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Jakarta
In this hallucinatory novel of ruin and reconstruction, a man and his lover search for closure while a virulent plague hastens disaster in the world around them.
In a chaotic city, the latest in a line of viruses advances as a man recounts the fated steps that led him to be confined in a room with his lover while catastrophe looms. As he takes inventory of the city’s ills, a strange stone distorts reality, offering brief glimpses of the real and deserted territories of his memory. A sports game that beguiles the city with near-religious significance, the hugely popular gambling systems rigged by the Ministry of Chaos and Chance, an upbringing in schools that disappeared classmates even if the plagues didn’t—everything holds significance and nothing gives answers in the vision realm of his own making.
The turbulent and sweeping world of Jakarta erupts with engrossing new dystopias and magnetic prose to provide a portrait of a fallen society that exudes both rage and resignation.
In a chaotic city, the latest in a line of viruses advances as a man recounts the fated steps that led him to be confined in a room with his lover while catastrophe looms. As he takes inventory of the city’s ills, a strange stone distorts reality, offering brief glimpses of the real and deserted territories of his memory. A sports game that beguiles the city with near-religious significance, the hugely popular gambling systems rigged by the Ministry of Chaos and Chance, an upbringing in schools that disappeared classmates even if the plagues didn’t—everything holds significance and nothing gives answers in the vision realm of his own making.
The turbulent and sweeping world of Jakarta erupts with engrossing new dystopias and magnetic prose to provide a portrait of a fallen society that exudes both rage and resignation.
160 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 2016
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393 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
May 23, 2019
Weird little fever dream / acid trip of a book. A stone skipping along the surface of a dystopian world.
April 2, 2020
The Bug, in its earliest instances, arrived from another continent, but it was here that it found its optimum environment. We should be honest about this.
In a futuristic but dilapidated city, an unnamed man and his mistress find themselves apartment-bound between waves of an epidemic, drawn to the power of a mysterious stone that allows them to glimpse flashes and scenes of their own past and become lost in a world that was.
I think this book, as mentally dangerous as it is, is best read in a time like this. I don't think I'd have as much appreciation for what Tizano is doing without experiencing, in some way, what our narrator is experiencing. His city experiencing reoccurrences of what they call "the Bug" (and notate different strains as Bug A, Bug B, etc.) which our narrator has been tasked as a hazmat worker against. He shares visceral memories of tracking down contagion-spreading rats, to times spent gambling on the national sport that seems to be a form of government control, and his days in school and his cohort there. I saw one review refer to this nonlinear path through his memories as "a stone skipping across the surface of a dystopia" and that's exactly how it feels.
What I connected with was the narrator's homebound state and the way he became addicted to the memories and feelings the stone allowed him to experience, of times before and a life that seemed to not nearly exist anymore. It's almost impossible in this story to track what the present is vs the past but that's not the point. Our narrator is experiencing memories of what he can no longer touch and, in a way, it feels cathartic going through that right now as I've been forced to stay home and ride out the virus in isolation for nearly four weeks now during our own pandemic. While I don't have a mystical stone from space, I see it in my memories and in movies and TV shows that feel like they're from "the before times."
There's also the element of colonialism at play. The narrator mentions the Bug comes from far away but found a home here (the city is unspecified but has Mexican inspiration) and, somehow, this Bug found its way into the bodies of the citizens with the narrator pointing out towards the end that the virus was inside them all along and all it took was enough people to realize it for it to spread again. The virus being fear, greed, any adverse adjective you can ascribe to colonialism and capitalism. There's fascinating layers to this work.
A very layered and interesting read but maybe take some caution since it feels a little close to reality right now.
In a futuristic but dilapidated city, an unnamed man and his mistress find themselves apartment-bound between waves of an epidemic, drawn to the power of a mysterious stone that allows them to glimpse flashes and scenes of their own past and become lost in a world that was.
I think this book, as mentally dangerous as it is, is best read in a time like this. I don't think I'd have as much appreciation for what Tizano is doing without experiencing, in some way, what our narrator is experiencing. His city experiencing reoccurrences of what they call "the Bug" (and notate different strains as Bug A, Bug B, etc.) which our narrator has been tasked as a hazmat worker against. He shares visceral memories of tracking down contagion-spreading rats, to times spent gambling on the national sport that seems to be a form of government control, and his days in school and his cohort there. I saw one review refer to this nonlinear path through his memories as "a stone skipping across the surface of a dystopia" and that's exactly how it feels.
