1avaland
If you have not read the information on the master thread regarding the intent of these regional threads, please do this first.
***114. Asia IV: Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Brunei, Timor Leste, Maldives, Brunei
***114. Asia IV: Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Brunei, Timor Leste, Maldives, Brunei
2rebeccanyc
The Three Fates by Linda Lê, 1997, translation 2010, written in French by a Vietnamese author who has long been living in France
It is difficult for me to know what to say about this intense, angry, bitter, sad, language-obsessed, and brief novel by Linda Lê, a Vietnamese writer who moved to France in 1977, at the age of 14. It is the intertwined stories of three young Vietnamese women who were brought to France as children by their grandmother, known as "the Jackal": two sisters and a cousin. In fact, none of the major characters has a name: the main narrator, the cousin, is called "Southpaw" because she has had one hand amputated (we never find out how), and the two sisters are known by such names as Potbelly (for the elder, who is pregnant) and Cutie (for the younger, who is most recognized for her beautiful legs). The sisters, against the advice of the cousin, are arranging to bring their father, known as King Lear, from Saigon for a visit so he can see how successful they have been since they were stolen from him and brought to the west.
This is about as straightforward as I can be, because the novel itself is convoluted, full of multilingual wordplay (amazingly, as far as I can tell, translated into English), mythological and literary references, words I never heard of, witches and other supernatural beings, and coded language. To add to the intensity, there are no paragraph breaks, although it is broken into sections. As far as I can tell, it is not just about the razor-sharp depictions of the characters, but also about the intersection of cultures and the aftermath of the war and the takeover of the south by the north.
Not only did a lot of The Three Fates go right by me, but there were many times when I was reading it that I wondered why I kept on going. It is a very impressive work, and Lê is a remarkably talented writer, but I'm not entirely sure I enjoyed it.
It is difficult for me to know what to say about this intense, angry, bitter, sad, language-obsessed, and brief novel by Linda Lê, a Vietnamese writer who moved to France in 1977, at the age of 14. It is the intertwined stories of three young Vietnamese women who were brought to France as children by their grandmother, known as "the Jackal": two sisters and a cousin. In fact, none of the major characters has a name: the main narrator, the cousin, is called "Southpaw" because she has had one hand amputated (we never find out how), and the two sisters are known by such names as Potbelly (for the elder, who is pregnant) and Cutie (for the younger, who is most recognized for her beautiful legs). The sisters, against the advice of the cousin, are arranging to bring their father, known as King Lear, from Saigon for a visit so he can see how successful they have been since they were stolen from him and brought to the west.
This is about as straightforward as I can be, because the novel itself is convoluted, full of multilingual wordplay (amazingly, as far as I can tell, translated into English), mythological and literary references, words I never heard of, witches and other supernatural beings, and coded language. To add to the intensity, there are no paragraph breaks, although it is broken into sections. As far as I can tell, it is not just about the razor-sharp depictions of the characters, but also about the intersection of cultures and the aftermath of the war and the takeover of the south by the north.
Not only did a lot of The Three Fates go right by me, but there were many times when I was reading it that I wondered why I kept on going. It is a very impressive work, and Lê is a remarkably talented writer, but I'm not entirely sure I enjoyed it.
3wandering_star
One of my top reads this year was Evening Is The Whole Day by Preeta Samarasan, a Malaysian family saga which starts on a day of crisis and works its way backwards through the layers of secrets, misunderstandings, suspicions, and betrayals which have made the family the way it is. Although the events are increasingly harrowing, the lushness, beauty and exuberance of the language stop this from being a depressing book.
4rocketjk
I just finished Lord Jim, which I'm calling Indonesia, even though Conrad never tells where his fictional Patusan really is, because he refers to it as being under the sway of Dutch colonial powers and because most critics assume that part of the story takes place in Sumatra or Borneo.
At any rate, Conrad provides an interesting look into the Western attitudes of race within this morality tale of a man too pure, morally speaking, for his own good.
At any rate, Conrad provides an interesting look into the Western attitudes of race within this morality tale of a man too pure, morally speaking, for his own good.
5southernbooklady
I just finished The Beauty of Humanity Movement by Camilla Gibb, which is a seductive look at a modern Vietnam,with flashbacks to a historical incident known as the Nhân Van — Giai Pham affair in the fifties.
Gibb writes beautifully and vividly, and her precise language and descriptions rescue the story from being an "issue novel" despite the obvious symbolism that seems to weight every aspect of the tale. The author deals with quite alot of complex subjects--the pressures of doi moi, the preservation of culture and heritage in the face of both economic and ideological pressures, etc--but she does so gracefully and elegantly, by keeping her focus narrowly on the person of old man Hung, a pho seller whose life is a nexus for many threads of the story.
There are also some gorgeous descriptions of the process of making pho which border on the philosophical and will have you sighing in envy.
Gibb writes beautifully and vividly, and her precise language and descriptions rescue the story from being an "issue novel" despite the obvious symbolism that seems to weight every aspect of the tale. The author deals with quite alot of complex subjects--the pressures of doi moi, the preservation of culture and heritage in the face of both economic and ideological pressures, etc--but she does so gracefully and elegantly, by keeping her focus narrowly on the person of old man Hung, a pho seller whose life is a nexus for many threads of the story.
There are also some gorgeous descriptions of the process of making pho which border on the philosophical and will have you sighing in envy.
6whymaggiemay
Finished Monkey Bridge which is about a mother and 14-year-old daugther who leave Vietnam at the end of the U. S. war and immigrate to the U. S. The story is told from both viewpoints, with each remembering life in Vietnam. Of course, the mother's memories are deeper and richer. Beautifully written.
7kidzdoc
MALAYSIA
The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng
This story begins on the last day of Teoh Yun Ling's career as a Supreme Court justice in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur in the mid 1980s. Yun Ling has had, by every measure, a remarkable and successful life despite extreme hardship and loss. She was born to privilege, as a member of a wealthy Straits Chinese family, but at the age of 17 she and her older sister Yun Hong were captured by Japanese soldiers and taken to a prison camp hidden within the jungle of the Malayan Peninsula. The prisoners were brutally tortured there, and only one survived at the end of the war: Yun Ling.
After she completes her law studies in England, she returns to Malaysia to practice, serving as a prosecutor for the Malayan government in the trials of captured Japanese Army soldiers. Her sister's death continues to haunt her, and she decides to honor her sister's memory by building a Japanese garden, as Yun Hong loved them dearly. In 1951 she returns to the home of a family friend, Magnus Pretorius, a South African tea planter in Cameron Highlands in the Malayan state of Pahang, whose friend Nakamura Aritomo is a highly regarded gardener—and the former chief gardener to Emperor Hirohito of Japan. Yun Ling struggles to overcome her deep hatred of the Japanese, and works under Aritomo as an apprentice, helping him to rebuild his own garden while learning the craft from him.
However, the tranquil mountainous setting also hosts the Malayan National Liberation Army, a group of communist guerrilla soldiers who are at war with the colonial government during the Malayan Emergency. Colonists such as Pretorius are frequent targets of the guerrillas, subject to robbery, assault and murder, but Yun Ling is also at great risk, as she also prosecuted captured guerrillas after the war trials had concluded, and the communists in the area are aware of her presence there.
As Yun Ling becomes closer to Aritomo, she learns more about the hidden roles he assumed during the Japanese occupation, as she seeks to discover what happened to the other prisoners in the camp, and to achieve closure and inner peace with herself, her family and with him.
The novel is filled with numerous additional characters, story lines and themes, which delicately intersect and overlap each other. Certain seemingly insignificant events in the early and middle sections of the book become clearer as the book progresses, as Eng masterfully creates a story that requires close attention from the reader, similar to that which is necessary to understand and appreciate the finer aspects of a Japanese garden.
The Garden of Evening Mists is an almost indescribably beautiful, rich and rewarding novel with multiple layers that are expertly weaved into a coherent work of art. Tan Twan Eng deserves to be commended for this astonishing work, which would be a worthy winner of this year's Booker Prize.
The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng
This story begins on the last day of Teoh Yun Ling's career as a Supreme Court justice in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur in the mid 1980s. Yun Ling has had, by every measure, a remarkable and successful life despite extreme hardship and loss. She was born to privilege, as a member of a wealthy Straits Chinese family, but at the age of 17 she and her older sister Yun Hong were captured by Japanese soldiers and taken to a prison camp hidden within the jungle of the Malayan Peninsula. The prisoners were brutally tortured there, and only one survived at the end of the war: Yun Ling.
After she completes her law studies in England, she returns to Malaysia to practice, serving as a prosecutor for the Malayan government in the trials of captured Japanese Army soldiers. Her sister's death continues to haunt her, and she decides to honor her sister's memory by building a Japanese garden, as Yun Hong loved them dearly. In 1951 she returns to the home of a family friend, Magnus Pretorius, a South African tea planter in Cameron Highlands in the Malayan state of Pahang, whose friend Nakamura Aritomo is a highly regarded gardener—and the former chief gardener to Emperor Hirohito of Japan. Yun Ling struggles to overcome her deep hatred of the Japanese, and works under Aritomo as an apprentice, helping him to rebuild his own garden while learning the craft from him.
However, the tranquil mountainous setting also hosts the Malayan National Liberation Army, a group of communist guerrilla soldiers who are at war with the colonial government during the Malayan Emergency. Colonists such as Pretorius are frequent targets of the guerrillas, subject to robbery, assault and murder, but Yun Ling is also at great risk, as she also prosecuted captured guerrillas after the war trials had concluded, and the communists in the area are aware of her presence there.
As Yun Ling becomes closer to Aritomo, she learns more about the hidden roles he assumed during the Japanese occupation, as she seeks to discover what happened to the other prisoners in the camp, and to achieve closure and inner peace with herself, her family and with him.
The novel is filled with numerous additional characters, story lines and themes, which delicately intersect and overlap each other. Certain seemingly insignificant events in the early and middle sections of the book become clearer as the book progresses, as Eng masterfully creates a story that requires close attention from the reader, similar to that which is necessary to understand and appreciate the finer aspects of a Japanese garden.
The Garden of Evening Mists is an almost indescribably beautiful, rich and rewarding novel with multiple layers that are expertly weaved into a coherent work of art. Tan Twan Eng deserves to be commended for this astonishing work, which would be a worthy winner of this year's Booker Prize.
8kidzdoc
MALAYSIA/CHINA
Five Star Billionaire by Tash Aw
Shanghai is a beautiful place, but it is also a harsh place. Life here is not really life, it is a competition.
Shanghai is the world's largest city, with a total population of over 23 million. It can arguably claim to be the city of the 21st century, similar to 19th century London and 20th century New York, as it is a booming financial, commercial and entertainment center that attracts emigrants and visitors from every continent, and it is the leading symbol of the new China and its growing influence on Asia and the rest of the world.
Tash Aw was born in Taipei to Malaysian parents, grew up in Kuala Lumpur, was educated in the UK, and lived in London before he moved to Shanghai after he was chosen to be the first M Literary Writer in Residence in 2010. In this superb novel, he portrays five Malaysian Chinese who have moved to Shanghai to seek the wealth and prestige that the city seems to offer to each of its newcomers.
