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3.6 AVERAGE
3.6 AVERAGE
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This is a story about a great city through the ages, and the experiences of its inhabitants. Reading it was like looking at separate parts of a huge tapestry that gradually revealed itself as one larger image, as lives and timelines overlapped and intertwined.
It’s easy to picture yourself as part of every scene, accompanying the characters as they go about their days.
I particularly enjoyed the scenes near the end, from future Bangkok, and these in particular reminded me of my experience reading Cloud Atlas.
I’ve finished this book feeling as though I’ve immersed myself in this city and its culture.
Beautifully written.
It’s easy to picture yourself as part of every scene, accompanying the characters as they go about their days.
I particularly enjoyed the scenes near the end, from future Bangkok, and these in particular reminded me of my experience reading Cloud Atlas.
I’ve finished this book feeling as though I’ve immersed myself in this city and its culture.
Beautifully written.
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
I didn’t love this, but it It set a beautiful mood and sustained it nicely throughout. The structure was challenging and done really well. I’ll definitely look at Sudbanthad’s next book.
I liked it but felt like it tried to do too much, especially when the stories veered into sci-fi territory in the last section.
2021 here we go! I decided to read this as my first book of the year as the titular city is set to play a big part in the second half of my 2021. Having only really experienced literary Bangkok in the hazy opening chapters of Alex Garland’s ‘The Beach’, I was keen to see the city written about by a Thai writer and this complex novel didn’t disappoint.
Structured similarly to “Cloud Atlas” or “Olive Kitteridge”, Sudbanthad’s novel is a fragmentary experience, divided up into several short stories, where characters occasionally come and go, washed up again on the shores of Bangkok by the tides of time. These vignettes range from the 19th Century right through to a speculative future in which the city is submerged by the rising waters of Climate Change. All of the stories, in some way, centre around a specific site in the city, one that is home over the years to a succession of buildings: a Christian mission centre, a grand mansion and a tower of luxury condos. There are connections between the many narrative threads but these are often rather fibrous, told non-linearly, as sprawling and meandering as the city’s network of sois.
At its best, Sudbanthad’s writing is evocative and poignant- particularly in capturing the city’s sights, sounds and flavours, or in detailing its tragic, and largely forgotten, history. There are odd digressions from the perspectives of stray dogs, or sparrows, and several episodes drag and languish though, not unlike a taxi ride through Bangkok itself. The prose can become a little florid and I felt the novel was overlong. However, as a whole, the book is an interesting study of a city’s past, present and aqueous future.
Structured similarly to “Cloud Atlas” or “Olive Kitteridge”, Sudbanthad’s novel is a fragmentary experience, divided up into several short stories, where characters occasionally come and go, washed up again on the shores of Bangkok by the tides of time. These vignettes range from the 19th Century right through to a speculative future in which the city is submerged by the rising waters of Climate Change. All of the stories, in some way, centre around a specific site in the city, one that is home over the years to a succession of buildings: a Christian mission centre, a grand mansion and a tower of luxury condos. There are connections between the many narrative threads but these are often rather fibrous, told non-linearly, as sprawling and meandering as the city’s network of sois.
At its best, Sudbanthad’s writing is evocative and poignant- particularly in capturing the city’s sights, sounds and flavours, or in detailing its tragic, and largely forgotten, history. There are odd digressions from the perspectives of stray dogs, or sparrows, and several episodes drag and languish though, not unlike a taxi ride through Bangkok itself. The prose can become a little florid and I felt the novel was overlong. However, as a whole, the book is an interesting study of a city’s past, present and aqueous future.
This book is very complicated--lots of timelines and characters who connect in ways that are easy to see and sometimes obscured. There's a large dash of cli-fi and sci-fi in here as well. Honestly: I can't get into what this book is about, because there are SO many different plot lines, but the overarching theme is about the passage of time and how the permanency of place is affected by time. If you like David Mitchell, give this book a shot. Honestly, I'm planning to re-read this in the next few years, because the first reading of it is to just get your bearings straight, and the second reading can then be used for more in-depth analysis. There's really nothing else quite like this one.
Almost gave up in the first third, but powered through! Good. Not too many thoughts.