What I connected with was the narrator's homebound state and the way he became addicted to the memories and feelings the stone allowed him to experience, of times before and a life that seemed to not nearly exist anymore. It's almost impossible in this story to track what the present is vs the past but that's not the point. Our narrator is experiencing memories of what he can no longer touch and, in a way, it feels cathartic going through that right now as I've been forced to stay home and ride out the virus in isolation for nearly four weeks now during our own pandemic. While I don't have a mystical stone from space, I see it in my memories and in movies and TV shows that feel like they're from "the before times."
There's also the element of colonialism at play. The narrator mentions the Bug comes from far away but found a home here (the city is unspecified but has Mexican inspiration) and, somehow, this Bug found its way into the bodies of the citizens with the narrator pointing out towards the end that the virus was inside them all along and all it took was enough people to realize it for it to spread again. The virus being fear, greed, any adverse adjective you can ascribe to colonialism and capitalism. There's fascinating layers to this work.
A very layered and interesting read but maybe take some caution since it feels a little close to reality right now.
October 24, 2019
I finished Jakarta by Rodrigo Márquez Tizano (translated by Thomas Bunstead) this week. I’m not calling this a “review,” but I’m hoping it will spark some discussion ...
How often do you read the synopsis of a book, get SO excited and think it sounds right up your alley, only to be disappointed when you actually read it? I must say, this hasn’t happened to me very often lately, but unfortunately I had this experience with Jakarta. ☹️
Another question ... and this is something people hesitate to say, but I think it’s very important ... how often do you read a book and not understand it? Y’all ... I have no idea what the hell I just read here! 😂🤦🏼♀️🤷🏼♀️
I went into Jakarta expecting a unique dystopian world different from anything I’ve ever read packaged in a relatively brief work of fiction. This was all true. I love books that jump around in time and are structured in a fragmented way. But there was something about this one ... I just couldn’t figure out how to put the pieces together. Or the reason that the pieces were even there. The basic premise is that a series of viruses have decimated the population. The narrator reflects on the current state of his city while also flashing back, with the help of a magical stone, to give glimpses of how things came to be the way they are. I still love the basic idea, but this book just wasn’t for me. Quite possibly because I’m just not smart enough! Or maybe this wasn’t the right time for me to try to tackle a book like this. And that’s okay. Not every book is for everyone.
I would love to hear your thoughts on my questions above. And PLEASE - if anyone else has read this, I would love to hear from you too!!
Thanks to Coffee House Press for this gifted copy. If you’d like to see if Jakarta is a better fit for you, you can find it on November 5th!
How often do you read the synopsis of a book, get SO excited and think it sounds right up your alley, only to be disappointed when you actually read it? I must say, this hasn’t happened to me very often lately, but unfortunately I had this experience with Jakarta. ☹️
Another question ... and this is something people hesitate to say, but I think it’s very important ... how often do you read a book and not understand it? Y’all ... I have no idea what the hell I just read here! 😂🤦🏼♀️🤷🏼♀️
I went into Jakarta expecting a unique dystopian world different from anything I’ve ever read packaged in a relatively brief work of fiction. This was all true. I love books that jump around in time and are structured in a fragmented way. But there was something about this one ... I just couldn’t figure out how to put the pieces together. Or the reason that the pieces were even there. The basic premise is that a series of viruses have decimated the population. The narrator reflects on the current state of his city while also flashing back, with the help of a magical stone, to give glimpses of how things came to be the way they are. I still love the basic idea, but this book just wasn’t for me. Quite possibly because I’m just not smart enough! Or maybe this wasn’t the right time for me to try to tackle a book like this. And that’s okay. Not every book is for everyone.
I would love to hear your thoughts on my questions above. And PLEASE - if anyone else has read this, I would love to hear from you too!!
Thanks to Coffee House Press for this gifted copy. If you’d like to see if Jakarta is a better fit for you, you can find it on November 5th!
January 8, 2017
Es un libro poderoso, apuesta por una prosa impecable y rica. Esto no debe confundirse con el exceso de ornatos y adjetivos, no es purple prose, como dirían los gringos. Al contrario, pone estándares altos de calidad estilística. La historia subyace tras la fuerza de las palabras. Yakarta es de la familia de Levrero, el de la trilogía involuntaria. Leer la novela no es un día de campo, pero ¿desde cuándo la literatura es sólo entretenimiento? ¿por qué tendría que fluir como una serie de TV? La pretensión de competirle a las imágenes es una tontería. Este libro es para disfrutar el lenguaje: eso que sólo nos puede dar la literatura.
August 20, 2018
En su giro distópico, post–apocalíptico, es inteligente y humorístico. Lo demás es pura paja.
