PAMOR magazine...

[A. G. Maisey]

Thanks for that Shahrial.

From the sample given it looks OK.

Personally, I wouldn't care if it tended towards supportable fact, or tended towards current belief, or even towards Javanese mythology. All the various points of view are useful, and all have their place.Provided we recognise what point of view has been adopted.

I prefer black and white for the images rather than colour, because colour is simply never true. Black and white with an adequate caption would be my pick every time for serious work on keris.

I intend to have a friend buy these for me as they are published, and I will pick them up each time I go over.

My biggest reservations would be on the accuracy of the writing. I have had several contacts with Indonesian journalists, and have been written about in Indonesian publications several times. What I was reported as saying was not what I said; what was written about me was either only a part truth or was straight out wrong.Some of my friends in Indonesia have had the same type of experience. One very notable, recent Indonesian publication that deals with the keris is so riddled with error, especially in respect of what it says about people, that it is a shame to realise that trees died to provide the paper to print this nonsense on.

This magazine could be a valuable addition to keris literature, provided it stays on the straight and narrow, and the people who write for it stay with fact, rather than what they may think their readers want to read.