Phoebe is a naïve and uneducated young woman from the Malaysian countryside, who emigrates illegally to China on the suggestion of a friend, but soon after she arrives she finds that the dream job she was promised has suddenly vanished. Justin is the eldest son of a wealthy real estate tycoon, charged with purchasing a property in Shanghai that will save his family from ruin in the face of the Asian financial crisis. Gary is a pop mega-star who performs in front of thousands of adoring fans, while battling internal demons that threaten to destroy his career. Yinghui is the daughter of a prominent family in Kuala Lumpur who transforms herself from a left wing political activist into a hard nosed and successful businesswoman. Finally, Walter is a secretive and shadowy figure who has risen up from the ashes of his father's ruin to become a prominent developer and the anonymous author of the best selling book "How to Become a Five Star Billionaire". The first four characters are all interlinked with Walter, the only person given a voice in the first person in the book, in an intricately woven web that slowly tightens around each of them.
Through these characters, Tash Aw provides a fascinating internal glimpse into modern Shanghai, a city filled with ambitious but often lonely and desperate people from all over Asia whose singular focus on material goods and wealth outweighs love and personal happiness. Anything and anyone is fair game for exploitation and deceit, and the widespread availability of counterfeit watches, purses and clothing mimics the superficiality of the city's high stakes capitalist culture. Self help books such as the one written by Walter are the bibles of the young up-and-comers, and traditional Chinese culture is viewed as outdated and stifling to young people like Phoebe.
Each one attains some degree of success, but several meet with sudden and spectacular failure, in the matter of a climber that reaches the summit of a mountain only to be blown off of it entirely by a sudden gust of wind.
Five Star Billionaire is a captivating work about Shanghai and the new China, and the lives of five talented and determined people who seek wealth and fulfillment but find loneliness and misery instead. I read nearly all of this novel in a single sitting, and I was quite sorry to see it end. I also loved Tash Aw's previous novel Map of the Invisible World, and I look forward to reading The Harmony Silk Factory later this year.
Five Star Billionaire by Tash Aw
Shanghai is a beautiful place, but it is also a harsh place. Life here is not really life, it is a competition.
Shanghai is the world's largest city, with a total population of over 23 million. It can arguably claim to be the city of the 21st century, similar to 19th century London and 20th century New York, as it is a booming financial, commercial and entertainment center that attracts emigrants and visitors from every continent, and it is the leading symbol of the new China and its growing influence on Asia and the rest of the world.
Tash Aw was born in Taipei to Malaysian parents, grew up in Kuala Lumpur, was educated in the UK, and lived in London before he moved to Shanghai after he was chosen to be the first M Literary Writer in Residence in 2010. In this superb novel, he portrays five Malaysian Chinese who have moved to Shanghai to seek the wealth and prestige that the city seems to offer to each of its newcomers.
Phoebe is a naïve and uneducated young woman from the Malaysian countryside, who emigrates illegally to China on the suggestion of a friend, but soon after she arrives she finds that the dream job she was promised has suddenly vanished. Justin is the eldest son of a wealthy real estate tycoon, charged with purchasing a property in Shanghai that will save his family from ruin in the face of the Asian financial crisis. Gary is a pop mega-star who performs in front of thousands of adoring fans, while battling internal demons that threaten to destroy his career. Yinghui is the daughter of a prominent family in Kuala Lumpur who transforms herself from a left wing political activist into a hard nosed and successful businesswoman. Finally, Walter is a secretive and shadowy figure who has risen up from the ashes of his father's ruin to become a prominent developer and the anonymous author of the best selling book "How to Become a Five Star Billionaire". The first four characters are all interlinked with Walter, the only person given a voice in the first person in the book, in an intricately woven web that slowly tightens around each of them.
Through these characters, Tash Aw provides a fascinating internal glimpse into modern Shanghai, a city filled with ambitious but often lonely and desperate people from all over Asia whose singular focus on material goods and wealth outweighs love and personal happiness. Anything and anyone is fair game for exploitation and deceit, and the widespread availability of counterfeit watches, purses and clothing mimics the superficiality of the city's high stakes capitalist culture. Self help books such as the one written by Walter are the bibles of the young up-and-comers, and traditional Chinese culture is viewed as outdated and stifling to young people like Phoebe.
Each one attains some degree of success, but several meet with sudden and spectacular failure, in the matter of a climber that reaches the summit of a mountain only to be blown off of it entirely by a sudden gust of wind.
The city held its promises just out of your reach, waiting to see how far you were willing to go to get what you wanted, how long you were prepared to wait. And until you determined the parameters of your pursuit, you would be on edge, for despite the restaurants and shops and art galleries and sense of unbridled potential, you would always feel that Shanghai was accelerating a couple of steps ahead of you, no matter how hard you worked or played. The crowds, the traffic, the impenetrable dialect, the muddy rains that carried the remnants of the Gobi Desert sandstorms and stained your clothes every March: The city was teasing you, testing your limits, using you. You arrived thinking you were going to use Shanghai to get what you wanted, and it would be some time before you realized that it was using you, that it had already moved on and you were playing catch up.
Five Star Billionaire is a captivating work about Shanghai and the new China, and the lives of five talented and determined people who seek wealth and fulfillment but find loneliness and misery instead. I read nearly all of this novel in a single sitting, and I was quite sorry to see it end. I also loved Tash Aw's previous novel Map of the Invisible World, and I look forward to reading The Harmony Silk Factory later this year.
9rebeccanyc
BURMA/MYANMAR
Smile As They Bow by Nu Nu Yi
Originally published 2008; English translation 2008
Cross-posted from my Club Read and 75 Books threads
Well, the best thing about this novella was the picture it painted of an unfamiliar (to me) culture, specifically the festivals honoring nats (or spirits) in Taungbyon, Burma, and the natkadaws, or spirit wives, now mostly transvestites but historically women, who "embody" the spirits and make and distribute a lot of money in the process. Through the thoughts and actions of the primary character, a transvestite known as Daisy Bond, as well as those of several secondary characters, the reader sees how the natkadaws acquire and manage their followers, largely wealthy women, who shower them with gifts and money so the spirits they channel will bring them even more wealth and success; the competition for placement in the processions to the various temples over the course of the seven-day festival; the difficulties of aging; the struggles of the poor through begging and through actually being sold to wealthier people; and the way the festival has started attracting tourists from all over, as well as all those who would like to make money from them, including trinket-sellers and pickpockets.
All of this is interesting in an anthropological way, but as a story it bordered on the soap-operaish. It was also interesting to have a picture of life in Burma/Myanmar apart from the political oppression that is more familiar to those of us in the west. Nu Nu Yi is apparently a popular and prolific writer in Burma/Myanmar, but this is her only work to have been translated into English; it was short-listed for the Man Asia literary prize.
Needless to say, I have no familiarity with Burmese, and the translation, by another Burmese woman and a man who has spent a lot of time there, seemed generally OK to me. But I was struck by references to people born on certain days of the week, which apparently has some astrological or zodiacal significance, because they used our western names for the days. I looked this up on Wikipedia, and there is a correlation between the Burmese system and our system, but I found the use of western names for the days jarring and would have preferred the translators to keep the Burmese words as they did for various other spirit-related terminology.
For more information on nats and nat festivals, see this Wikipedia article. I also note on the web that there are quite a few travel agencies offering trips to the Taungbyon festival. There's no business like (religious) show business!
Smile As They Bow by Nu Nu Yi
Originally published 2008; English translation 2008
Cross-posted from my Club Read and 75 Books threads
Well, the best thing about this novella was the picture it painted of an unfamiliar (to me) culture, specifically the festivals honoring nats (or spirits) in Taungbyon, Burma, and the natkadaws, or spirit wives, now mostly transvestites but historically women, who "embody" the spirits and make and distribute a lot of money in the process. Through the thoughts and actions of the primary character, a transvestite known as Daisy Bond, as well as those of several secondary characters, the reader sees how the natkadaws acquire and manage their followers, largely wealthy women, who shower them with gifts and money so the spirits they channel will bring them even more wealth and success; the competition for placement in the processions to the various temples over the course of the seven-day festival; the difficulties of aging; the struggles of the poor through begging and through actually being sold to wealthier people; and the way the festival has started attracting tourists from all over, as well as all those who would like to make money from them, including trinket-sellers and pickpockets.
All of this is interesting in an anthropological way, but as a story it bordered on the soap-operaish. It was also interesting to have a picture of life in Burma/Myanmar apart from the political oppression that is more familiar to those of us in the west. Nu Nu Yi is apparently a popular and prolific writer in Burma/Myanmar, but this is her only work to have been translated into English; it was short-listed for the Man Asia literary prize.
Needless to say, I have no familiarity with Burmese, and the translation, by another Burmese woman and a man who has spent a lot of time there, seemed generally OK to me. But I was struck by references to people born on certain days of the week, which apparently has some astrological or zodiacal significance, because they used our western names for the days. I looked this up on Wikipedia, and there is a correlation between the Burmese system and our system, but I found the use of western names for the days jarring and would have preferred the translators to keep the Burmese words as they did for various other spirit-related terminology.
For more information on nats and nat festivals, see this Wikipedia article. I also note on the web that there are quite a few travel agencies offering trips to the Taungbyon festival. There's no business like (religious) show business!
10rebeccanyc
VIETNAM
The Sorrow of War by Bảo Ninh
Originally published 1991 but suppressed?; English translation 1993.
It is 1975 and the American War has been won as this tragic and stunning novel begins, yet Kien, a veteran of ten years of fighting, is still in the Vietnamese army, in the Missing In Action Remains-Gathering Team, and the team is on the edge of the Jungle of Screaming Souls, an area he knows well, because it was the site of vicious fighting in 1969 from which only ten members of his battalion survived. Here soldiers see ghosts, of Vietnamese and Americans, of animals and humans, souls that have not yet found the peace of death. And the Jungle of Screaming Souls is in a way a metaphor for the rest of this book, whose Vietnamese title means "My Destiny of Love," as Kien relentlessly searches his memories, of war and love, to try to understand the past, the present, and maybe the future.
The book moves somewhat haphazardly between Kien's life in the present as a writer trying to write a novel about the war and his life, his life during the war in the midst of horrifying fighting, and his life before the war, especially his love for his neighbor and schoolmate, the beautiful Phuong. And yet, there is a method to the haphazardness, because as the book (both Ninh's and Kien's) progresses Kien delves deeper into his memories and reveals more of the trauma he and Phuong experienced at the beginning of the war. It is as if he is spiraling deeper and deeper into his own soul and memories. What Ninh is doing grows on the reader as the book goes on.
Clearly, this book exists on several levels. Without a doubt, as all the blurbs on my copy say, it is an indictment of the horror (and sorrow) of war, and war scenes are rendered in great and disturbing detail. According to Wikipedia, Ninh was a member of something called the Glorious 27th Youth Brigade: of the 500 young men and women originally in it, only ten survived, and of these I read elsewhere (sorry, forget where) six committed suicide. At points, Ninh's writing about Kien's postwar experiences sound exactly like what we now know as post-traumatic stress syndrome. What does it mean to kill? What does it mean to survive when others die, even sacrifice themselves? In the way it describes the nitty gritty of war and how soldiers cope, it is a counterpart to the also brilliant Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes.
At the same time, it is a portrait of life in Hanoi, both pre- and postwar, and an illustration of the differences, found around the world, between city dwellers and country dwellers who find themselves thrown together. It is a story about the role of art in various forms: music and painting, as well as writing. It is in a way a coming-of-age story, as Kien reflects on his and Phuong's parents, although a coming-of-age by fire. And it is a tale of young love and of innocence shattered.
