Bali: Ashes to Ashes

by Kerry B. Collison

In 1904, the Sri Kumala, a Chinese schooner became wrecked off Sanur in Bali. Claiming the vessel had been sacked by the Balinese, the Dutch attack recorded in history as the brutal Puputan Wars, was to change Bali and its culture forever. Entire kingdoms perished as wave upon wave of the island's inhabitants committed suicide. European artists become entrenched, integrating with the Balinese. Their stories of surviving the Dutch invasion, then the Japanese and the brutal 1965 slaughter of more than eighty-thousand Balinese, reveals an unspoken image of Bali, The Island of the Gods.

252 pages, Paperback

Published September 5, 2023

Reviews

[Kerry Collison · Rating 5 out of 5]

“BALI”- ‘Ashes to Ashes’
ISBN: 9781922958457
Distributed by BOOKTOPIA
RRP $24.95
Available also on eBook and Print on Demand platforms


It has always amused me just how little Balinese know of their own history.
With the arrival of the Twentieth Century, Holland had control over all but the south of Bali, where rajas continued to resist foreign rule. The Dutch believed they could remove the last obstacle in the south with just one more major push. But, by this time, Europe had become horrified at reports of the puputans and the brutal and systematic cleansing of the island’s population. Diplomatic pressure prevented the colonists from initiating any further action.

And so they waited.

Then, on one fateful day in 1904, the Sri Kumala, a Chinese schooner became wrecked off Sanur in Bali’s south and the Dutch Administration in Batavia was delivered the perfect opportunity. Claiming the vessel had been sacked by the Balinese, the Dutch attacked with a force numbering thousands. The ensuing two-year invasion, recorded in history as the brutal Puputan Wars, was to change Bali and its culture forever. Entire kingdoms perished as wave upon wave of the island’s inhabitants committed suicide, until there were very few left to resist.

This is the story of that generation and the one that followed.

[Reader · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was enjoyable, if you were to read only the first chapter and tear out the rest of the pages to save yourself the misery of reading not one but two accidental incest sex scenes. Nor are these outliers in an otherwise solid book, this is the plot.
Why the book is presented as anything adjacent to historical when it spends the majority of its pages playing doll with its characters and making brother/sister and uncle/niece kiss is a mystery to me.
If it were advertised honestly, you’d get your target audience of sick freaks you so desire to please.