Go, Not Knowing Where!

ISBN-13: 9782839913911 / Angielski / Miękka / 2015 / 368 str.

Leonie Van Daalen-Roell

Opis

Rarely does a memoir of childhood and adolescence encompass more than sentimental reminiscences of those years. And yet, Go, Not Knowing Where does precisely that as It leads the reader far beyond such a simplistic approach in recounting the first twenty years in the life of the author Leonie van Daalen. Go comprises not only stories from the personal life of the author but also chapters containing vivid descriptions of cultural life in Indonesia, of cruelty and suffering in Japanese prison camps, of the aftermath of World War II in war-torn Holland, and of the Indonesian War of Independence. The memoir does not read as a chronology, for Mme. Van Daalen has interwoven strictly personal stories with portraits of Indonesian customs, of Japanese brutality in the camps, and of the demise of the Dutch Empire in the East Indies. Due to that structure, the reader may choose to read, at will, any chapter in any part of the memoir, for each component stands alone. Narration of the author's Fourth Birthday evokes her idyllic childhood on a plantation called Tjepiring. MaalFeest describes in colorful detail, an annual festival of food at the end of harvest. The Mountains of Java combines her love of the countryside and its fauna with a bit of magic. In Occupation and Imprisonment one reads of the barbarity and deprivation, which the writer and her family endured throughout the war. In Poentjak, Mme. Van Daalen takes us on a journey through that mountainous area peopled by a different ethnic group. In it, one not only reads about but actually shares in the enchantment felt by her. Near the end of the memoir, we learn how the author met her future husband with whom she set out on yet another journey and into another book of her fascinating and unique life.