Content levels
Trigger warnings
Positive tags
Hero archetypes
Protagonist archetypes
Synopsis
Putu Wijaya's novel Telegram, published in 1973, has been heralded as a milestone in Indonesian fiction and as a trendsetter in its synthesis of reality and fantasy. Its first-person narrator is a Balinese journalist living in Jakarta with his adopted daughter. Early on he receives a telegram passing on word that his mother is seriously ill. But nothing is as it seems in Telegram. As readers are brought in to the stream of consciousness meanderings of this sympathetic yet troubled and thoroughly unreliable narrator, what is real and what is not becomes increasingly difficult to unravel.
Is Telegram appropriate for my child?
Suitable for most readers 16 and up.
This literary fantasy explores psychological themes through an unreliable narrator struggling with grief and reality. The stream-of-consciousness style and blurred reality/fantasy requires mature reading comprehension.
What to know going in
This book has mild violence, no sexual content, and mild language. Content notes include death of parent, grief, and mental illness.
Who'll love this
Teens interested in challenging literary works will appreciate the mind-bending narrative that questions what's real.