely unnerving to comprehend.
I'd say the cover design is really cool for its minimalistic approach: an emboss of the moon, detailed with textures of its crevices and an uneasy amount of empty space over a cool grey cover, along with the elegantly placed title right in the corner, it was what caught my attention in the first place.
Rated 18+, at first I thought 'how bad could this be? Just some poetic cliche notes from the moon?' and was I very wrong. After reading, I finally understood. The censorship was done right and I appreciate it. Also it was at that time priced at 30k IDR during a sale, but at its original price of 60k I think it's still super affordable, worth every penny spent.
This was my first time reading an Indonesian anthology, let alone contemporary literature, so I'm not quite sure how to judge it, but diction-wise I think the mix of Indonesian words with English derived words was uncanny, unpleasant in a way. It comes off as some sort of lazy effort on Indonesian itself, by substituting words you could describe in it with that of English or some other foreign language, which unfortunately I came across several times in this book, but it's no huge issue or even notable to point out at all because I'm no liguistic expert.
One thing I wonder is whether she was influenced by Baudelaire in any sense, because I find her edge somewhat reminiscent to that of Bauldelaire's vile and grotesque description that you can find in his anthology 'Les Fleurs du mal', which I unfortunately haven't got the chance to cop a physical print of.
All in all, it was a good but nauseating read. I'm not sure if I'm just pea-brained or her poems were intentionally vague, but it took several times' reading to fully comprehend her ideas, and even then I'm not so sure if they're accurate. Unfortunately I no longer have the book on me because my friend never returned it but I think it's for the best so I hold little sentimentality to some fickle of words as well.