Map of the Invisible World: A Novel

From the author of the internationally acclaimed The Harmony Silk Factory comes an enthralling novel that evokes an exotic yet turbulent place and time—1960s Indonesia during President Sukarno’s drive to purge the country of its colonial past. A page-turning story, Map of the Invisible World follows the journeys of two brothers and an American woman who are indelibly marked by the past—and swept up in the tides of history.

Customer Reviews:

Interesting background to a story that doesn't quite come off

By Ralph Blumenau - May 6, 2010

The setting is Indonesia in 1963 and 1964, a time when Sukarno was whipping up fierce nationalist resentment against imperialism: against the British who had just set up Malaysia as an independent state when the Indonesians had hoped for a fusion between their countries, and against their former Dutch rulers and the Dutch who still lived in Indonesia, many of whom were forced to leave. Domestically, too, it is a tense time: there are demonstrations and riots against the government, especially by left-wing students, and the country was on the verge of General Suharto's murderous purge of the Indonesian communists.

The central character of the novel is Adam, a 16 year old Indonesian boy who had been adopted at the age of five from an orphanage by Karl de Willigen, a gentle Dutch artist, and who knows nothing about his parents. He is keenly aware that he is `different' from his Indonesian school fellows. He has a vague memory of an elder brother, Johan, who had also been... read more

"You need to find your past, your real past."

By S. McGee - April 7, 2010

Most of the characters in Tash Aw's remarkable, if not flawless, second novel are in search of some kind of truth about the past in order to make sense of their present and future. At its heard is the quest of young Adam de Willeg, the adopted Indonesian son of Karl, born Dutch but who has adopted Indonesian nationality in the wake of the country's independence, to find the older brother he can scarcely remember -- Johan was adopted and taken out of the country, leaving Adam behind in an orphanage -- and his desperate effort to locate Karl, who has been frogmarched out of the home they share on a remote island in the Indonesian archipelago by soldiers.

Aw sets his tale in what President Sukarno declares to be "the year of living dangerously", a year in which Sukarno breaks with the West definitively and in which the country trembles on the edge of civil war. And 16-year-old Adam is, indeed, living dangerously as he travels to turbulent Jakarta, the country's capital,n... read more

Great except for the Disney ending

By hh "hh01" - April 18, 2010

The above reviews nicely capture many of the book's strengths and give a good summary of plot. But there is one strength and one weakness, not addressed, that any potential buyer should know. The strength: the writing is not only seamless, but almost musical. If you read some paragraphs aloud you will find that the author has a natural (though subtle) inner rhythm that fits the topic and mood perfectly. Quite an accomplishment. The weakness: the author didn't trust the reader enough to follow through and provide a good ending. The ending is Disneyesque and yells "please let this book be commercial." Pity. The metaphors fall apart at the end because he pulls those punches. Idea: read all but the last 30 pages, devise your own ending, then see what he does with it.