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This and the following chapter centre attention on those illusory masks worn by the
protagonists in C. J. Koch and Blanche d’Alpuget’s Asian novels. The comparison of Eastern
and Western views of the reality of the ‘individual’ should help clarify the novelists’
formulation of heroic qualities in their protagonists, a topic which has in Koch’s case been seen
in chapter 7 on the Javanese dramatic form, the wayang kulit. The concept of the ‘three
gunas’, the elementary and distinguishing components of all created forms of being, which
explains much of d’Alpuget’s pet concept of ‘brutalisation’, is then introduced. The details of
the ‘bestiary’ d’Alpuget has written in Monkeys in the Dark are studied, with special attention
given to her most truly brutalised character, the Indonesian hero-villain, Sutrisno. The focus
on d’Alpuget concludes with a review of Antonella Riem’s analysis of the psychological
brutalisation of the Australian journalist Judith Wilkes in Turtle Beach. Supported by a cast of
heavily masked actors, d’Alpuget leads her readers from blind sympathy with the protagonist
to awareness for the relativity of such concepts as ‘values’, ‘culture’, ‘self’, and ‘Other’. The
gaze then turns to Koch’s use of the concept of the masks of the personality. The effects of the
three gunas is seen in the descending in the cosmic order, where gods become men, men
become animals or agents of evil, and even inanimate objects are demonised. The chapter
closes with a look at the various masks in the Wayang Bar, which is largely Koch’s further
development of the themes borrowed from Lewis Carroll’s Alice characters with Javanese
accent. There remain some very interesting masked figures who are not treated in this chapter
as they seem to fit better elsewhere. Chapter 11 gives special attention to the masked doubles,
d’Alpuget’s Alexandra Wheatfield and Anthony Sinclaire, and Koch’s Guy Hamilton and Billy
Kwan.
10.2. Eastern and Western Concepts of ‘Personality’
The Western concept of ‘persona’ has its roots in the ancient Greek dramatic tradition of
the actor wearing a real, physical mask through (per) which he would sound (sonat) his role.
Zimmer describes how the actor remained separated from his mask; the mask conveyed the
features, make-up and traits of the role, while leaving the actor himself an anonymous and
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