Selain bahasa yang sering disebut-sebut sebagai salah satu biang yang mengakibatkan krisis sastra masa kini di Indonesia, moralitas juga sekarang menjadi fokus para penulis senior ataupun para akademisi. Saya merasa sangat terusik untuk membahas soal krisis moral dalam sastra Indonesia yang konon oleh beberapa penulis senior ibarat tubuh yang sudah kehilangan kepala. Yang dimaksud penulis-penulis ini tentu saja adalah sastra modern seakan-akan sangat terjerumus dalam persoalan eros dan erotisisme ketimbang moralitas.
Pergunjingan soal moralitas muncul dalam kesusastraan dan kebudayaan pada awal agama mulai tersebar luas dalam peradaban. Sebelumnya moralitas dalam karya-karya drama ataupun mitos Yunani terasa sangat terbuka dan sifatnya tidak mengkhotbah, tetapi lebih sering merupakan sebuah ungkapan dari kehidupan, atau lebih tepatnya seperti disebut oleh Nietzsche, The Gay Science, yang intinya adalah bahwa moralitas pun merupakan suatu aspek ringan atau komedi dalam kehidupan kita. Moralitas menjadi momok yang sering dipergunakan oleh para wali keagamaan untuk menindas para pemikir dan pekerja kesenian selama berabad-abad. Walaupun demikian, dari masa ke masa, dari peralihan zaman pencerahan hingga ke era Victoria hingga masa kini, moralitas tidak hentinya digempur oleh para penulis dan seniman di mana pun.
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A Short History of Nearly Everything
By Bill Bryson
Black Swan, 687 Pages
The idea for the book occurred to Bill Bryson on a long flight over the Pacific when a question popped in his mind. Are the oceans growing more salty or less with time? (He found out in the end that there is as yet a definite answer he could get out of the scientists today on this question) The question then took on a persistent life of its own until he realized that he did not have the faintest idea about the only planet he is living on.
A Short History of Nearly Everything is the result of Bryson’s quest. Packed with bite-size knowledge that will tremendously come in handy in parlor games or when one’s child suddenly blurts out in public within eavesdropping distance of all interested adults, the inappropriate question of the origin of the human species. Written with the simplicity of a layman searching for simple answers to various pertinent questions about life on earth, Bill Bryson takes us through stage by stage from the beginning of the universe (from a kernel of proton the size of the dib ink of a dot with matter packed inside and then expanding tremendously within seconds of the explosion, into a tremendous expanse. It is still being debated whether this universe is being contracted, or expanding indefinitely or staying in status quo), the beginning of life (caused by the collision of a major planet into earth that brought carbon, the indispensable element that makes life possible on earth), various mysteries about the core of the earth (a gigantic cauldron that causes magnetism which in turn makes gravity possible and yet is capable of causing havocs such as the shifting of tectonic plates and earthquakes), and the discoveries of our DNA (how uniquely each one of us is, considering that we are each the miraculous results of permutations, imagine a jackpot machines with hundreds of icons the size of a row of buildings hitting on the exact numbers to produce a single irreplaceable human being — so mind-boggling scientists are still at work to figure out more).
At each stage of our beginning, Bryson introduces human’s scientific efforts to understand the earth we live in, the universe and the various mysteries that make our life here on earth sustainable. He takes us on a journey of scientific discoveries that is so intriguing that his book reads almost like a first rate thriller.
This is an indispensable book for those celebrities that clamor daily on the back pages of the national dailies about how committed they are to keeping our environment safe and clean by showing us how they sort through their garbage, etc. as if that helps a whole lot in keeping our environment safe. This book will show these well-intentioned personalities that global climate change is caused mostly by CFCs (Clorofluorocarbons) invented in the 30’s by a scientist named Midgley, immediately embraced by producers for a diverse products from refrigerators to deodorant puffs. A single kilogram of this substance emitting into the stratosphere will annihilate the ozone and stay on for a century! Sorting out the garbage will hardly do much in preserving this planet. It requires great political will of every country to phase out CFCs last reported CFCs will be banned in Southeast Asia in 2010 and bring our ozone back to its normal state. So unless we dumped our air-conditioners and started cycling to work, not much we do individually will help in restoring our ozone level.
This book also shows that as keepers of this planet we have done a really shoddy job. Daily, hundreds of species become extinct in our hands, either because of our quirky taste or because of our preternaturally destructive instincts. But Bryson is not preaching the preservation of the earth or of its species; he is more interested in making us understand our place in the universe. How miraculously we have come this far against all odds. Our existence is so unique we barely scrape the surface of the mysteries.
Ada beda yang sangat kentara antara penulis sastra dan ahli sastra. Seorang penulis sastra berusaha, dengan serampangan tanpa mengikuti suatu metode, memetik apa saja dari sumber sastra untuk tujuan seninya. Ia mengolahnya untuk mengisi kebutuhan seninya. Yang ia pelajari bukan sintaksis atau teori, tapi gerak “menuju pengungkapan baru, menghancurkan ekspektasi genre yang ada”. Seorang ahli sastra, anggaplah dia akademikus di fakultas sastra, berusaha terus mengolah dari sastra sumber-sumber yang bisa disatukan dalam suatu teori atau persepsi yang kemudian dibakukan menjadi metode. Untuk meyakinkan kolega, mereka menulis temuan mereka dalam bentuk makalah dengan bahasa formal sarat jargon akademis.
Bagi dunia sastra inilah soalnya. Bagaimana bisa kita kembangkan sastra dengan panduan yang begitu kaku dan teoretis? Berbagai makalah sudah ditulis tentang puisi TS Eliot, The Waste Land. Begitu hebat makalah-makalah tentang puisi ini, sampai-sampai mahasiswa takut mendekatinya. Takut, seperti akademisi yang pertama kali diperkenalkan dengan puisi ini tahun 1922. Pada waktu itu ahli sastra tak memahami makhluk baru yang mereka hadapi. Dalam kekalutan penafsiran mereka, diperkeruh lagi dengan catatan tambahan di akhir puisi itu, pengejaran pada makna The Waste Land makin dahsyat. Semakin kalut pencarian para akademisi, semakin salut mereka pada kehebatan puisi ini.
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