Title : Di Tanah Lada (In the Land of Pepper)
Author : Ziggy Zezsyazeoviennazabrizkie
Publisher : PT Gramedia Pustaka Utama
Year of Publication : First Printing August 2015
There are many reasons why I only recently had the chance to read Ziggy's masterpiece. Moreover, I again borrowed it on the iPusnas legal application.
DI TANAH LADA
It tells the story of Salva, a six-year-old girl who always carries around an Indonesian spelling dictionary gifted by her grandfather. Salva is called Ava in the book, but not by her biological father who often mocks her name as saliva.
Ava is like any other innocent six-year-old girl, the words that come out of an adult's mouth that she doesn't understand, she looks up in her sacred dictionary. Ava has a view that all men in the world are evil except Grandpa Kia (Grandpa Kia is Ava's grandfather who gave her the dictionary). Ava came to this conclusion because her father loved to make her mother cry. Ava's father also likes to shout and is mean to Ava.
For some reason, Ava and her family have to move into a flat called Nero, from where Ava's adventures in her new world begin. It begins when she meets a boy with a small guitar named P. The eight-year-old boy's name is just P. At first, Ava thinks that P is a busker, but it's not. P is also a resident of the Nero flat. Just like Ava, P also has a father who is very cruel and likes to physically torture P. Because of these same things, Ava and P become friends and look after each other until the end.
While reading Di Tanah Lada, the reader is brought to the mindset or point of view of a child towards his gigantic duality. How a child interprets the words of adults that are difficult to understand, how they respond to the violence that befalls them, the capacity to grasp the question ‘why?’ that accumulates in the head of the child who becomes the main character. Most of all, because Ava is smart and critical. She criticises adults who think everyone should learn English to be considered smart. But according to Ava, we should speak standardised language, like in the dictionary she got as a gift from Grandpa Kia.
The author seems to be looking for an agreement with the readers about ‘an understanding’. After finishing reading, I came to my own conclusion, maybe the author also wants to ask us as readers, ‘Which is more difficult? Children understanding adults, or adults understanding children?’
Advantages
Ziggy is famous for her clever use of point of view. The same goes for Di Tanah Lada. She pithily takes the POV of the little kids and stays that way until the end of the chapter.
It reminds me of Le Petit Prince, both of these books are like children's adventure books for adult readers. This is an advantage in my opinion. Another thing is that readers learn that good language etiquette is very necessary especially when dealing with children. Because children are great imitators of what adults do.
LACK
Since this is the first book by Ziggy that I've read, it's almost hard for me to judge how lacking this book is. That's not to say it's perfect, of course nobody's perfect. The same goes for Di Tanah Lada.
Perhaps I was just unsatisfied with the ending of the novel, not about the fate of the main characters Ava and P, but about the fate of Ava's mother and her evil father.
After I finished reading this, I felt empty for a while. It was like I was lost in Ava and P's fate.
However, I would like to close this review by saying that this book is highly recommended and deserves to win a national writing competition. Congratulations, Ziggy!
Hi, I am the child of the universe, I like to read books with various genres. I was born in the city of batik but can't draw batik yet. I want to be a novelist, but my works are only short poems that are included in anthology books.
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