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It may appear difficult to apply modes of musical accompaniment for a theatrical work
to a work of fiction, and yet, close examination of the three divisions supports Maes-Jelinek’s
thesis. An initial instructional voice—as Billy Kwan brings Guy Hamilton up to speed on
Indonesian politics and society, the wayang kulit, and the Bhagavad Gita—dominates part I,
entitled “Patet Nem: Hamilton’s Dwarf”. A new, more sensually expressive voice in part II,
“Patet Senga: Water from the Moon”, keys in on the developing complexities in the
relationship between Kwan and Hamilton, as on the sacred aspect of Indonesia, called ‘The
Gate of the World’ (YLD, 156)—identifying it as the passage way between Earth and Heaven,
or illusion and reality. Earthly illusion is represented by the suffering of Jakarta’s inhabitants,
while heavenly reality, depicted in the Javanese highlands, is, as Hamilton interprets it, ‘like
hallucination’ (YLD, 159), or, as the more culturally sophisticated Kumar says, ‘Water from
the Moon’, meaning ‘anything impossible’ (YLD, 163). Part III, “Patet Manjura: Amok”,
seems to present anything but old age’s serenity. Instead, it depicts the fall of Indonesia into
violence and chaos, and even Guy Hamilton’s flight to Europe with Jill is riddled with a sense
of an incompleteness of the sensibility Maes-Jelinek argues should be present, and which can
only be resolved by a return to Southeast Asia. This must, nevertheless, be put into the terms
which Koch is working, which is, first, that Hamilton is only half of the personality in
question; and, second, that Koch associates the three patet to the concept of the circular path of
non-knowing, doubt and faith discussed in chapter 6. Billy Kwan, the character most
determined to formulate his sense of ‘knowing’, does finally recognise his state of non-
knowing, and suffers the doubts which cause him to run amok with the rest of the population.
The important voice of spiritual maturity of patet manjura, lacking in the incomplete story of
Guy Hamilton, is fully expressed in the faith and serenity which characterise Billy Kwan’s
death. (The assertion that Kwan dies anything but a violent and senseless death butts up
against conventional critical analysis, and so is extensively dealt with in Chapter 8.)
Functioning in relation to this musical structure is the wayang kulit’s two-tiered
narrative, provided by Cookie in the function of the novel’s dalang. The first aspect, called
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