THE YEAR OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY by Christopher J. Koch (1978) is a sophisticated story about post-colonial Indonesia, journalism and the driving force of identity, particularly the destructive force of conflicting identities.

Guy Hamilton is an Australian correspondent new to the country, which is ruled by the charismatic President Sukarno. Guy’s predecessor left the country without passing on contacts, which leaves him struggling to get stories. Billy Kwan, a Chinese-Australian dwarf cameraman, feeds Guy his first big story, which launches his career and establishes their friendship. Guy is extremely practical, obsessed with his career, and romanticizes women and the British Empire. Kwan is very romantic, moral, intellectual and philosophical, and offers an extremely interesting character constantly spouting challenging ideas. Kwan looks up to Guy as a kindred spirit but also what he could have been, but is ultimately disappointed when Guy fails his moral standards. At the crux of this is Jill, a bright but fragile spirit who works as an assistant at the British embassy, a friend of Kwan’s with whom Guy develops a romantic relationship.

The story of their triangle unfolds with passion but without moralizing, which is done by the characters and not by the author and his stand-in narrator, another journalist who recalls the events of 1965. The story of Sukarno and Indonesia is told in a similar way. Sukarno is a fascinating figure in the story, the nationalist leader who fought the Japanese occupation during WW2 and declared independence in its aftermath. An autocrat, he united an archipelago of islands, languages, ethnicities, cultures and religions to create a nation. Nonetheless, the country remained in turmoil, balanced precariously between the left-wing communist organization PKI and the right-wing Muslim military. As the PKI grew stronger and bolder, a confrontation looms that ignites a soft coup and genocide across the country. Kwan’s conflict with Guy, Guy’s conflict with Jill, and Kwan’s internal conflict all mirror the conflicts of identity within Sukarno and his Indonesia.

In short, THE YEAR OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY is a brilliant novel about identity and history. Highly recommended. The film adaptation (1982) by Peter Weir, starring Mel Gibson, Sigourney Weaver and Linda Hunt, is similarly excellent. It cuts some corners on the novel but is otherwise an excellent adaptation, though it focuses more on the relationship between Guy and Jill. Below is the trailer.

Ryszard Kapuscinski was a legendary Polish journalist who chronicled various wars, coups and revolutions that rocked Latin America and Africa during the ’60s and ’70s. His books transcend traditional journalism into the realm of literature, resulting in him being labeled a “mythographer,” able to capture the zeitgeist of great change.

Years ago, I enjoyed reading THE EMPEROR, in which Kapuscinski talked to former palace officials after the tall of the Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia, that country’s last ruler in a dynasty going back 3,000 years–legend has it to King Solomon. These conversations reconstructed life under the Emperor, particularly in the palace. In my view, it provided a remarkable look inside a bloated, decaying and capricious regime incompatible with the modern world.

More recently, I read SHAH OF SHAHS, in which Kapuscinski chronicles the brutality and fall of the Shah of Iran. The result is a compelling document of ordinary Iranians talking about life under the Shah and the hopes of the revolution that toppled him.

Kapuscinski’s books are long on zeitgeist and short on breadth and facts, providing a deep, emotional and literary take on history, and often cutting to the bone about the primary movers in great world events. SHAH OF SHAHS is a fascinating study of tyranny and revolution through the lens of Iranian culture.

Check out Kapuscinski’s work if you’re interested in a different way of looking a history.

Howard Fast’s SPARTACUS, which he self-published in 1951, is one of my favorite novels. It was later adapted into a terrific film directed by Stanley Kubrick and starring Kirk Douglas, Tony Curtis, Jean Simmons, Laurence Olivier, Charles Laughton and Peter Ustinov. Both are worth enjoying as the same but distinctly separate stories of Spartacus’ life.

Fast wrote SPARTACUS in response to the three months in prison he spent during the McCarthy Era, and self-published it because no publisher would touch it. Now it’s a classic.

SPARTACUS tells the story of the slave uprising against Rome during the Third Servile War (73-71 BC), led by Spartacus, a Thracian gladiator. Fast’s novelization of his life differs in some key respects from the life of the historical Spartacus so as to tell the story he wanted, which is an interpretation of Spartacus. The novel expresses the theme that life, love and freedom are paramount human values, and that oppression and slavery debase humanity.

The theme is evidenced in the story structure, which is split between two narratives. In one, a group of Roman nobles travel Italy touring the “tokens of punishment” (crucified slaves), the other flashbacks and stories describing Spartacus and his fight to end slavery. The Romans have the best of everything, a rich life built on the labor and suffering of millions of slaves. They don’t particularly enjoy it, though. Wealth and idleness have corrupted the virtues that build their republic, enabled by slavery. They hate and fear the slaves they exploit, going so far as to call them “instrumentum vocale,” or tools with a voice.

In the other narrative, we see Spartacus struggling to survive as a slave working in a marble mine and then as a gladiator in the arena. It disgusts him that people could be used up and thrown away to thrill jaded Romans. Gladiatorial combat isn’t gloried as it in films like GLADIATOR or the TV series SPARTACUS. Men don’t slaughter each other just to hear crowds cheer. The novel is closer to real life, which is the gladiators were fed and adored and pampered but only for their ability to kill other men until they themselves were finally killed. They hated it.

Spartacus leads the gladiators in a revolt and begins building a slave army that intends to overthrow Rome and begin a new golden age reminiscent of idealized simpler times. He smashes army after army sent against him until finally the Romans destroy him. But have they destroyed what Spartacus represents, the human spirit?

SPARTACUS is beautifully written and stirring. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend picking it up.