February 9, 2020
An excerpt from my Locus review of Jakarta that features in the December 2019 issue:
Where it was simple to draw a line between Hiroko Oyamada’s The Factory and the work of Franz Kafka, it’s a fool’s game trying to piece together the multiple influences that inform Jakarta. At times, the novel is a bildungsroman reminiscent of Stephen King’s “The Body”, a plague narrative with overtones of Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year, a cyberpunk dystopia, and an anthropological study of the city. Mostly Jakarta is its own thing. By far the most compelling sections are those dealing with the Z-Bug. It’s not so much the visceral nature of the pandemic – most killer flu narratives plumb similar ground – but rather how Tizano uses these sections to discuss the deep divisions in Atlantikan society. There’s the one percent who live in high-rise buildings well away from the hoi polloi and the possibility of infection, and there’s the Albynos, brought to the city as slaves, who continue to experience prejudice and discrimination, in spite of their value fighting the Z-Bug.
Although Jakarta is a short novel (similar to The Factory in length), it’s not a quick read. The non-linear structure, the density of the prose, the general weirdness of the setting mean you have to pay attention. That’s a good thing because, while there are parts of Jakarta that are a little too abstract for my tastes – the climax in particular – Tizano’s distinctive style and his boundless imagination are a thrill to read.
Where it was simple to draw a line between Hiroko Oyamada’s The Factory and the work of Franz Kafka, it’s a fool’s game trying to piece together the multiple influences that inform Jakarta. At times, the novel is a bildungsroman reminiscent of Stephen King’s “The Body”, a plague narrative with overtones of Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year, a cyberpunk dystopia, and an anthropological study of the city. Mostly Jakarta is its own thing. By far the most compelling sections are those dealing with the Z-Bug. It’s not so much the visceral nature of the pandemic – most killer flu narratives plumb similar ground – but rather how Tizano uses these sections to discuss the deep divisions in Atlantikan society. There’s the one percent who live in high-rise buildings well away from the hoi polloi and the possibility of infection, and there’s the Albynos, brought to the city as slaves, who continue to experience prejudice and discrimination, in spite of their value fighting the Z-Bug.
Although Jakarta is a short novel (similar to The Factory in length), it’s not a quick read. The non-linear structure, the density of the prose, the general weirdness of the setting mean you have to pay attention. That’s a good thing because, while there are parts of Jakarta that are a little too abstract for my tastes – the climax in particular – Tizano’s distinctive style and his boundless imagination are a thrill to read.
May 24, 2017
El día que logre obtener un grado decente de entendimiento sobre lo que trata este libro, será el día que escriba una reseña apropiada. Solo puedo decir que la palabra apropiada para definir la prosa de este libro es "fascinante"; eso junto con mi obsesión por las utopías bien construidas hicieron que este confuso libro valiera la pena.
Read
December 20, 2019I kinda hate to but I might skip rating this for now. It's a hard book, there's not really a traditional narrative, paragraph to paragraph (or chapter to chapter, if you prefer) it skips. Generally, there's a few "storylines" following the narrator's childhood at a boarding school for poor kids, his time in the "Z Brigades" trying to wipe out the rats causing the newest iteration of the plague, gambling, his home life where his girlfriend has found a stone of unknown origin she spends all day staring at trying to figure out, and various bits about the terribly dystopian world. They don't really alternate or occur in a predictable pattern. There's not much attempt to tie it all together, it sort of throws it all at you and lets you make of it what you will. The type is also arbitrarily weird, with letters frequently having additional bars or accents where they don't typically appear. I felt like around the 60% point I was starting to put it together. Then I got to chapter -1 and I was unsure.
January 5, 2022
3.5 stars
This is a really strange creation, nearly devoid of plot, but mesmerizing in its intricate and convoluted narrative. A nameless Latin city, perhaps in Mexico has suffered a mysterious catastrophe or series of catastrophes. An iteration of viruses - Bug A, Bug B...ad infinitum and ever repeating. Explosions, earthquakes and an exodus of citizens from the rats and the pestilence.
The narrator is trapped in a room with his lover Clara. She is wasting away, but a mysterious stone provides the flashes and glimpses of the kaleidoscope of disasters leading to this still point in an imaginary landscape.
I am reminded of Samuel Delany's epic 'Dhalgren' for its vision of a city out of time (though 'Jakarta' is so much more compact).
The translation by Thomas Bunstead is remarkable. translation is a chancy endeavour and such a non-linear narrative must have presented unique challenges.