But maybe most of all, it is a novel about memory - what we remember, how we remember it, how with effort (in Kien's case through writing and, perhaps, alcohol; with others, perhaps, through therapy) we can access the very things that disturb us the most and that we keep hidden even from ourselves. And the novel explores the meaning of the past. At one point, early in the book, Kien muses:
"My life seems little different from that of a sampan pushed upstream towards the past. The future lied to us, there long ago in the past. There is no new life, no new era, nor is it hope for a beautiful future that now drives me on, but rather the opposite. The hope is contained in the beautiful prewar past." p. 47
Ninh's book was controversial, and was published in English long before being widely available in Vietnam. Ninh worked with a translator and an Australian author/translator/war correspondent (who is listed as "editor") to produce the English version (per Wikipedia). Here's an example of what might have annoyed the censors, although much is more subtle than this:
After 1975, all that had quieted. The wind of war had stopped. The branches of conflict had stopped rustling. As we had won, Kien thought, then that meant justice had won; that had been some consolation. Or had it? Think carefully; look at your own existence. Look carefully now at the peace we have, painful, bitter, and sad. And look at who won the war.
To win, martyrs had sacrificed their lives in order that others might survive. Not a new phenomenon, true. But for those still living to know that the kindest, most worthy people have all fallen away, or even been tortured, humiliated before being killed, or buried and wiped away by the machinery of war, then this beautiful landscape of calm and peace is an appalling paradox. Justice may have won, but cruelty, death, and inhuman violence have also won." p. 193
I haven't really touched on Phuong's story, but it's an important component of the novel, as is her own wartime trauma and response. It is seen through Kien's eyes, but he gradually comes to understand her better, although he is still heartbroken about her leaving him.
This is a disturbing and eye-opening, yet beautiful book.
The Sorrow of War by Bảo Ninh
Originally published 1991 but suppressed?; English translation 1993.
It is 1975 and the American War has been won as this tragic and stunning novel begins, yet Kien, a veteran of ten years of fighting, is still in the Vietnamese army, in the Missing In Action Remains-Gathering Team, and the team is on the edge of the Jungle of Screaming Souls, an area he knows well, because it was the site of vicious fighting in 1969 from which only ten members of his battalion survived. Here soldiers see ghosts, of Vietnamese and Americans, of animals and humans, souls that have not yet found the peace of death. And the Jungle of Screaming Souls is in a way a metaphor for the rest of this book, whose Vietnamese title means "My Destiny of Love," as Kien relentlessly searches his memories, of war and love, to try to understand the past, the present, and maybe the future.
The book moves somewhat haphazardly between Kien's life in the present as a writer trying to write a novel about the war and his life, his life during the war in the midst of horrifying fighting, and his life before the war, especially his love for his neighbor and schoolmate, the beautiful Phuong. And yet, there is a method to the haphazardness, because as the book (both Ninh's and Kien's) progresses Kien delves deeper into his memories and reveals more of the trauma he and Phuong experienced at the beginning of the war. It is as if he is spiraling deeper and deeper into his own soul and memories. What Ninh is doing grows on the reader as the book goes on.
Clearly, this book exists on several levels. Without a doubt, as all the blurbs on my copy say, it is an indictment of the horror (and sorrow) of war, and war scenes are rendered in great and disturbing detail. According to Wikipedia, Ninh was a member of something called the Glorious 27th Youth Brigade: of the 500 young men and women originally in it, only ten survived, and of these I read elsewhere (sorry, forget where) six committed suicide. At points, Ninh's writing about Kien's postwar experiences sound exactly like what we now know as post-traumatic stress syndrome. What does it mean to kill? What does it mean to survive when others die, even sacrifice themselves? In the way it describes the nitty gritty of war and how soldiers cope, it is a counterpart to the also brilliant Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes.
At the same time, it is a portrait of life in Hanoi, both pre- and postwar, and an illustration of the differences, found around the world, between city dwellers and country dwellers who find themselves thrown together. It is a story about the role of art in various forms: music and painting, as well as writing. It is in a way a coming-of-age story, as Kien reflects on his and Phuong's parents, although a coming-of-age by fire. And it is a tale of young love and of innocence shattered.
But maybe most of all, it is a novel about memory - what we remember, how we remember it, how with effort (in Kien's case through writing and, perhaps, alcohol; with others, perhaps, through therapy) we can access the very things that disturb us the most and that we keep hidden even from ourselves. And the novel explores the meaning of the past. At one point, early in the book, Kien muses:
"My life seems little different from that of a sampan pushed upstream towards the past. The future lied to us, there long ago in the past. There is no new life, no new era, nor is it hope for a beautiful future that now drives me on, but rather the opposite. The hope is contained in the beautiful prewar past." p. 47
Ninh's book was controversial, and was published in English long before being widely available in Vietnam. Ninh worked with a translator and an Australian author/translator/war correspondent (who is listed as "editor") to produce the English version (per Wikipedia). Here's an example of what might have annoyed the censors, although much is more subtle than this:
After 1975, all that had quieted. The wind of war had stopped. The branches of conflict had stopped rustling. As we had won, Kien thought, then that meant justice had won; that had been some consolation. Or had it? Think carefully; look at your own existence. Look carefully now at the peace we have, painful, bitter, and sad. And look at who won the war.
To win, martyrs had sacrificed their lives in order that others might survive. Not a new phenomenon, true. But for those still living to know that the kindest, most worthy people have all fallen away, or even been tortured, humiliated before being killed, or buried and wiped away by the machinery of war, then this beautiful landscape of calm and peace is an appalling paradox. Justice may have won, but cruelty, death, and inhuman violence have also won." p. 193
I haven't really touched on Phuong's story, but it's an important component of the novel, as is her own wartime trauma and response. It is seen through Kien's eyes, but he gradually comes to understand her better, although he is still heartbroken about her leaving him.
This is a disturbing and eye-opening, yet beautiful book.
11rebeccanyc
INDONESIA
This Earth of Mankind by Pramoedya Ananta Toer
Originally published 1975; English translation 1990.
Cross-posted from my Club Read and 75 Books theads.
This novel paints a vivid and often, indeed, melodramatic portrait of the evils of Dutch colonialism and institutionalized racism in Indonesia at the very end of the 19th century. It gave me insight into a time and a place that were largely unfamiliar. It is also a coming-of-age story, a political tale, and, less successfully, a love story. Originally created and recited orally while the author was imprisoned by the postcolonial government and denied access to writing materials, this novel is the first part of a quartet.
The story is told by Minke, who is about 16 when it begins and an aspiring writer. The descendent of Javanese nobles (although the reader doesn't know this as first), Minke is a Native, in the terminology of the time, below the Indos (Indo-Europeans, who are half Indonesian and half European), who in turn are below the Pures (or white Europeans, largely Dutch). Nonetheless, he has been allowed to attend an elite Dutch school where he is the only Native, and has been influenced by his teachers' emphasis on the ideals of European culture. The school is in Surabaya, which Wikipedia tells me is now Indonesia's second largest city, although it seems to be a pretty sleepy town in this novel; Minke boards with a couple there.
As the novel begins, Minke is taken by a friend to visit a house that lies out of town (and just down the road from a Chinese brothel). There lives a Nyai, or concubine, a Native woman who lives with a European man without being married, her beautiful daughter Annalies, and her son Robert. As Minke's friend hangs out with the son, Minke comes to know both Annalies and the mother, and they warmly encourage him to return, as Annalies has no other friends. The mother, who goes by Nyai, but asks Minke to call her Mama, is a remarkable woman. As the reader finds out later, she was sold by her parents to the Dutch man, and then taught herself reading, languages (including flawless Dutch), and business practices, and now runs the Dutch man's entire business enterprise.
As the tale progresses, the reader learns more about Nyai's and Minke's backgrounds, Minke meets some interesting but not fully developed characters who help in various ways, falls in love with Annalies, visits his parents, and becomes involved in a catastrophic series of events. These events, and the variety of other characters, serve to illustrate both the complexity and the horror of the colonial system.
I had mixed feelings about this book, and there were times when I almost gave up on it, largely because I just couldn't understand the relationship between Minke and Annalies. Minke is a smart, thoughtful, young man and Annalies, although ravishingly beautiful, seems painfully lacking in almost everything else; she is clearly psychologically disturbed and clings onto her vision of escape through being constantly with Minke (some of the weaker portions of the book are where the devoted European doctor tries to explain early psychology to Minke). The strongest parts of the novel are the development of Minke and the portrait of colonial Indonesia: the people, the landscape, the racism, the oppression, and the various kinds of resistance to the Dutch. By the end of the book, I enjoyed it enough to order the next volume in the quartet, which will follow Minke as he develops as a journalist.
This Earth of Mankind by Pramoedya Ananta Toer
Originally published 1975; English translation 1990.
Cross-posted from my Club Read and 75 Books theads.
This novel paints a vivid and often, indeed, melodramatic portrait of the evils of Dutch colonialism and institutionalized racism in Indonesia at the very end of the 19th century. It gave me insight into a time and a place that were largely unfamiliar. It is also a coming-of-age story, a political tale, and, less successfully, a love story. Originally created and recited orally while the author was imprisoned by the postcolonial government and denied access to writing materials, this novel is the first part of a quartet.
The story is told by Minke, who is about 16 when it begins and an aspiring writer. The descendent of Javanese nobles (although the reader doesn't know this as first), Minke is a Native, in the terminology of the time, below the Indos (Indo-Europeans, who are half Indonesian and half European), who in turn are below the Pures (or white Europeans, largely Dutch). Nonetheless, he has been allowed to attend an elite Dutch school where he is the only Native, and has been influenced by his teachers' emphasis on the ideals of European culture. The school is in Surabaya, which Wikipedia tells me is now Indonesia's second largest city, although it seems to be a pretty sleepy town in this novel; Minke boards with a couple there.
As the novel begins, Minke is taken by a friend to visit a house that lies out of town (and just down the road from a Chinese brothel). There lives a Nyai, or concubine, a Native woman who lives with a European man without being married, her beautiful daughter Annalies, and her son Robert. As Minke's friend hangs out with the son, Minke comes to know both Annalies and the mother, and they warmly encourage him to return, as Annalies has no other friends. The mother, who goes by Nyai, but asks Minke to call her Mama, is a remarkable woman. As the reader finds out later, she was sold by her parents to the Dutch man, and then taught herself reading, languages (including flawless Dutch), and business practices, and now runs the Dutch man's entire business enterprise.
As the tale progresses, the reader learns more about Nyai's and Minke's backgrounds, Minke meets some interesting but not fully developed characters who help in various ways, falls in love with Annalies, visits his parents, and becomes involved in a catastrophic series of events. These events, and the variety of other characters, serve to illustrate both the complexity and the horror of the colonial system.
I had mixed feelings about this book, and there were times when I almost gave up on it, largely because I just couldn't understand the relationship between Minke and Annalies. Minke is a smart, thoughtful, young man and Annalies, although ravishingly beautiful, seems painfully lacking in almost everything else; she is clearly psychologically disturbed and clings onto her vision of escape through being constantly with Minke (some of the weaker portions of the book are where the devoted European doctor tries to explain early psychology to Minke). The strongest parts of the novel are the development of Minke and the portrait of colonial Indonesia: the people, the landscape, the racism, the oppression, and the various kinds of resistance to the Dutch. By the end of the book, I enjoyed it enough to order the next volume in the quartet, which will follow Minke as he develops as a journalist.
12rebeccanyc
INDONESIA
Child of All Nations by Pramoedya Ananta Toer
Originally published 1979. English translation 1991.
Cross-posted from my Club Read and 75 Books threads.
