Laskar Pelangi

By : Made Suryantara
Have you watched Laskar Pelangi film? Its tickets always sold out, awesome huh? What about the book? I think this is one of the best books I’ve read and it’s huge lost if you don’t read it. Let me review main characters who appear in this book and you should read it yourself to know further more…
This book is talking about a true friendship of 11 classmates in a poor Muhammadiyah Elementary School in Belitung islands, Sumatera, at 1980’s.

They are so poor that no one affords to buy a pair of sandals and always wear same uniform everyday (if they have any!). Mahar and Lintang are my favorite characters in this book. They both are gifted a unique talent and altogether -with their own way and along with their dreams and ambitions- have built a colorful, meaningful, and memorable events in this remote town. Readers will be surprised how those poor students can change the way of Belitung society lived ever since.
Mahar is gifted in art. Like another rustic boys, he is skinny, bags of bones. This eccentric and short straight hair’s can be described as a creative, and young man. In some moments, out loud with boastful voice, he talks around about his ability. Of course, some of his friends don’t like him for being big mouth, and not to mention, his strange thought. Yes, occasionally he acted as if he is a skillful spiritualist (what a boy!). However, his outstanding creative mind has make their school win the Independent Day competition and beat the rich students from a luxurious school! Something that they couldn’t even dream of before!
Lintang, another student, never skip a day of school even though he has to bike 40 km (!) to go to the school every day, and another 40 km to way back home. Another surprised fact is he is a natural genius person. The author of this book (Andrea Hirata a.k.a. Ikal) said that Lintang is the genius person he ever met! This rough dark complexion and small skinny figure is a clever, cheerful, and nosy boy. Like others smart people, he keep on asking, always curious for everything. He becomes the champion in his class and in every single ability competition. In one scene, he even dares to debate over a PhD Physician! Unfortunate, he never had a chance to pass the elementary school after his father had passed away. Ironic and a huge lost for this country. I guess, if he had lived in a prosperous family, he would have became a prominent physician now!
Ikal himself is a polite, humble, and moody child. He is easily changing his mood, swinging from an active into a passive child and vice versa, up and down, go and forth, flowing with others’ feelings. For me, this curly brown hair with an attractive small mole in his upper lip corner, stands between Mahar’s and Lintang’s position. Sometime he gets stick on Mahar (and his weird activities), in other day, he fits with Lintang. He is not the smartest among his classmates, but obviously not a bad student (he has taken a master degree from Sorbonne University, Paris). He has been growing up and become a success man by learning from his father, family, teachers, and his pals.
For me, these three fellows are the main character of Laskar Pelangi book. What do you think?