How If Your World Is NOT the Only Living World - Review of BUMI by Tere Liye

Title: BUMI

Author: Tere Liye

Publishing House: Gramedia Pustaka Utama

Published Year: 2014

Number of Pages: 440

Rating: 4.5/5

“Apa pun yang terlihat, boleh jadi tidak seperti yang kita lihat. Apa pun yang hilang, tidak selalu lenyap seperti yang kita duga. Ada banyak sekali jawaban dari tempat-tempat yang hilang. Kamu akan memperoleh semua jawaban. Masa lalu, hari ini, juga masa depan.” (“Anything that is seen, might not be as what we saw. Anything that is lost, is not always lost as we thought. There are many answers from the lost places. You will get all of them. In the past, today, and in the future.”) - Miss Keriting, BUMI – Tere Liye (page 85)

What would you do if the world that you’ve always known was not where you came from? What would you feel if the family that had been taking care of you for this long was not your real family? Isn’t that crazy and perplexing? Of course! And that was Raib, the main character of this novel, felt when she found out that her scarce ability to disappear indicated that she was not originally from the earth, a world where she had been growing up. She discovered that her biological parents were not from the earth also. They belonged to another place, another clan, another universe, another dimension that was running as parallel as Bumi (earth). And the dimension is Bulan.

The discovery of another dimension that turned out as Raib’s origin is the main plot of this first novel of Bumi series. The story began when Raib got so many abrupt accidents in her school which involved her best friend, Seli, and her Math teacher, Selena. Both, in fact, also had special abilities. Raib was first depicted as a very-ordinary schoolgirl owning a normal teenage life before her secret disappearing ability was exposed to her formerly most hated classmate, Ali. Through insistently unexpected moments, Raib, Seli, and Ali were thrown to the Bulan Clan where everything about them and the parallel dimension were unwrapped by the explanation from Av, the central librarian of the Bulan Clan.

Not merely exploring the dimension of Bulan and meeting characters like Ilo, Vey, and Ily, the adventure of The Three (Raib, Seli, and Ali who ended up being an incredible team) in Bumi also bears escapade and battling scene against the first-revealed villain, Tamus. Tamus was actually the source of all chaos that came around Raib, who had a more violent mission to slip off the greatest villain, The Uncrowned Man.

In this first book, Tere Liye’s detailed description in each scene is the best power that makes Bumi surprisingly readable to people who don’t even know about the author yet. His style of writing with comprehensible vocabulary gets the readers easy to feel and understand the plot.

The detailed, vivid information given by Tere Liye is visible in some moments when The Three faced many surprising experiences in Bulan Clan. As these three main characters found out that earth (Bumi Clan) was not the only living world that existed, they visited many places and encountered many things, including remarkable technologies and advancements in the Bulan Clan.

“Kota ini paling maju, paling cemerlang. Kota ini juga paling efisien menggunakan sumber tenaga yang semakin terbatas. Terlepas dari masalah teknis kecil yang sekarang sedang menimpa kalian, kami memiliki sistem transportasi paling baik,” (“This city is the most advanced, the most shining. It is also the most efficient to utilise its limited power source. Regardless of the technical issue affecting you, we have the best system of transportation.”). (page 205)

Ilo, the native of the Bulan Clan, proudly introduced the landscape of Tishri City, the capital of the Clan to The Three. The utterance he said contains some words that enable readers to picture the city in their minds. Tere Liye also characterised the city more in Raib’s vision about the shape of houses.

Bentuknya seperti balon besar dari beton, dengan tiang … seperti melihat ribuan bulan sedang mengambang di udara. (The shapes are like big balloons, made with steel bar and pole … as seeing thousands of moons floating in the air.) (page 205)

Those above descriptions bring a sense how fanciful Tere Liye composed the nature of the Bulan Clan. His vivid description is able to bring readers to the imagination of the Bulan Clan as a more wonderful world than Bumi Clan (earth). It really proves the way Tere Liye turns the likely out-of-mind things to be feasible enough.