This is the second volume in the so-called Buru Quartet and it finds young Minke living at the home of his mother-in-law, the remarkable Nyai Ontosoroh, and attempting to pursue a career as a writer/journalist. Like the first volume, it presents a vivid and at times melodramatic portrait of the evils of colonialism and racism, and goes further in this one to also explore the nature of capitalism. Minke is aware that he has much to learn, and in fact is often bemused by what he didn't learn in school, as he still leans towards thinking the "Natives" have a lot to learn from the Europeans (or "Pures"). In many respects, he seems quite naive.
Minke has many "teachers," and the novel often becomes quite didactic as the various journalists, peasants, and revolutionaries (although he doesn't recognize them as such) essentially preach to him. He often comments that these seem like "speeches" or "pamphlets," and indeed they seem that way to the reader too. It is difficult to know whether the author meant them to seem this way, or if he thought that including these more didactic sections was central to the novel.
Many of the characters from the first volume appear in this one too, and much of the plot is a continuation of the stories and conflicts that began there. Aside from that, Minke and Nyai go on a vacation in which Minke is exposed to the exploitation of the peasants by the sugar factories, and Minke encounters a Chinese revolutionary who meets a sorry end and learns about the revolt against Spanish rule in the Philippines that led to the US taking over the colonial role.
When I read the more preachy parts of these two novels, I roll my eyes, get a little bored, and think I won't read the rest of the quartet. But when I get to the parts of the novels where people interact with each other and the plot develops (yet, it still makes the same points about colonialism and racism), I get more caught up in it. Although I clearly have mixed feelings, I probably will eventually read the other two volumes of this quartet.
Child of All Nations by Pramoedya Ananta Toer
Originally published 1979. English translation 1991.
Cross-posted from my Club Read and 75 Books threads.
This is the second volume in the so-called Buru Quartet and it finds young Minke living at the home of his mother-in-law, the remarkable Nyai Ontosoroh, and attempting to pursue a career as a writer/journalist. Like the first volume, it presents a vivid and at times melodramatic portrait of the evils of colonialism and racism, and goes further in this one to also explore the nature of capitalism. Minke is aware that he has much to learn, and in fact is often bemused by what he didn't learn in school, as he still leans towards thinking the "Natives" have a lot to learn from the Europeans (or "Pures"). In many respects, he seems quite naive.
Minke has many "teachers," and the novel often becomes quite didactic as the various journalists, peasants, and revolutionaries (although he doesn't recognize them as such) essentially preach to him. He often comments that these seem like "speeches" or "pamphlets," and indeed they seem that way to the reader too. It is difficult to know whether the author meant them to seem this way, or if he thought that including these more didactic sections was central to the novel.
Many of the characters from the first volume appear in this one too, and much of the plot is a continuation of the stories and conflicts that began there. Aside from that, Minke and Nyai go on a vacation in which Minke is exposed to the exploitation of the peasants by the sugar factories, and Minke encounters a Chinese revolutionary who meets a sorry end and learns about the revolt against Spanish rule in the Philippines that led to the US taking over the colonial role.
When I read the more preachy parts of these two novels, I roll my eyes, get a little bored, and think I won't read the rest of the quartet. But when I get to the parts of the novels where people interact with each other and the plot develops (yet, it still makes the same points about colonialism and racism), I get more caught up in it. Although I clearly have mixed feelings, I probably will eventually read the other two volumes of this quartet.
13VivienneR
Brunei
I have just read this book for the Commonwealth challenge and wandering_star thought you might be interested in it. Brunei is not an easy slot to fill.
Brunei : The Modern Southeast-Asian Islamic Sultanate by David Leake
In 1963 North Borneo, having reverted to its ancient name of Sabah, and Sarawak, both Crown Colonies since the end of the second world war, joined Malaysia, leaving Brunei as a British protectorate until 1984 when it achieved "full" independence.
At that time there was a lot of foreign media attention in the impending change. Leake already lived in Brunei and had spent three years with the Borneo Bulletin, Brunei's only English newspaper. He hoped that being in situ and able to speak the language would help him write some articles that would show a more comprehensive understanding of the events. He mailed off a large package of photos to an agency in New York with an article that mentioned how the sultanate's oil wealth was apportioned. The package arrived at the destination but was never published. He suspected the article was the reason he was promptly expelled from the country.
Although Leake did not hold a grudge, neither did he suffer in vain, for in this book I noticed a number of sections that, while not exactly disrespectful, could possibly be seen as lacking the deference a Brunei sultan expects, especially regarding wealth. As Brunei's national wealth is under the control of the sultan, and is seen as his personal fortune, this makes him one of the richest men in the world.
The book is a good all-round history and description of Brunei, written with enough style to keep the casual reader's interest and without going into any topic to a lengthy academic level. For me, the second half of the book was the most interesting as it covered modern times and the people.
And, just in case you need more, my second choice was: British Borneo : Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo by W. H. Treacher. It's available at Project Gutenberg.
I have just read this book for the Commonwealth challenge and wandering_star thought you might be interested in it. Brunei is not an easy slot to fill.
Brunei : The Modern Southeast-Asian Islamic Sultanate by David Leake
In 1963 North Borneo, having reverted to its ancient name of Sabah, and Sarawak, both Crown Colonies since the end of the second world war, joined Malaysia, leaving Brunei as a British protectorate until 1984 when it achieved "full" independence.
At that time there was a lot of foreign media attention in the impending change. Leake already lived in Brunei and had spent three years with the Borneo Bulletin, Brunei's only English newspaper. He hoped that being in situ and able to speak the language would help him write some articles that would show a more comprehensive understanding of the events. He mailed off a large package of photos to an agency in New York with an article that mentioned how the sultanate's oil wealth was apportioned. The package arrived at the destination but was never published. He suspected the article was the reason he was promptly expelled from the country.
Although Leake did not hold a grudge, neither did he suffer in vain, for in this book I noticed a number of sections that, while not exactly disrespectful, could possibly be seen as lacking the deference a Brunei sultan expects, especially regarding wealth. As Brunei's national wealth is under the control of the sultan, and is seen as his personal fortune, this makes him one of the richest men in the world.
The book is a good all-round history and description of Brunei, written with enough style to keep the casual reader's interest and without going into any topic to a lengthy academic level. For me, the second half of the book was the most interesting as it covered modern times and the people.
And, just in case you need more, my second choice was: British Borneo : Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo by W. H. Treacher. It's available at Project Gutenberg.
14rocketjk
Burma/Myanmar
Wow . . . it's been a long time since anyone posted here. I just finished The Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh, which covers around 120 years of both Burmese (Myanmarese) and Indian history and the relationship between the two, and the relationship of both with the British Empire. The historical aspects of the novel were fascinating indeed, though I felt that for stretches the characters and narrative served only to advance those thematic elements rather than provide compelling stories of their own.
Wow . . . it's been a long time since anyone posted here. I just finished The Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh, which covers around 120 years of both Burmese (Myanmarese) and Indian history and the relationship between the two, and the relationship of both with the British Empire. The historical aspects of the novel were fascinating indeed, though I felt that for stretches the characters and narrative served only to advance those thematic elements rather than provide compelling stories of their own.
15Tess_W
Postcards from Nam, by Uyen Nicole Duong is a novel that begins with the evacuation of Saigon and ends with the author posing the question: can we ever all be united again? Mimi is a young Vietnamese woman living in the U.S. practicing law. She ritually receives postcards from Nam (a real person she grew up with in South Vietnam). Mimi sets out to find out the fate of Nam but has difficulty, even years later, getting people to tell the truth of the evacuation and the fate of the boat people. This book read like a memoir for the first half, but fell apart in the second half when the answers to Mimi's questions were never answered. The last 3-5 pages seemed like they didn't even belong in the book. 114 pages 2 1/2 stars
16spiralsheep
I read State of Emergency : a novel, by Jeremy Tiang, which is mostly set in Singapore and Malaysia before, during, and after independence. It focusses on the Singaporean and Malayan Chinese communities' political relationships with the state, especially the suppressed history of repression against anyone left of centre, told through the actions of one woman and the reactions rippling outwards through her extended family. It's surprisingly honest, and I note that the author lives in the US not Singapore. Before I read this I'd only encountered Tiang as a translator, and a good one, but he's a skilled storyteller too.
The putative protagonist is Siew Li a Chinese Singaporean woman who becomes involved in leftist politics, is detained without trial, and subsequently flees Singapore to make a new life and a second family in Malaysia and Thailand. The supporting characters are her two husbands, her children, her niece, and one old school friend. As you might expect under the circumstances, sometimes Siew Li is more revealed by her absence than her presence. It's hard to read about history repeating itself in the worst ways but Tiang captures the complexities by examining events with an unflinching eye as he weaves his fiction through reality.
Tiang is clear about the overt and covert political violence of authoritarian British colonialism on British subjects in South-East Asia, including events such as the Batang Kali massacre, and the overt and covert political violence of authoritarian Singaporean government on Singaporean citizens. But his characters also compare their experiences of this repression with the effects of foreign and domestic terrorism, and Japanese military occupation, which made it easier for British colonialism to be spun as comparatively "benevolent", especially by the local English-educated Singaporean politicians and administrators who took and held power after Independence. Tiang is as honest about internal divisions, especially those of class and culture and race.
And anyone who doesn't believe a clean tidy state such as Singapore could have such a messy dirty history can google for repeat detainee Linda Chen, and the world's longest political detainee Chia Thye Poh (never arrested or charged or convicted, but detained and disappeared for decades despite being a legitimately elected Member of Parliament).
An extremely impressive first novel. 4.5*
Quotes
Political prisoner of the British Empire, detained without trial (eventually for two years): "She was detained indefinitely - no indication at all if she'd ever be released. It wasn't fair, a girl of fifteen with everything still to come."
Decolonisation the profitable way: "The Tourist Board waited with impatience for the British to withdraw so their military base, already surrounded by every imaginable security feature, could be turned into a fine new airport."
State of Emergency: "No one could afford a proper war, it was far too soon after the last one. The small skirmishes and localised terror kept everyone on their toes."
The putative protagonist is Siew Li a Chinese Singaporean woman who becomes involved in leftist politics, is detained without trial, and subsequently flees Singapore to make a new life and a second family in Malaysia and Thailand. The supporting characters are her two husbands, her children, her niece, and one old school friend. As you might expect under the circumstances, sometimes Siew Li is more revealed by her absence than her presence. It's hard to read about history repeating itself in the worst ways but Tiang captures the complexities by examining events with an unflinching eye as he weaves his fiction through reality.
Tiang is clear about the overt and covert political violence of authoritarian British colonialism on British subjects in South-East Asia, including events such as the Batang Kali massacre, and the overt and covert political violence of authoritarian Singaporean government on Singaporean citizens. But his characters also compare their experiences of this repression with the effects of foreign and domestic terrorism, and Japanese military occupation, which made it easier for British colonialism to be spun as comparatively "benevolent", especially by the local English-educated Singaporean politicians and administrators who took and held power after Independence. Tiang is as honest about internal divisions, especially those of class and culture and race.
And anyone who doesn't believe a clean tidy state such as Singapore could have such a messy dirty history can google for repeat detainee Linda Chen, and the world's longest political detainee Chia Thye Poh (never arrested or charged or convicted, but detained and disappeared for decades despite being a legitimately elected Member of Parliament).
An extremely impressive first novel. 4.5*
Quotes
Political prisoner of the British Empire, detained without trial (eventually for two years): "She was detained indefinitely - no indication at all if she'd ever be released. It wasn't fair, a girl of fifteen with everything still to come."
Decolonisation the profitable way: "The Tourist Board waited with impatience for the British to withdraw so their military base, already surrounded by every imaginable security feature, could be turned into a fine new airport."
