2025 Readings 92

 Here's another book that I had never read, but, in this case, I had never heard of until recently. I suppose that's not too surprising since, by definition, there are millions of books I've never heard of. This is strange because it's related to Indiana, and you would have thought I would have heard about it - seen it featured in some discussion of books with a Hoosier connection or even it front and center in a bookstore in Indiana (I suppose such things exist, although I can't remember one off hand). However, maybe it's not that strange. Anyway, a couple days ago I finished Budi Darma's People From Bloomington. Darma, originally from Indonesia (and already a successful writer there), earned his Ph.D. in literature at IU in the 1970s (writing his dissertation on Jane Austin, of all people). People From Bloomington is a collection of short stories, which, much like Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio, comes together to form a novel. I always scold my students for not reading the introduction to the books I assign them, and this was another great example of why it's beneficial to do so. It's pointed out that one of the things that makes the collection so interesting is that instead of the myriad examples of western writers writing on the exotic other in places like India or Africa or the Middle East, here's an Indonesian writer reflecting upon the exotic other in the west. What comes across is a not particularly flattering portrayal of Hoosiers, which, truthfully, I think it pretty spot-on. In Indiana we pride ourselves on being friendly souls - or at least that's part of our mythology - but there's also a definite closed-minded cruelty to Hoosiers. Every four years the first states that are called are Vermont (unfailingly) for the Democratic candidate and Indiana (unfailingly for the Republican candidate). In the old days I suppose that would have been fine, although my old home state has gone passionately MAGA, and I would argue that it's a reflection of the callousness that Darma captured in People From Bloomington. Anyway, I'd definitely recommend the book. It was uneven, but some of the short stories were staggeringly good.