Likewise showing the city, Tere Liye presented many touching scenes depicting the warming friendship of The Three. One of the moments occurred in the post-thrilling-battle scene when The Three were looking for the Book of The Life.

Wajah kami cemong, rambut awut-awutan, seragam berdebu, lengan lecet, badan masih terasa sakit … Kejadian barusan meski masih gelap penjelasannya, entah akan menuju ke mana semuanya, telah membuat kami jadi teman baik. Teman yang saling melindungi dan peduli. (Our smudgy faces, messy hair, dusty shirt, scratched arms, with painful part of body … That incident, even though still dim-explained, unknown to be, has built us to be good friends. Friends who care and protect each other.) (page 190)

Furthermore, even though this novel lifts a serious premise (parallel dimension or universe topic), Tere Liye has succeeded in carrying it with light, simple, and understandable language through. The introduction of the parallel dimension is detailed through the friendly conversation between The Three and the wise man, Av when they met in Bulan Clan.

“Ada empat kehidupan yang berjalan secara serempak di atas planet ini.” (“There are four lives that runs simultaneously on this plane.”) (page 246)

This piece of spoiler sentence can fully attract readers’ attention to the next sentences in order to understand ‘the dimension’ matter better. Thus, by these kinds of scenes, this Bumi novel then offers a totally different experience in the reading story about high-school life.

Above that, the use of Raib’s POV will drive readers to feel the same way as Raib, either in the pleasing or unpleasing scenes. Tere Liye uses simpler clauses, such as in the very first beginning of Raib’s introduction in Chapter 1.

Namaku Raib. Aku murid baru di sekolah. Usiaku lima belas tahun. Aku anak tunggal, perempuan. Untuk remaja seumuranku, tidak ada yang spesial tentangku. (My name is Raib. I am a new student at school. I am fifteen years old. I am the only child, a daughter. For a girl in my age, nothing special about me.) (page 5)

This narrative style at first, appears to be mainstream, but by reading deeper to the next Raib narrated her story, it is going to be light and enjoyable to follow the plot.

Despite all strengths in imaginable description and simple choice of language, this book Bumi also bears some little weaknesses. One of the weaknesses is regarding the use of a formal style of dialogue. The three main characters of this story are high-school teenagers, yet the author chose to use some formal style of language in several conversations. This makes the dialogues sound a little unnatural and, unfortunately, it becomes the drawback of this novel.

“Apakah Miss Selena akan baik-baik saja?” Seli bertanya cemas. (“Will Miss Selena be alright?” Seli asked worriedly.) “Aku tidak tahu,” jawabku. (“I don’t know,” I answered.) (page 187)

I personally feel that Seli’s sentence here sounds uncommon for teenagers. The question “Apakah Miss Selena akan baik-baik saja?” seems too formal for a tense moment instead of a shorter one like “Miss Selena bakal baik-baik saja, kan?” (“Miss Selena will be okay, right?”). This actually is not a serious problem, but for some readers who try to reflect the characters as normal teenagers, it results in such a weird sense.

Overall, Bumi by Tere Liye is such an amazing novel for the first approach of the series. It presents many worthwhile parts that will be pitied to miss. The science-fiction subject is so imaginable and feasible. Tere Liye gives readers the impression of ‘the other living world of the parallel dimension’ existing throughout all journeys of The Three.

In conclusion, Bumi is too epic and is very recommended for any of you who enjoy such of fantasy, science-fiction, and adventure genres. In addition in any bookstore, this novel also exists in digital form that you can legally get and read on Google Play Book or on the app iPusnas. The last good news for you who cannot read in Indonesian, this novel also has its translated version in English with the title EARTH. You can find it either in offline or online bookstores.

How is your feeling after reading this article?

• interested; will look and read the novel
• interested; will add to the reading list
• not sure; consider it later
• not interested