State of Emergency: "No one could afford a proper war, it was far too soon after the last one. The small skirmishes and localised terror kept everyone on their toes."
17spiralsheep
I read Jazz, Perfume & the Incident, by Seno Gumira Ajidarma, which is a novel about jazz, perfume, and an incident of violent government repression in occupied territory, except the parts about the incident are actually factual reports of the November 1991 Santa Cruz massacre, aka the Dili Massacre, when the Indonesian military murdered 250 or so human rights protestors at a funeral in East Timor / Timor Leste. The author Seno Gumira Ajidarma was a journalist subject to government censorship of news media who lost his job in January 1992 as a result of publishing articles about the Santa Cruz massacre, but he wasn't detained. He published further material under the guise of literary fiction in 1996. The incident had previously become internationally notorious due to coverage by foreign journalists Max Stahl, Amy Goodman, and Allan Nairn, who managed to outwit the Indonesian and Australian authorities to get the news out, but their work was censored within Indonesia and could only be smuggled in covertly. The most conservative estimate of East Timorese deaths directly attributable to the Indonesian occupation is upwards of 100,000 people but many scholarly researchers consider this an underestimate and some have alleged that over 40% of the population died.
The plot of the novel is that the protagonist, remembers women by their choice of perfume, is reading reports of the Santa Cruz massacre and listening to jazz, which just happens to be associated with both musical freedom and civil rights.
The report chapters are verbatim eyewitness reports of the Santa Cruz massacre and subsequent "disappearances" collected by Indonesian magazine Jakarta Jakarta (where the author worked before being sacked for doing journalism in public) within the framing story of the protagonist reading them. Simple but effective. Apparently censors don't read literary fiction, or they think nobody else reads it, so printing these stories in this form evaded censure.
The jazz chapters are a long meditation on the use of art to communicate meaning, through music or through words: "jazz frees me to imagine, to wander as far as my thoughts can take me. If the music empowers just one listener to do something, isn't that already more than enough?" (...) "I want to know how history can be recorded in a voice. How blood and tears can be heard forever in sounds that occupy so limited a time."
The perfume chapters are more complex. Are the perfumes really attached to privileged women or are these the perfumed women from advertisements by brands which won't buy space in a magazine that's perceived as too political, a magazine that might be censored or banned from the shelves? Which stories should our protagonist pay attention to: the self-possessed ones already on every billboard, the stories that pay the bills; or the dispossessed ones desperate to be heard, the stories that could get him sacked or detained or tortured or dead? "'I have a story,' she says. // 'What is it?' // But my pager goes off. // 'Someone called. Said don't print the piece on the people who got shot.' // 'Sorry, where were we?'"
Then about two thirds of the way through, while the protagonist is still in 1993, the author is in 1996 and decides he might as well push ALL the way, so there's suddenly a chapter on journalism, and then a chapter about lesbians, and then one about gay men, but the author is smart and subtle about this. So his character talks about learning journalistic skills and gives a list of mostly innocuous potential questions ending with 'What's your opinion of the "July 27 Incident?"?' Which is acceptable because in 1993 there hadn't been a July 27 Incident. The July 27 Incident occurred in 1996 just before the novel was published. So the question remains unanswered because it's supposed to make the reader think, and this device works extremely well. And then further down the same page the protagonist (and presumably also the author) mock's himself: '"What's your opinion about the current political situation in Indonesia?" // "Journalists today are cheeky with their questions! But they don't have the nerve to print the answers!"' Then there's a rant rejecting ideology so green-red eco-left ideas can be introduced into the text, and the chapter concludes with quotes from another journalist's interview with a surprisingly philosophical snail.
The chapter on lesbians deliberately normalises a variety of lesbian and bisexual relationships between women from a variety of social backgrounds: 'I already mentioned that I'm aware of this sort of thing but to see it firsthand, in one's face, is different.' The following chapter mentions rape (no description or graphic detail) as a form of torture and political/social repression so there is an immediate contrast between the sexual choices of women free to choose and coercive sexual control by society. The next chapter on gay men emphasises unthreatening sexuality, with a story of gentle lovers told in an interview and contrasted against the interviewer's prejudices, then the interviewer dreams of male sex-workers (lol, no comment).
In the next chapter the journalist protagonist's office is raided by "intelligence agents" who confiscate information: '"We're looking for the evidence." // "We're good people here, sir" // "It's exactly because you're good people that you can be subversive." // Crap. I can't say "Well, in that case we're evil," can I?'
Before I read this I thought it was going to be worthy and of historical interest and with an interesting structure, which it is, but it's also full of mischief and joie de vivre. I loved it! 4.5*
The plot of the novel is that the protagonist, remembers women by their choice of perfume, is reading reports of the Santa Cruz massacre and listening to jazz, which just happens to be associated with both musical freedom and civil rights.
The report chapters are verbatim eyewitness reports of the Santa Cruz massacre and subsequent "disappearances" collected by Indonesian magazine Jakarta Jakarta (where the author worked before being sacked for doing journalism in public) within the framing story of the protagonist reading them. Simple but effective. Apparently censors don't read literary fiction, or they think nobody else reads it, so printing these stories in this form evaded censure.
The jazz chapters are a long meditation on the use of art to communicate meaning, through music or through words: "jazz frees me to imagine, to wander as far as my thoughts can take me. If the music empowers just one listener to do something, isn't that already more than enough?" (...) "I want to know how history can be recorded in a voice. How blood and tears can be heard forever in sounds that occupy so limited a time."
The perfume chapters are more complex. Are the perfumes really attached to privileged women or are these the perfumed women from advertisements by brands which won't buy space in a magazine that's perceived as too political, a magazine that might be censored or banned from the shelves? Which stories should our protagonist pay attention to: the self-possessed ones already on every billboard, the stories that pay the bills; or the dispossessed ones desperate to be heard, the stories that could get him sacked or detained or tortured or dead? "'I have a story,' she says. // 'What is it?' // But my pager goes off. // 'Someone called. Said don't print the piece on the people who got shot.' // 'Sorry, where were we?'"
Then about two thirds of the way through, while the protagonist is still in 1993, the author is in 1996 and decides he might as well push ALL the way, so there's suddenly a chapter on journalism, and then a chapter about lesbians, and then one about gay men, but the author is smart and subtle about this. So his character talks about learning journalistic skills and gives a list of mostly innocuous potential questions ending with 'What's your opinion of the "July 27 Incident?"?' Which is acceptable because in 1993 there hadn't been a July 27 Incident. The July 27 Incident occurred in 1996 just before the novel was published. So the question remains unanswered because it's supposed to make the reader think, and this device works extremely well. And then further down the same page the protagonist (and presumably also the author) mock's himself: '"What's your opinion about the current political situation in Indonesia?" // "Journalists today are cheeky with their questions! But they don't have the nerve to print the answers!"' Then there's a rant rejecting ideology so green-red eco-left ideas can be introduced into the text, and the chapter concludes with quotes from another journalist's interview with a surprisingly philosophical snail.
The chapter on lesbians deliberately normalises a variety of lesbian and bisexual relationships between women from a variety of social backgrounds: 'I already mentioned that I'm aware of this sort of thing but to see it firsthand, in one's face, is different.' The following chapter mentions rape (no description or graphic detail) as a form of torture and political/social repression so there is an immediate contrast between the sexual choices of women free to choose and coercive sexual control by society. The next chapter on gay men emphasises unthreatening sexuality, with a story of gentle lovers told in an interview and contrasted against the interviewer's prejudices, then the interviewer dreams of male sex-workers (lol, no comment).
In the next chapter the journalist protagonist's office is raided by "intelligence agents" who confiscate information: '"We're looking for the evidence." // "We're good people here, sir" // "It's exactly because you're good people that you can be subversive." // Crap. I can't say "Well, in that case we're evil," can I?'
Before I read this I thought it was going to be worthy and of historical interest and with an interesting structure, which it is, but it's also full of mischief and joie de vivre. I loved it! 4.5*
18labfs39
VIETNAM
The Mountains Sing by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai
Published 2020, 351 p.
The Mountains Sing is beautifully written, heartbreaking and uplifting by turns. It′s the story of three generations of the Trần family. The story begins in 1972 with twelve-year-old Hương and her grandmother trying to get home from school during a bombing by American B-52s. They are the only remaining members of their family in Hà Nội, as Hương′s parents and uncles are in the south fighting to rid their country of the occupying Americans. Daily life is almost impossible, yet they not only survive, but succeed, thanks to Hương′s grandmother, who is tenacious, hardworking, and experienced in survival. The story then switches to the grandmother′s voice, who is telling her granddaughter about her family′s history.
Trần Diệu Lan was born in 1920 to a wealthy farming family in northern Việt Nam. She lives through the Japanese occupation during World War II, the famine known as The Great Hunger in 1945, and the Land Reforms that devastated her family. These alternating chapters flow smoothly and complement each other as one occupying army is replaced by another. Themes of love for family and ancestral land, the kindness of strangers, and the value of education run parallel to scenes of betrayal, senseless brutality, PTSD, and the effects of Agent Orange. The Trần family represents both a fictionalized version of the author′s own family and a metaphor for the country as a whole as it is torn apart, reunited, tested, and made whole.
Author Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai was born in northern Vietnam in 1973, but grew up in southern Vietnam after the war. She won a writing competition at the age of ten, but her parents did not want her to be a writer due to the hardships authors faced from censors. Her brother started to teach her English when she was in the eighth grade, and she eventually won a scholarship to university in Australia. She has written eleven books—poetry, short fiction, and nonfiction—but this is her first novel and first book to be written in English.
It may seem ironic that I have chosen to write this novel, by far my most personal work to date, in English, which is also the language of invasive military powers and cultures. But this language has given me a new voice and a way to fictionalize the turbulent events of my country's past, including those that have not yet been sufficiently documented in Vietnamese fiction, such as the Great Hunger or the Land Reform. I am also responding to Hollywood movies and novels written by those Westerners who continue to see our country only as a place of war and the Vietnamese as people who don't need to speak—or, when we do, sound simple, naïve, cruel, or opportunistic. The canon of Việt Nam war and post-war literature in English is vast, but there is a lack of voices from inside Việt Nam.
-Climbing Many Mountains: an Essay by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai
I highly recommend this book, both for the beautiful writing and the story. I appreciate the author′s attempt to bring a Vietnamese voice into American war literature, and I tried to honor her by replicating her use of Vietnamese diacritics. I can′t wait to read her next novel, Dust Child, which is also set to be published by Algonquin Books.
The Mountains Sing by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai
Published 2020, 351 p.
The Mountains Sing is beautifully written, heartbreaking and uplifting by turns. It′s the story of three generations of the Trần family. The story begins in 1972 with twelve-year-old Hương and her grandmother trying to get home from school during a bombing by American B-52s. They are the only remaining members of their family in Hà Nội, as Hương′s parents and uncles are in the south fighting to rid their country of the occupying Americans. Daily life is almost impossible, yet they not only survive, but succeed, thanks to Hương′s grandmother, who is tenacious, hardworking, and experienced in survival. The story then switches to the grandmother′s voice, who is telling her granddaughter about her family′s history.
Trần Diệu Lan was born in 1920 to a wealthy farming family in northern Việt Nam. She lives through the Japanese occupation during World War II, the famine known as The Great Hunger in 1945, and the Land Reforms that devastated her family. These alternating chapters flow smoothly and complement each other as one occupying army is replaced by another. Themes of love for family and ancestral land, the kindness of strangers, and the value of education run parallel to scenes of betrayal, senseless brutality, PTSD, and the effects of Agent Orange. The Trần family represents both a fictionalized version of the author′s own family and a metaphor for the country as a whole as it is torn apart, reunited, tested, and made whole.