This is a really strange creation, nearly devoid of plot, but mesmerizing in its intricate and convoluted narrative. A nameless Latin city, perhaps in Mexico has suffered a mysterious catastrophe or series of catastrophes. An iteration of viruses - Bug A, Bug B...ad infinitum and ever repeating. Explosions, earthquakes and an exodus of citizens from the rats and the pestilence.
The narrator is trapped in a room with his lover Clara. She is wasting away, but a mysterious stone provides the flashes and glimpses of the kaleidoscope of disasters leading to this still point in an imaginary landscape.
I am reminded of Samuel Delany's epic 'Dhalgren' for its vision of a city out of time (though 'Jakarta' is so much more compact).
The translation by Thomas Bunstead is remarkable. translation is a chancy endeavour and such a non-linear narrative must have presented unique challenges.
July 8, 2025
???? I really have no idea what to make of this. Definitely something about epidemics and social collapse, colonialism and class divide, memory, the naturalization of trauma, the linking of sports to politics and gambling to a kind of debt economy, some kind of critique of neoliberalism somewhere? You finish this book just as confused as when you start it. Very borderless, timeless, postmodern-y vibes going on that I thought were reminiscent of some American authors like Ben Lerner or Evan Dara, but whatever was going on in Jakarta is on some completely different level. Márquez Tizano is great at writing prose and I'm excited to see how his style develops over time, but this book, though self-aware of its labyrinthine structure, felt confusing for no reason at times. I don't know, very mixed feelings about this book. A very interesting read but not a rewarding one.
March 25, 2020
This is a perfect book. When I say this, I mean it is perfect for me. There is barely a plot. It is a series of weird, disconnected, visceral and ethereal scenes that coalesce to make a batshit insane long form poem. A series of eerie pieces about a mad world that is our own, thinly veiled. This may not be everyone's cup of tea. I know it won't be. But lord almighty, it hit every sweet spot I could think of. What more could you ask for than someone deftly describing your own world back to you in a series of grotesqueries that is both like and unlike everything you've ever known as a human being who inhabits a body, or is a body, or is a part of that body. Impossible to describe in any other way except to say it is a journey into the heart of darkness in more ways than one.
March 13, 2020
tizano's stream of consciousness is hard to swallow in the first fifteen pages. there is no escape from the narrator's interior monologue or leaps of thoughts but with perseverance, a narrative begins to form and it becomes clear what matters: survival.
the stylistic choices help create the feeling of being in chaos but i felt that it hinders the audience's ability to grow an attachment to one of the story's characters.
the stylistic choices help create the feeling of being in chaos but i felt that it hinders the audience's ability to grow an attachment to one of the story's characters.
March 24, 2020
Maybe it's a case of right book at the right time (meaning the worst time, considering the 'right time' for this book is a global pandemic) but this hallucinatory, somewhat impenetrable little novel by Rodrigo Márquez Tizano hit just right as I was suffering some neurological malfunctioning brought on by COVID-19.
April 17, 2020
Also not my bag. The last twenty pages was just ?????????????
September 24, 2020
This book is nuts, I can't say I even fully understood it. Its visceral and odd, filthy but not dirty. The story feels like mud being layered and sliding off itself.
April 8, 2022
No lo he terminado. El principio me pareció una mezcla de "Naked Lunch" con "Slaughterhouse Five"
September 27, 2023
Ok so this book was a no from 1/3 of the beginning till the end. I’m sure there’s a deeper meaning I’m just not smart to know what it is
Want to read
January 10, 2024Lo recomendó Julieta se le recomendaron a ver qué tal
May 17, 2024
I was a bit lost at times but I enjoyed the journey.
June 16, 2025
Had to DNF, despite being a short book. I just couldn't follow anything the author was saying. Just a bunch of nonsense strung together.
October 13, 2025
There are so many spinning plates on this 150-page vaudeville stage, this beautiful what-is-it of a book, that it’s hard to focus on just one; in fact, it helps to just squint, letting the plates do their “things” as one big blurry “thang.” Sci-fi earthenware, fine distopia-fic china, fantasy melamine, plague-tale porcelain, absurdist vitrified glass, romantic serving chargers, and political paper plates just go and go and go, defying gravity with dismal gravitas. Refocus your eyes to a world and a history scattered, smothered and covered; an international house, waffled.
November 5, 2016
El bulto fue un bulto. Los chicos no le prendieron fuego en la última esquina del verano. No le dispararon. No lo humillaron. No lo agarraron a patadas todos los recreos de todos los días de todos los años. No lo llevaron a la escuela militar. No lo golpearon con cinturones ni cables. No murió infectado. Sólo dejó de estar.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews