Solomon’s Song review
by Ismi Putri Rahmah (a student of Islamic State University of Jakarta)
This novel talked about the story of Solomon’s family which is full of conflicts inside there. Many characters which are identified in this novel but I will just explain some of them. There are Tommo and Hawk Solomon, Marry Abacus, and Hinetitama. First is Tommo Solomon, he is the twin sister of Hawk Solomon whose characters is as an unstable person. In this case, he still wanted to live with his family but he felt guilty of the death of the kidnapper of his twin sister’s soul mate and he decided to suicide. Next is Hawk Solomon. He is very kind and obedient person. In this case, he was asked by his twin sister to keep and protect his lovely daughter, Hinetitama. And he did it perfectly. Hawk always kept Hinetitama from she was young until she had two children (Victoria and Ben Teekleman) and even until Hinetitama passed away. Another character is Marry Abacus the stepmother of Tommo and Hawk Solomon. Marry is a strong and great person who is never surrender although she was in the bad condition. In this case, Marry had a problem with David Solomon because Marry had made his family broke. The father of David fell in love with Marry Abacus and that was the point of the problem happened. Although now the father of David had passed away, he still wanted to revenge to Marry’s family but Marry was never afraid of that. She was still doing many things that she could do such as handling the factory and many business industries of her and all of the factories of her are successful. Last is Hinetitama. She is the daughter of Tommo Solomon. She is a stubborn person. In this case, she did not want to live with uncle Hawk and Marry because she wanted to have a usual life as a nurse and find the true life of her.
In this novel I have got one interesting point that is when finally Hinetitama wanted to come back to uncle Hawk and Marry’s family and lived with them. In this case many progress that shown by Hinetitama such as the fashion style and manner of her become polite and fabulous day by day. All of that could be reached because Marry always teach her about a good attitude and how she was supposed to be to interact with other people politely. That condition seems like a Barbie story, from the usual person and now she became a beautiful woman.
Now, this is about the confusing part of this novel. At the end of the story, there would be a part or a scene of Joshua (the grandchild of David Solomon) who became a military worker. This novel ended with the scene where Ben Teekleman (Hinetitama’s son) was death because of the conflict between Australia and Germany and Joshua at that time was becoming a head of Ben’s military team stuck in the core place aggression. The story told that Joshua could not do anything when the attack between Australia and Germany started but how he could be the head of Ben’s team whereas he was not eligible to be a head of the team.
In this novel there is also a part that I dislike the most. That part is after the death of Marry Abacus, Mr.Teekleman become cruel to Hinetitama. In this case, after the death of Marry, his job was only waste the money and went to the bar every night and ignored his wife and children. He was also told to Hinetitama the truth why he wanted to marry with her. It was just because of Hinetitama’s family was rich. I don’t like this part because it showed me the injustice of a man to a woman.
After I read this novel, I remembered something that happened into my life. In this case, Marry Abacus is passed away. Marry Abacus was really near with the children’s of Hinetitama. She played with that two children, told a story to them, etc. but then she was in her agony but that two children could not stay with her because Marry asked it to Hinetitama. When they knew that their grandmother is passed away, both of them were really sad. Those condition that happen to Victoria and Ben Teekleman also happened to me when my lovely grandmother passed away I could not stay with her because at that time I am in my house and only my parents who could go to see my grandmother because they were afraid that I will be very sad to know that.
If I could, I would like to change the story especially for the opening and ending. I think this novel’s story a little bit same as Indonesian television series “Tersanjung”. It was started from the story about Tommo Solomon until the grandchild of him-Ben Teekleman who was death because of the conflict between Australia and Germany. To make it more efficient and not to be complicated, I want to reduce some characters such as Joshua Solomon and redesign the plot for the opening which is too much detail. Why I want to reduce him because if there is no him, the story could be still stayed well, it just simple, Ben will just directly dead because of his choice to be a soldier and that was the consequence for becoming a soldier. And the opening, there is too much story about Hawk and Hinetitama in the way he brought Hinetitama back home. I think it could be designed simpler by linking the story after Hawk found her and directly went to Marry’s house in Sydney.
The largest issued raised by this novel mostly about the family conflict although there is a variation at the end which is told about the conflict of Australia and Germany. In this case, the starting point of this story told about the conflict between Marry Abacus family and David’s family, then continued by the conflict in Hinetitama’s family after the death of Marry Abacus.
Reading this novel give me many experiences especially when I was reading it in 4 days nonstop. Many of my friends in my dorm who saw me when I read this and even my family said like this “is that kitab kuning, teh?”. “Subhanallah ya mi ^^”. They said it maybe because the novel is so thick. And I just answered, this is my holly book.
ahmadnursaeful13 