Author Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai was born in northern Vietnam in 1973, but grew up in southern Vietnam after the war. She won a writing competition at the age of ten, but her parents did not want her to be a writer due to the hardships authors faced from censors. Her brother started to teach her English when she was in the eighth grade, and she eventually won a scholarship to university in Australia. She has written eleven books—poetry, short fiction, and nonfiction—but this is her first novel and first book to be written in English.
It may seem ironic that I have chosen to write this novel, by far my most personal work to date, in English, which is also the language of invasive military powers and cultures. But this language has given me a new voice and a way to fictionalize the turbulent events of my country's past, including those that have not yet been sufficiently documented in Vietnamese fiction, such as the Great Hunger or the Land Reform. I am also responding to Hollywood movies and novels written by those Westerners who continue to see our country only as a place of war and the Vietnamese as people who don't need to speak—or, when we do, sound simple, naïve, cruel, or opportunistic. The canon of Việt Nam war and post-war literature in English is vast, but there is a lack of voices from inside Việt Nam.
-Climbing Many Mountains: an Essay by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai
I highly recommend this book, both for the beautiful writing and the story. I appreciate the author′s attempt to bring a Vietnamese voice into American war literature, and I tried to honor her by replicating her use of Vietnamese diacritics. I can′t wait to read her next novel, Dust Child, which is also set to be published by Algonquin Books.
19labfs39
VIETNAM
The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
Published 2015, 403 p.
″They cannot represent themselves, they must be represented.″ Marx spoke of the oppressed class that was not politically conscious enough to see itself as a class, but was anything ever more true of the dead…?
Much has been written about the Vietnam War, but the vast majority of the voices heard in America are American. Nguyen′s novel is an attempt to give another perspective, yet that perspective is of someone who came to the states as a child and lost no family in the war. So although his name is Vietnamese, his approach is academic, not biographical.
The entire novel′s tension rests on the dichotomies of a character who is half-French and half-Vietnamese, a Viet Cong soldier in a ARVN uniform, American-educated but Vietnamese-born, trained by the CIA to interrogate the very revolutionaries he is trying to save.
I am a spy, a sleeper, a spook, a man of two faces. Perhaps not surprisingly, I am also a man of two minds.
Thus begins the novel and the protagonist′s confession. He is in an isolation cell writing for an unknown commandant—not an auspicious beginning. His story begins with the fall of Saigon and his escape with his commanding officer, a general in the South Vietnamese secret police. Although he has been serving the general for years and is a trusted aide, he is actually a mole for the North Vietnamese communist army. His handler orders him to leave the country with the general and continue reporting on the general′s activities, and any attempts to rekindle the war, from America. The plot bogs down a bit in the middle, but picks up again for an intense, page-turning ending.
Nguyen′s writing is clever and darkly humorous. I often stopped and reread a sentence simply for the pleasure of the construction. The book has elements of metafiction: a self-conscious novel that is written as a confession by a narrator whose life is a lie. The war is being recast as a movie starring American heroes and nameless, unspeaking Vietnamese extras, on the one hand, and as a communist victory for the people by political commissars in the reeducation camps, on the other. Readers of Invisible Man and The Quiet American will find echoes throughout, as will watchers of Apocalypse Now. Nguyen tackles issues of identity, race, representation, and both individual and societal culpability head on, sparing no one—American, South Vietnamese, or communist—from his glare.
The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
Published 2015, 403 p.
″They cannot represent themselves, they must be represented.″ Marx spoke of the oppressed class that was not politically conscious enough to see itself as a class, but was anything ever more true of the dead…?
Much has been written about the Vietnam War, but the vast majority of the voices heard in America are American. Nguyen′s novel is an attempt to give another perspective, yet that perspective is of someone who came to the states as a child and lost no family in the war. So although his name is Vietnamese, his approach is academic, not biographical.
The entire novel′s tension rests on the dichotomies of a character who is half-French and half-Vietnamese, a Viet Cong soldier in a ARVN uniform, American-educated but Vietnamese-born, trained by the CIA to interrogate the very revolutionaries he is trying to save.
I am a spy, a sleeper, a spook, a man of two faces. Perhaps not surprisingly, I am also a man of two minds.
Thus begins the novel and the protagonist′s confession. He is in an isolation cell writing for an unknown commandant—not an auspicious beginning. His story begins with the fall of Saigon and his escape with his commanding officer, a general in the South Vietnamese secret police. Although he has been serving the general for years and is a trusted aide, he is actually a mole for the North Vietnamese communist army. His handler orders him to leave the country with the general and continue reporting on the general′s activities, and any attempts to rekindle the war, from America. The plot bogs down a bit in the middle, but picks up again for an intense, page-turning ending.
Nguyen′s writing is clever and darkly humorous. I often stopped and reread a sentence simply for the pleasure of the construction. The book has elements of metafiction: a self-conscious novel that is written as a confession by a narrator whose life is a lie. The war is being recast as a movie starring American heroes and nameless, unspeaking Vietnamese extras, on the one hand, and as a communist victory for the people by political commissars in the reeducation camps, on the other. Readers of Invisible Man and The Quiet American will find echoes throughout, as will watchers of Apocalypse Now. Nguyen tackles issues of identity, race, representation, and both individual and societal culpability head on, sparing no one—American, South Vietnamese, or communist—from his glare.
20labfs39
VIETNAM
Em by Kim Thúy, translated from the French by Sheila Fischman
Published 2020, 148 p.
I loved this book. The plot and characters are impactful, and the structure of the book and writing are the epitome of ″write short.″ On one level the book is the story of Tam, Emma-Jade, and Louis, three orphans who survived the Vietnam War, the fall of Saigon, and relocation abroad. On the other hand it is the history of Vietnam told in miniature. It is also a reflection of the difficulty of writing truth, especially historical truth:
I′m going to tell you the truth, some true stories at least, but only partially, incompletely, more or less. Because it′s impossible for me to re-create the blue nuances in the sky just as Rob, the marine, was reading a letter from his lover, while at the same time the rebel, Vinh, was writing to his own lover during a brief lull, a moment of deceptive calm. Was it a Mayan and azure blue, or a French and cerulean blue? When Private John discovered the list of insurgents hidden in a pot of manioc flour, how many kilos were there? Had the flour just been milled? What was the temperature of the water when Monsieur Út was thrown into the well before being burned alive by Sergeant Peter′s flame-thrower? Did Monsieur Út weigh half as much as Peter, or two-thirds? Was it the itching of his mosquito bites that so unsettled Peter?
This is the second paragraph of the novel. Already the author has raised questions about the loaded difficulty in deciding which details to include in a story and how that choosing effects the truth of the narrative. She has also provided several different situations and viewpoints, all with their own individual truths and contexts. Because each chapter is only a page or two long, every sentence, every word is important. A character may only have a few paragraphs to reveal themselves, so their description and actions take on layered and textured meaning. If a novel could be a haiku, this would be it. Highly recommended.
Em by Kim Thúy, translated from the French by Sheila Fischman
Published 2020, 148 p.
I loved this book. The plot and characters are impactful, and the structure of the book and writing are the epitome of ″write short.″ On one level the book is the story of Tam, Emma-Jade, and Louis, three orphans who survived the Vietnam War, the fall of Saigon, and relocation abroad. On the other hand it is the history of Vietnam told in miniature. It is also a reflection of the difficulty of writing truth, especially historical truth:
I′m going to tell you the truth, some true stories at least, but only partially, incompletely, more or less. Because it′s impossible for me to re-create the blue nuances in the sky just as Rob, the marine, was reading a letter from his lover, while at the same time the rebel, Vinh, was writing to his own lover during a brief lull, a moment of deceptive calm. Was it a Mayan and azure blue, or a French and cerulean blue? When Private John discovered the list of insurgents hidden in a pot of manioc flour, how many kilos were there? Had the flour just been milled? What was the temperature of the water when Monsieur Út was thrown into the well before being burned alive by Sergeant Peter′s flame-thrower? Did Monsieur Út weigh half as much as Peter, or two-thirds? Was it the itching of his mosquito bites that so unsettled Peter?
This is the second paragraph of the novel. Already the author has raised questions about the loaded difficulty in deciding which details to include in a story and how that choosing effects the truth of the narrative. She has also provided several different situations and viewpoints, all with their own individual truths and contexts. Because each chapter is only a page or two long, every sentence, every word is important. A character may only have a few paragraphs to reveal themselves, so their description and actions take on layered and textured meaning. If a novel could be a haiku, this would be it. Highly recommended.
21labfs39
VIETNAM
Novel Without a Name by Duong Thu Huong translated from the Vietnamese by Phan Huy Duong and Nina McPherson
Published 1991, English translation 1995, 289 p.
To understand Duong Thu Huong's novels, it is important to understand her background. At the age of twenty, Duong left college and volunteered to lead a Communist Youth Brigade to the front in the "War Against the Americans." She served in one of the most bombed regions of the war and was one of three survivors out of her group of twenty. She was also at the front during the 1979 Chinese attack on Vietnam. But during the 1980s, she became a critic of the Communist regime and an advocate for human rights. She was expelled from the party in 1989, imprisoned briefly in 1991 (the year she published this novel), and had her passport revoked so she could not leave the country. Her books were extremely popular prior to her imprisonment, but they are now banned and everything she has written since then has had to be published abroad, despite being written for a Vietnamese audience.
Novel Without a Name is the story of Quan, a young Communist soldier who, when the story opens, has been fighting the Americans for ten years. He left his village at the age of eighteen, excited for glory and idealistic about his nation's role in history. But after ten years of hunger, disease, and killing, "there is this gangrene that eats at the heart." He is summoned to company headquarters by a former classmate, who tells him that their friend has been imprisoned in a camp for psychiatric cases, and can he go and see what might be done for him. Afterward he is given leave to visit their hometown for a couple of days. But his brief visit is not a return to his dreamed of childhood, it is the source of more disillusionment.
Never. We never forget anything, never lose anything, never exchange anything, never undo what has been. There is no way back to the source, to the place where the pure, clear water once gushed forth.
Quan's idealism may be in tatters, but the war goes on. He returns to the front and further horrific warfare, corruption, and spiritual decay.
Duong has said that she never intended to become a writer. She served as an exemplary soldier, hoarding her impressions, and began to write as an expression of her pain. That pain is clearly reflected in Quan's odyssey between war and home and back again.
Novel Without a Name by Duong Thu Huong translated from the Vietnamese by Phan Huy Duong and Nina McPherson
Published 1991, English translation 1995, 289 p.
To understand Duong Thu Huong's novels, it is important to understand her background. At the age of twenty, Duong left college and volunteered to lead a Communist Youth Brigade to the front in the "War Against the Americans." She served in one of the most bombed regions of the war and was one of three survivors out of her group of twenty. She was also at the front during the 1979 Chinese attack on Vietnam. But during the 1980s, she became a critic of the Communist regime and an advocate for human rights. She was expelled from the party in 1989, imprisoned briefly in 1991 (the year she published this novel), and had her passport revoked so she could not leave the country. Her books were extremely popular prior to her imprisonment, but they are now banned and everything she has written since then has had to be published abroad, despite being written for a Vietnamese audience.
