Lead Review (The South)
- Book: The South
- Location: Malaysia (Malaya)
- Author: Tash Aw
3.75*
The first in a planned quartet, and this volume is set around the Asian financial crisis.
It is a coming-of-age story with a beautifully created sense of place, the countryside rich with potentially bountiful produce and a heavy sense of cloying, damp heat: the villages set amongst the dense foliage, the people toiling the land and grappling with all kinds of weather patterns that negatively impact the harvests.
Jay, 16, heads south with his family to stay at the now run-down family farm, where natural and economic disasters have taken their toll. Fong is the manager and it is his son, young Chuan, who catches Jay’s eye. Their friendship tentatively blossoms, with an element of sexual exploration. Meanwhile the various family members ponder their roles, histories and connections, providing a bedrock for this novel of unfolding family dynamics.
The story is created with non-linear vignettes which, as a reader, need focus to keep them straight, and I found it a little hard to really connect with the characters as they moved across the pages. The novel has quite a dense storyline, with a beautiful writing style, contained within 288 or so pages.
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