Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2023 Listen, I just can't with this Booker longlist: Sure, this is a decent historical novel based on real events, but Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2023 Listen, I just can't with this Booker longlist: Sure, this is a decent historical novel based on real events, but it's far, far removed from any aesthetic decision that would indicate that postmodernism ever happened and from any plot points that are of heightened relevance for the social and political climate we live in today. This wouldn't bother me so much if the whole list wasn't such a mess, I guess, but alas, I'm annoyed.
The book revolves around the real W. Somerset Maugham who in the early 1920's travels to the Straits Settlement of Penang (today part of Malaysia) with his lover Gerald Haxton. He made bad decisions at the stock market and finds himself almost broke, plus he contemplates divorcing his wife back home - which means he is in desperate need of money. Enter Lesley Hamlyn, the wife of Maugham's good friend Robert. The chatty woman is the second main character, inspiring the famous author to craft new texts based on her stories, among them the play The Letter about the Ethel Proudlock case (Proudlock shot and killed a man in the colonies, she was sentenced to death and later pardoned), contained in Maugham's collection The Casuarina Tree set in the Federated Malay States.
There is love and intrigue with an exotic (I know, I know) back drop, there is some commentary on queerness as well as colonialism with its bored and useless settlers, plus there is a plotline featuring Sun Yat-sen, a (real) Chinese statesman. Ergo: There are a lot of people and ideas thrown into the mix, plotlines intersect, there are time jumps etc., but somehow the language remains slow and portly like a day in the extreme heat of the places depicted.
This is well done and all, but where is the edge? Where is the surprise? Where is the punch? This fits into the classic canon that British authors have established when writing about the colonies, and in that respect, the novel sometimes comes across as a pastiche. Another entry that remains just too prim and proper for my taste....more
This Malaysian horror novella got me with its fantastic cover and scary title that points to Japan, where teeth lacquering used to be considered beautThis Malaysian horror novella got me with its fantastic cover and scary title that points to Japan, where teeth lacquering used to be considered beautiful (the government banned it in 1870). The text tells the story of a wedding that takes place in a Japanese haunted house: Five estranged childhood friends travel there to join the celebration. They bring their own demons who can then team up with the ghosts already present, namely the spirit of a heart-broken bride who volunteered to get buried alive in the house centuries ago and the women who joined her. Hilarity ensues when the ghost bride takes the still living bride hostage and demands a sacrifice.
While I did not mind that the characters are all rather obnoxious - the world-building refers to classic horror movie tropes -, I did mind that the novella is, at least for my taste, not really scary. It never gains momentum and remains rather tame.
So, not a horrible book, but the content is clearly not horrifying enough....more
"The Night Tiger" is light fiction with a YA feel that uses Malaysia in the 1930s as a backdrop - I was expecting to learn more about the country and "The Night Tiger" is light fiction with a YA feel that uses Malaysia in the 1930s as a backdrop - I was expecting to learn more about the country and its history, but I was mistaken: This book is obviously intended to be an entertaining mystery mixed with a love story, and it was way too cutesy for me (also, I'm a book snob :-)). The novel operates with two converging storylines, one of them focusing on 11-yea-old Ren who is on a quest to find his late master's amputated finger which has to be buried with the corpse because common lore has it that otherwise, the incomplete body has to wander the earth forever. The other narrative thread starts with Jin Lin, a dressmaker's apprentice who secretly works at a dance hall. She happens to get a hold of a preserved finger a customer was carrying - which brings us to the first problem of the book: It relies heavily on coincidence and the structuring device that 5 characters whose names represent the Confucian virtues have to meet to solve the mystery never comes to a satisfying conclusion. Oh yes, and there's a weretiger roaming through the decor.
On top of that, there's a lot of repetition, which unfortunately doesn't feel like a narrative device, but like a tool to keep the bar low for readers with short attentions spans: How often do we have to hear about the five virtues and what they signify, how often do we have to hear about Ren's age, how often do we have to hear explanations regarding the weretiger? (Yes, I can repete myself as well, but do you feel like my review is literature?)
Also, the book reminded me of the (admittedly very European) discussion re American YA literature which often perpetrates evangelical and conservative messages (see A Wrinkle in Time or the whole "Twilight" series): Choo obsesses over virginity, and while it is explained that this was a female currency in Malaysia at the time, the way Jin Lin complies and that no-sex-scene gave me the creeps: It shows a man who is promiscuous because of heartbreak (of course), and who is longing for a virgin who absolutely wants to have sex with him but is afraid because she is expected to remain chaste (of course) - and all of this is not portrayed as tragic or the result of an oppressive society, but more than anything as romantic (newsflash: It's not). I can't believe it's 2019 and we are still dealing with this kind of storytelling.
So all in all, I guess this is a decent beach read, but I felt like this could have been a lot more.
Thank you to Quercus and Netgalley for the ARC, but please, people at Quercus: If you set a deadline for reviews to be posted, don't publish the deadline the very same day the deadline ends. It's not a fair way to treat reviewers....more
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