Novel Without a Name is the story of Quan, a young Communist soldier who, when the story opens, has been fighting the Americans for ten years. He left his village at the age of eighteen, excited for glory and idealistic about his nation's role in history. But after ten years of hunger, disease, and killing, "there is this gangrene that eats at the heart." He is summoned to company headquarters by a former classmate, who tells him that their friend has been imprisoned in a camp for psychiatric cases, and can he go and see what might be done for him. Afterward he is given leave to visit their hometown for a couple of days. But his brief visit is not a return to his dreamed of childhood, it is the source of more disillusionment.
Never. We never forget anything, never lose anything, never exchange anything, never undo what has been. There is no way back to the source, to the place where the pure, clear water once gushed forth.
Quan's idealism may be in tatters, but the war goes on. He returns to the front and further horrific warfare, corruption, and spiritual decay.
Duong has said that she never intended to become a writer. She served as an exemplary soldier, hoarding her impressions, and began to write as an expression of her pain. That pain is clearly reflected in Quan's odyssey between war and home and back again.
22labfs39
MYANMAR
From the Land of Green Ghosts by Pascal Khoo Thwe
Published 2002, 304 p.
Pascal Khoo Thwe grew up in rural Burma, part of the Padaung tribe. His grandfather was the tribal chief, and Pascal grew up secure in his place in the world. His family was Catholic, yet still adhered to many of the traditional animist beliefs. Ghosts were a presence, for both good and ill. Someone who was murdered or died in an accident might become a green ghost, hence the title.
Pascal decides to become a priest and goes to a seminary, but eventually decides to pursue his love of English literature instead, and enrolls in college in Mandalay. The late 80s are a time of turmoil in Burma, however, and his studies are interrupted by student unrest against the regime. Eventually he must flee to the jungle to escape being arrested. But a chance meeting with a Cambridge don years earlier will change his fate and perhaps save his life.
Told in an unsentimental, straightforward manner, Thwe's memoir is a fascinating account of rural Burmese life, the impact of British colonization and its marriage with traditional beliefs, the complexity of ethnic relationships within Burmese society, and the educational system during Ne Win's regime. The plight of the students after the uprisings and their life in the jungle with the rebels was harrowing, and a situation about which I knew nothing. Although Thwe's emotional reserve makes the book almost academic in tone, his honest and insightful self-reflection make it a compelling read. Highly recommended for anyone interested in Burma/Myanmar.
From the Land of Green Ghosts by Pascal Khoo Thwe
Published 2002, 304 p.
Pascal Khoo Thwe grew up in rural Burma, part of the Padaung tribe. His grandfather was the tribal chief, and Pascal grew up secure in his place in the world. His family was Catholic, yet still adhered to many of the traditional animist beliefs. Ghosts were a presence, for both good and ill. Someone who was murdered or died in an accident might become a green ghost, hence the title.
Pascal decides to become a priest and goes to a seminary, but eventually decides to pursue his love of English literature instead, and enrolls in college in Mandalay. The late 80s are a time of turmoil in Burma, however, and his studies are interrupted by student unrest against the regime. Eventually he must flee to the jungle to escape being arrested. But a chance meeting with a Cambridge don years earlier will change his fate and perhaps save his life.
Told in an unsentimental, straightforward manner, Thwe's memoir is a fascinating account of rural Burmese life, the impact of British colonization and its marriage with traditional beliefs, the complexity of ethnic relationships within Burmese society, and the educational system during Ne Win's regime. The plight of the students after the uprisings and their life in the jungle with the rebels was harrowing, and a situation about which I knew nothing. Although Thwe's emotional reserve makes the book almost academic in tone, his honest and insightful self-reflection make it a compelling read. Highly recommended for anyone interested in Burma/Myanmar.
23Gypsy_Boy
>22 labfs39: Thanks for this! It sounds intriguing, if not downright fascinating. I will look for it based on your comments and look forward to it.
24labfs39
>23 Gypsy_Boy: Thanks, I hope you enjoy it when you get to it. I could see that his reserve (reinforced by his British education?) might not appeal to everyone, but I'm not one for emotional hyperbole, so it worked for me. I found his description of the educational philosophy in Burma at the time, and his struggles to overcome it, to be particularly interesting.
25labfs39
MALAYSIA
The Night Tiger by Yangsze Choo
Published 2019, 372 p.
Ren is an eleven-year-old boy with a mission. His master's dying wish is to be buried with his amputated finger before the 49 day mourning period ends. Otherwise his master fears he will become a spirit tiger. Ji Lin is a young woman apprenticed as a dressmaker to escape her violent stepfather. She is working as a dance-hall girl to pay off her mother's mahjong debts. One evening she accidently ends up in possession of a customer's lucky charm: an embalmed finger. What follows is a mysterious and fantastical tale of Malay myth, Chinese superstition, and 1930's Malaysian prejudice.
I enjoyed learning more about Malaysian folklore, but was a bit disappointed with the historical aspect. I felt as though the characters had modern sensibilities and the setting lacked historical nuance. The author's father was a diplomat, so (according to Wikipedia) she was born in the Philippines and spent her childhood in Thailand, Germany, Japan and Singapore. She was educated at Harvard, worked as a management consultant, and lives in California. I'm not sure how much time she has spent in Malaysia. I think she could have told the story in modern day Malaysia without much impact on the story. The plot was fun, although a bit jerky, like a train just leaving the station. Recommended for those interested in Southeast Asian folklore.
The Night Tiger by Yangsze Choo
Published 2019, 372 p.
Ren is an eleven-year-old boy with a mission. His master's dying wish is to be buried with his amputated finger before the 49 day mourning period ends. Otherwise his master fears he will become a spirit tiger. Ji Lin is a young woman apprenticed as a dressmaker to escape her violent stepfather. She is working as a dance-hall girl to pay off her mother's mahjong debts. One evening she accidently ends up in possession of a customer's lucky charm: an embalmed finger. What follows is a mysterious and fantastical tale of Malay myth, Chinese superstition, and 1930's Malaysian prejudice.
I enjoyed learning more about Malaysian folklore, but was a bit disappointed with the historical aspect. I felt as though the characters had modern sensibilities and the setting lacked historical nuance. The author's father was a diplomat, so (according to Wikipedia) she was born in the Philippines and spent her childhood in Thailand, Germany, Japan and Singapore. She was educated at Harvard, worked as a management consultant, and lives in California. I'm not sure how much time she has spent in Malaysia. I think she could have told the story in modern day Malaysia without much impact on the story. The plot was fun, although a bit jerky, like a train just leaving the station. Recommended for those interested in Southeast Asian folklore.
26labfs39
SINGAPORE
Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan
Published 2013, 527 p.
Rachel Chu has been dating Nicholas Young, a fellow professor in New York City, for two years when he asks her to fly home to Singapore with him for his best friend's wedding. Although a bit leery of the implications of meeting his family for the first time, Rachel agrees. Little does she know that Nicholas Young is the heir to a huge family fortune, and the family is large, entitled, and obsessed with bloodlines. Rachel, daughter of a single mom of modest means, is unprepared for what awaits her.
I wasn't sure what to expect from this book, but I needed a Singaporean book for a challenge. Chick lit is not a genre I often read. But what I found was a funny, satirical look at life among the ultra-rich in Singapore, by an author who was on the periphery of that crowd until the age of eleven when he moved to the US. Peppered with slang in Cantonese, Malay, and Mandarin, the novel includes details about the island and the lifestyles of the Asian jet set who live there. Fast-paced with an often wicked humor, I enjoyed this romp of a book and might look for the next volume in the trilogy the next time I need a light diversion.
Note: the family tree in the front of my copy was invaluable in keeping everyone straight.
Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan
Published 2013, 527 p.
Rachel Chu has been dating Nicholas Young, a fellow professor in New York City, for two years when he asks her to fly home to Singapore with him for his best friend's wedding. Although a bit leery of the implications of meeting his family for the first time, Rachel agrees. Little does she know that Nicholas Young is the heir to a huge family fortune, and the family is large, entitled, and obsessed with bloodlines. Rachel, daughter of a single mom of modest means, is unprepared for what awaits her.
I wasn't sure what to expect from this book, but I needed a Singaporean book for a challenge. Chick lit is not a genre I often read. But what I found was a funny, satirical look at life among the ultra-rich in Singapore, by an author who was on the periphery of that crowd until the age of eleven when he moved to the US. Peppered with slang in Cantonese, Malay, and Mandarin, the novel includes details about the island and the lifestyles of the Asian jet set who live there. Fast-paced with an often wicked humor, I enjoyed this romp of a book and might look for the next volume in the trilogy the next time I need a light diversion.
Note: the family tree in the front of my copy was invaluable in keeping everyone straight.
27Gypsy_Boy
>26 labfs39: Should you be inclined to further investigate Singaporean literature, may I suggest Philip Jeyaretnam's Abraham's Promise? It tackles some large topics, including race. Not to mention love, regret, and knowing how to conduct oneself. It's a story of regret in its many guises told retrospectively by someone who learned the hard way, losing much by speaking and also by not speaking out. Poignant would be a good word....
28labfs39
>27 Gypsy_Boy: Thanks, Gypsy. I will request it through my library. Kevin Kwan's books were the only books by a Singaporean author that the library had, so it was slim pickings.
29labfs39
VIETNAM
Dust Child by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai
To be published March 2023, 339 p.
In post-war Vietnam, children with an American GI father and a Vietnamese mother were frequently ostracized or persecuted as being the product of the defeated enemy and a collaborating mother. Often having different features, hair, or skin color, the children were easy targets. In this, her second novel, Nguyen writes about the issue from multiple perspectives and a generosity of understanding for the complexities of human failings.
Phong is trying to get a visa to the US based on his heritage via the Amerasian Homecoming Act. Despite being tall and having the hair and skin coloring of a Black man, he lacks the required proof that his father was an American serviceman: he is an orphan.
In 1969 Trang and her sister leave their village for Saigon, hoping to make enough money to pay off their parents' debt and return to school. The seemingly harmless job of being a bar girl, who makes lot of money flirting and drinking Saigon tea, turns out to be nothing more than prostitution with American soldiers.
In 2016 Vietnam vet Dan Ashland and his wife are making a trip to Vietnam to try and put to rest some of Dan's ghosts. In addition, Dan hopes to secretly find out what happened to Kim, the bar girl he lived with during the war, and the child she was carrying.
At first, the conclusion of the story seemed obvious, but it was not. As each person's backstory is told, the complexity of the issues and relationships deepens. The author writes beautifully about the ugly side of war.
Dust Child by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai
To be published March 2023, 339 p.
In post-war Vietnam, children with an American GI father and a Vietnamese mother were frequently ostracized or persecuted as being the product of the defeated enemy and a collaborating mother. Often having different features, hair, or skin color, the children were easy targets. In this, her second novel, Nguyen writes about the issue from multiple perspectives and a generosity of understanding for the complexities of human failings.
Phong is trying to get a visa to the US based on his heritage via the Amerasian Homecoming Act. Despite being tall and having the hair and skin coloring of a Black man, he lacks the required proof that his father was an American serviceman: he is an orphan.
In 1969 Trang and her sister leave their village for Saigon, hoping to make enough money to pay off their parents' debt and return to school. The seemingly harmless job of being a bar girl, who makes lot of money flirting and drinking Saigon tea, turns out to be nothing more than prostitution with American soldiers.
In 2016 Vietnam vet Dan Ashland and his wife are making a trip to Vietnam to try and put to rest some of Dan's ghosts. In addition, Dan hopes to secretly find out what happened to Kim, the bar girl he lived with during the war, and the child she was carrying.
At first, the conclusion of the story seemed obvious, but it was not. As each person's backstory is told, the complexity of the issues and relationships deepens. The author writes beautifully about the ugly side of war.
