I should open by making clear that I found the plot and the writing to be of decidedly mediocre quality. Ah, but the themes. The surface story, a fairly melodramatic love triangle, is pretty much a waste of time if read literally. The publisher’s blurb on the back cover suggests a way to approach it, though, making clear that the story “illustrates the confusion experienced by many Indonesians of the pre-independence generation as they struggled to overcome problems stemming from their tradition-bound society.” The story takes place in the 1930s when Indonesia was still a Dutch colony and the independence movement was being firmly repressed. Dr. Tono insists on keeping those customs he considers worth keeping even as the country modernizes and he likewise believes that he has earned the status of an educated, middle-class Indonesian. Despite this, he is unable to understand that his wife is a dynamic, talented woman who in turn wants the freedoms and rights that the emancipation of women will confer. But like her husband, she too has a blind spot and is unable (or unwilling) to understand that those freedoms cannot be had in the society she lives in—at least without a price she is unwilling to pay. Each demands the respect “due” to them in a society where those things are (and have long been) rigidly codified and based on community—not the individual. The doctor’s mistress has the emancipated life that the doctor’s wife wants but she has earned those freedoms at a fearful price. Taken together, the three (and their relations with each other) capture the tensions in Indonesian society in that period. The pity is that their inner thoughts and conversations are so poorly written. Shackles is said to be the first modern Indonesian psychological novel and was poorly received at first because of its nuanced depiction of prostitution and adultery. Despite its serious failings, it can still be appreciated as a significant milestone in the development of the modern Indonesian novel. It has been frequently translated and won the inaugural Indonesian Literary Prize in 1969. (If you are interested, there is an excellent, in-depth review at a website I just discovered that is quite impressive: ANZ LitLovers LitBlog.) ( )