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einforces the sense of ‘fear and danger inherent in contact’ between self and other. The
ultimate danger would then lie in the merger of the self and the ‘Other’, specifically (1)
through influence of the ‘primitive’ inherent in the ‘Other’—as exposure to the rituals,
festivals and artistic performances which d’Alpuget and Koch’s protagonists experience—, or
(2) through sexual contact—as occurs with d’Alpuget’s female, though interestingly not
Koch’s male, protagonists—, or (3) through the production of the ‘half-caste’—as represented
in Koch’s parade of hybrids (Hamilton, 18).
Yet, in what Hamilton calls ‘a danger’ she also sees a tremendous desire, and this is
what d’Alpuget and Koch interpret as opportunity. For sure, Judith Wilkes is driven by her
fear of the ‘Other’ to the cold comfort of her materialist oblivion; Alex Wheatfield’s profound
sense of virtue suffers a defeat to the forces of stereotypical segregation; Billy Kwan is driven
from what friends and family he manages to gather to himself; Mike Langford disappears in
the hell of Khmer Rouge Cambodia; et cetera. At the same time, Guy Hamilton, the introvert
with hardly an iota of self-knowledge finds his world drastically converted by its interaction
with the ‘Otherworld’ of Java; even Billy Kwan, the consummate passive thinker, becomes a
man of action; and Alex Wheatfield’s setback bears all of the signs of being temporary; and
Minou, the ultimate personification of Hamilton’s thesis, throws herself against all of the
maddening and deadly forces of isolation from self and collision with the ‘Other’, and finally
realises exactly what her identity and purpose are. D’Alpuget and Koch set up these
situations, let old and new perspectives of the ‘self’ and the ‘Other’ come crashing together,
and demonstrate how they might occasionally fuse, so that the image seen through the veil of
dust on the mirror becomes clearer and the likenesses of ‘Other’ and ‘self’ recognized.
5.3. The Threatening ‘Other’--the 1984 Paradigm.
The formulaic cultural imagery depicting the ‘Other’ as a threat must first be
acknowledged before the clash between fear and desire can be brought into action. Koch and
d’Alpuget’s novels, especially The Year of Living Dangerously and Turtle Beach, therefore
present Southeast Asian countries as a latter-day ‘Yellow Menace’, where a degree of order
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