30labfs39
SINGAPORE
How We Disappeared by Jing-Jing Lee
Published 2019, 348 p.
Seventeen-year-old Wang Di was abducted at gunpoint by Japanese soldiers in August 1942 and forced into sexual slavery for the rest of the war. Her story is told in both the past and the present, where her husband is dying without their ever having shared their stories of the war. Kevin is a twelve-year-old boy trying to solve a mystery that arose with his dying grandmother's whispered words. Toward the end of the book, their stories become entangled.
I liked the chapters that dealt with Wang Di's life in the 1940s and would have liked that story on its own, or even as flashbacks with her current life. The inclusion of Kevin's story felt forced and out of place. I don't think it was necessary in order to have a meaningful novel. That said, I still found the book engaging, and I learned some thing about Singaporean history.
How We Disappeared by Jing-Jing Lee
Published 2019, 348 p.
Seventeen-year-old Wang Di was abducted at gunpoint by Japanese soldiers in August 1942 and forced into sexual slavery for the rest of the war. Her story is told in both the past and the present, where her husband is dying without their ever having shared their stories of the war. Kevin is a twelve-year-old boy trying to solve a mystery that arose with his dying grandmother's whispered words. Toward the end of the book, their stories become entangled.
I liked the chapters that dealt with Wang Di's life in the 1940s and would have liked that story on its own, or even as flashbacks with her current life. The inclusion of Kevin's story felt forced and out of place. I don't think it was necessary in order to have a meaningful novel. That said, I still found the book engaging, and I learned some thing about Singaporean history.
31Tess_W
VIETNAM
I read The Mountains Sing by Nguyen Phan Que Mai. The author was born and lived in North Vietnam until the 1970's when her family moved to South Vietnam. She entered her first writing contest at a young age but was discouraged by her parents as they didn't want to be singled out by the government censors. This was her first novel, which she wrote in Vietnamese and translated herself with only the aid of Vietnamese-English dictionary. Kudos to Ms. Mai for overcoming obstacles and sticking to it!
That being said, I was less than enthralled with the actual story. It is a three-generational story that follows the grandmother, Tran Dieu Lan, and her granddaughter Huong. This was a dual time line (at least that's what I understood from listening to the audio) and the stories were very similar and hence confusing. This poor family was victimized by the French, Japanese, Americans, and each other. I just didn't find anything uplifting or "good" in the novel, but perhaps that is the story to be told. Perhaps I "lost" something in listening to the audio that might have made the read more bearable/pleasurable/entertaining had I read it instead of listened to it.
I read The Mountains Sing by Nguyen Phan Que Mai. The author was born and lived in North Vietnam until the 1970's when her family moved to South Vietnam. She entered her first writing contest at a young age but was discouraged by her parents as they didn't want to be singled out by the government censors. This was her first novel, which she wrote in Vietnamese and translated herself with only the aid of Vietnamese-English dictionary. Kudos to Ms. Mai for overcoming obstacles and sticking to it!
That being said, I was less than enthralled with the actual story. It is a three-generational story that follows the grandmother, Tran Dieu Lan, and her granddaughter Huong. This was a dual time line (at least that's what I understood from listening to the audio) and the stories were very similar and hence confusing. This poor family was victimized by the French, Japanese, Americans, and each other. I just didn't find anything uplifting or "good" in the novel, but perhaps that is the story to be told. Perhaps I "lost" something in listening to the audio that might have made the read more bearable/pleasurable/entertaining had I read it instead of listened to it.
32PatrickMurtha
INDONESIA
John Company by Arthur van Schendel
John Company (1932) is one of the many fine Dutch novels of the colonial East Indies, is “impersonal” in the sense that the Dutch East India Company of the 17th Century is the true protagonist, and not any individual, although the story of adventurer Jan de Brasser provides a through-line. Van Schendel’s approach is original - he gives a comparatively dry and objective-sounding account of “goings-on” in Dutch Indonesia without any conventional plot as such. John Company is not like other novels, and all the better for it.
Among the other novels of this history that I would recommend are Louis Couperus’ The Hidden Force, Multatuli’s Max Havelaar, and Maria Dermout’s The Ten Thousand Things.
John Company by Arthur van Schendel
John Company (1932) is one of the many fine Dutch novels of the colonial East Indies, is “impersonal” in the sense that the Dutch East India Company of the 17th Century is the true protagonist, and not any individual, although the story of adventurer Jan de Brasser provides a through-line. Van Schendel’s approach is original - he gives a comparatively dry and objective-sounding account of “goings-on” in Dutch Indonesia without any conventional plot as such. John Company is not like other novels, and all the better for it.
Among the other novels of this history that I would recommend are Louis Couperus’ The Hidden Force, Multatuli’s Max Havelaar, and Maria Dermout’s The Ten Thousand Things.
33labfs39
Adding my kudos to >16 spiralsheep: for
SINGAPORE
State of Emergency by Jeremy Tiang
Published 2017, Epigram Press, 245 p.
A beautifully written and well-paced novel about an extended family in Singapore from 1940s to present.
My review
SINGAPORE
State of Emergency by Jeremy Tiang
Published 2017, Epigram Press, 245 p.
A beautifully written and well-paced novel about an extended family in Singapore from 1940s to present.
My review
34kidzdoc
MALAYSIA
The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng
The Malaysian lawyer and novelist Tan Twan Eng is one of my favorite contemporary authors of historical fiction, and his most recent novel is no exception. The central character is Lesley Hamlyn, a British woman who lives in colonial Penang along with her husband Robert, a highly regarded lawyer. Robert invites the famed British writer and longtime friend W. Somerset Maugham, who prefers to be called Willie, to stay with him and Lesley for a fortnight in 1921, along with Willie’s secretary and traveling companion Gerald Haxton. Maugham, ever eager to mine the public and secret lives of others as a source for his novels, short stories and plays, learns that Lesley was a supporter of Dr Sun Yat Sen, the Chinese revolutionary and first provisional president of the Republic of China, who visited Penang in 1910 to enlist financial backing from the Malayan Chinese community in his effort to overthrow the Qing Dynasty during the 1911 Revolution. Maugham talks with Lesley about Sun, as he is writing a book about him, and as their friendship deepens Lesley tells him about her own troubled marriage, as well as that of her friend Ethel Proudlock, whose killing of a British man in Kuala Lumpur became a major scandal in the British colonial society, and it later formed the basis of Maugham’s short story The Letter, which is contained in his collection The Casuarina Tree.
The novel travels mainly between 1910-11 and 1921, with evocative portrayals of Penang, the racist and close minded attitudes of the British toward their Asian neighbors, and especially the main characters and their lives and loves.
The House of Doors is another masterful novel by Tan Twan Eng, one well deserving of its place on the 2023 Booker Prize longlist, and I enjoyed it nearly as much as his previous novels, The Gift of Rain and The Garden of Evening Mists.
The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng
The Malaysian lawyer and novelist Tan Twan Eng is one of my favorite contemporary authors of historical fiction, and his most recent novel is no exception. The central character is Lesley Hamlyn, a British woman who lives in colonial Penang along with her husband Robert, a highly regarded lawyer. Robert invites the famed British writer and longtime friend W. Somerset Maugham, who prefers to be called Willie, to stay with him and Lesley for a fortnight in 1921, along with Willie’s secretary and traveling companion Gerald Haxton. Maugham, ever eager to mine the public and secret lives of others as a source for his novels, short stories and plays, learns that Lesley was a supporter of Dr Sun Yat Sen, the Chinese revolutionary and first provisional president of the Republic of China, who visited Penang in 1910 to enlist financial backing from the Malayan Chinese community in his effort to overthrow the Qing Dynasty during the 1911 Revolution. Maugham talks with Lesley about Sun, as he is writing a book about him, and as their friendship deepens Lesley tells him about her own troubled marriage, as well as that of her friend Ethel Proudlock, whose killing of a British man in Kuala Lumpur became a major scandal in the British colonial society, and it later formed the basis of Maugham’s short story The Letter, which is contained in his collection The Casuarina Tree.
The novel travels mainly between 1910-11 and 1921, with evocative portrayals of Penang, the racist and close minded attitudes of the British toward their Asian neighbors, and especially the main characters and their lives and loves.
The House of Doors is another masterful novel by Tan Twan Eng, one well deserving of its place on the 2023 Booker Prize longlist, and I enjoyed it nearly as much as his previous novels, The Gift of Rain and The Garden of Evening Mists.
35labfs39
VIETNAM
Mãn by Kim Thúy, translated from the French by Sheila Fischman
Published 2013, English translation 2014, 139 p.
I love Kim Thúy's writing, and this novella is no exception. Whenever I pick up one of her books, I know I am going to be treated to beautiful, evocative writing; a semi-autobiographical plot; a delicate, nuanced view of immigration; a visceral longing for her Vietnamese homeland; and a love for her adopted country (Canada).
Mãn (which means "fulfilled") grew up in Vietnam with her adoptive mother, Maman, who would often leave Mãn with friends or neighbors when she had an assignment as a revolutionary. There Mãn learned to be invisible, to serve the families with deft hands, anticipating their wants so they would have no cause to turn on her. This prepared her for the life of a foreign bride to a Vietnamese man in Montreal. Maman wanted her to be assured of a safe life, and Mãn continued to take up as little oxygen as possible.
Once in Montreal, however, Mãn is befriended by Julie, a smiling, open-hearted woman who dissolves the boundaries that Mãn has set up around herself. Soon Mãn is running an increasingly famous restaurant built around remembered and reimagined Vietnamese recipes. In Paris Mãn meets someone who will dissolve the boundaries around her heart as well.
Kim Thúy is a restaurateur and chef, and her passion for food is evident in this novel. If you love food, you will enjoy her descriptions of the tastes and textures of various foods used in Vietnamese cooking. But it's also a novel about a life between worlds and the struggle to find personal fulfillment in such a tenuous space. As in Em and Ru, each chapter is only a page or two long and the book is short, but the language is rich and savory and the images linger.
Mãn by Kim Thúy, translated from the French by Sheila Fischman
Published 2013, English translation 2014, 139 p.
I love Kim Thúy's writing, and this novella is no exception. Whenever I pick up one of her books, I know I am going to be treated to beautiful, evocative writing; a semi-autobiographical plot; a delicate, nuanced view of immigration; a visceral longing for her Vietnamese homeland; and a love for her adopted country (Canada).
Mãn (which means "fulfilled") grew up in Vietnam with her adoptive mother, Maman, who would often leave Mãn with friends or neighbors when she had an assignment as a revolutionary. There Mãn learned to be invisible, to serve the families with deft hands, anticipating their wants so they would have no cause to turn on her. This prepared her for the life of a foreign bride to a Vietnamese man in Montreal. Maman wanted her to be assured of a safe life, and Mãn continued to take up as little oxygen as possible.
Once in Montreal, however, Mãn is befriended by Julie, a smiling, open-hearted woman who dissolves the boundaries that Mãn has set up around herself. Soon Mãn is running an increasingly famous restaurant built around remembered and reimagined Vietnamese recipes. In Paris Mãn meets someone who will dissolve the boundaries around her heart as well.
Kim Thúy is a restaurateur and chef, and her passion for food is evident in this novel. If you love food, you will enjoy her descriptions of the tastes and textures of various foods used in Vietnamese cooking. But it's also a novel about a life between worlds and the struggle to find personal fulfillment in such a tenuous space. As in Em and Ru, each chapter is only a page or two long and the book is short, but the language is rich and savory and the images linger.
