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A review by natyweiss
Diamond Hill by Kit Fan
4.0
-ARC provided by publisher in exchange for honest review-
The year is 1987. But in the rundown shanty town of Diamond Hill, once consider the Hollywood of the Orient, everyone is obsessed with one single date: July 1st 1997, the date of the Hong Kong Handover from Britain to China. The day that Hong Kong will be moving from one regime to another.
Buddha, the protagonist and narrator, is a heroin addict that came back to HK after spending some time in Bangkok, in a buddhist monastery.
In HK, he meets the most diverse cast of characters. Some dialogues and situations are so bizarre that everything feels like a fever dream. An actress that calls herself Audrey Hepburn and is obsessed with her past romance with Bruce Lee. A teenage gang leader named Boss that is escaping a death threat. A group of disturbing nuns with weird names like Quartz and Iron. A nameless property lawyer that has been attacked by bats. Everyone seems to be hiding their real identités behind made up names.
As the cast of characters tells Buddha the stories of their lives, the reader has the sensation that they seem to be living many lives in one. They are at the same time one and many (maybe that is the reason why they don't have proper names?) They are also a metaphor of a community that has to adopt a new identity and of the city that has to become a mass grave in order to leave room to progress
Buddha's lack of incentive takes him from one place to another, from one bizarre situation to the next one.
This book is the narration of a traumatic transition from a collective and an individual perspective. The language and the descriptions are beautiful in an unpretentious way that makes this slow paced book an honest and compelling piece of work.
Highly enjoyable. Not a fan of the cover
The year is 1987. But in the rundown shanty town of Diamond Hill, once consider the Hollywood of the Orient, everyone is obsessed with one single date: July 1st 1997, the date of the Hong Kong Handover from Britain to China. The day that Hong Kong will be moving from one regime to another.
Buddha, the protagonist and narrator, is a heroin addict that came back to HK after spending some time in Bangkok, in a buddhist monastery.
In HK, he meets the most diverse cast of characters. Some dialogues and situations are so bizarre that everything feels like a fever dream. An actress that calls herself Audrey Hepburn and is obsessed with her past romance with Bruce Lee. A teenage gang leader named Boss that is escaping a death threat. A group of disturbing nuns with weird names like Quartz and Iron. A nameless property lawyer that has been attacked by bats. Everyone seems to be hiding their real identités behind made up names.
As the cast of characters tells Buddha the stories of their lives, the reader has the sensation that they seem to be living many lives in one. They are at the same time one and many (maybe that is the reason why they don't have proper names?) They are also a metaphor of a community that has to adopt a new identity and of the city that has to become a mass grave in order to leave room to progress
Buddha's lack of incentive takes him from one place to another, from one bizarre situation to the next one.
This book is the narration of a traumatic transition from a collective and an individual perspective. The language and the descriptions are beautiful in an unpretentious way that makes this slow paced book an honest and compelling piece of work.
Highly enjoyable. Not a fan of the cover