It turns out that there is a small press on the island that publishes local authors.
Ye's book is a carefully constructed four parter linked by its characters. The writing is elegant and economical, a little bit on the "product of writing school and acceptable prose for the literary mags" side. Like Lahiri's writing, it too seems to be confined to a particular milieu, in this case Chinese Singaporeans. The four chapters are on a group of friends who have been to school together, their adult lives link the four stories. Now and then it makes allusion to issues: compulsory national service, being gay in Singapore, subtle religious differences and the like. But for the large part it charts the emotional terrain of its protagonists who come and go but can never entirely leave Singapore. Not even those who have put the greatest distance between themselves and the country. And it is effective in doing this, Ye has a few quietly devastating moments in the book, both of which have to do with the death of a character. And for a visitor like me, it is a tiny peek into Singapore life.
These days my only criteria for a book is the desire to continue reading it. By this I don't mean an easy read, if anything easy reads are discarded even earlier if they are bad books:) Perhaps it was reading it on the train and in the parks here so there is a sense of the place that the book is rooted in, but it held my attention right till its bittersweet, sad end.
[X]
The Billion Shop was a shop near my office that sold paper money and other artefacts for ethnic Chinese people to burn as offerings to their dead. It no longer exists: Jixiang Traditional Foot Massage now stands in its place. I’m not one to lament change, and trust in Adam Smith’s invisible hand that the good people of Toa Payoh would rather please soles than appease souls. But I’m also sentimental: about places gone, loves lost, ideals overturned or, more often, outgrown. Consider these stories, then, as my own paper offerings to my dead.Browsing the titles from the press at the bookshop, it was the back blurb of Stephanie Ye's book that attracted my attention. Surely there must be a word for that simultaneous feeling of everything must pass and change and an attraction to and desire for the remnants of the past :)
Ye's book is a carefully constructed four parter linked by its characters. The writing is elegant and economical, a little bit on the "product of writing school and acceptable prose for the literary mags" side. Like Lahiri's writing, it too seems to be confined to a particular milieu, in this case Chinese Singaporeans. The four chapters are on a group of friends who have been to school together, their adult lives link the four stories. Now and then it makes allusion to issues: compulsory national service, being gay in Singapore, subtle religious differences and the like. But for the large part it charts the emotional terrain of its protagonists who come and go but can never entirely leave Singapore. Not even those who have put the greatest distance between themselves and the country. And it is effective in doing this, Ye has a few quietly devastating moments in the book, both of which have to do with the death of a character. And for a visitor like me, it is a tiny peek into Singapore life.
These days my only criteria for a book is the desire to continue reading it. By this I don't mean an easy read, if anything easy reads are discarded even earlier if they are bad books:) Perhaps it was reading it on the train and in the parks here so there is a sense of the place that the book is rooted in, but it held my attention right till its bittersweet, sad end.
[X]
No comments:
Post a Comment