Scan barcode
A review by sharonbakar
Lake Like a Mirror by Ho Sok Fong
3.0
Have very conflicted feelings about this collection of stories. I enjoyed the surreal and dreamlike quality of the stories. Ho represents a Malaysia I recognise and has the courage to push into territory that other Malaysian authors haven't tackled - like the rehabilitation centre for deviant Muslims in Animah, and the racial politics of higher education in the title story. Ho is an author prepared also to take risks in terms of her story telling - I was particularly intrigued by sudden shifts of point-of-view which snatch out the rug from under the reader's feet in Wind Through the Pineapple Leaves. The writing is atmospheric and there is some beautiful imagery (I loved the descriptions of the light shifts in sun and rain in March in a Small Town.)
What I didn't like about the book was that it was such a struggle. It was so hard to stay focused because the stories meander and drift so much and feel totally improvised (they felt like quickly written first drafts which needed to be shaped into something more readable). Above all, too often they just didn't engage me. I found The Chest so intensly annoying that I stopped reading the book at that point and didn't come back to it for over a year!
I'm wondering how much of the problems with the book are down to the translation and/or a lack of developmental editing, and how much to the work having come out of a very different literary tradition which I, as a Western oriented reader doesn't understand.
I don't feel that I'm done with this book yet. I want to reread it and reflect more deeply on these stories. I want to leave room to change my mind.
What I didn't like about the book was that it was such a struggle. It was so hard to stay focused because the stories meander and drift so much and feel totally improvised (they felt like quickly written first drafts which needed to be shaped into something more readable). Above all, too often they just didn't engage me. I found The Chest so intensly annoying that I stopped reading the book at that point and didn't come back to it for over a year!
I'm wondering how much of the problems with the book are down to the translation and/or a lack of developmental editing, and how much to the work having come out of a very different literary tradition which I, as a Western oriented reader doesn't understand.
I don't feel that I'm done with this book yet. I want to reread it and reflect more deeply on these stories. I want to leave room to change my mind.