[The following review is part of the Flesh blog tour being organized by Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours. For a full list of tour hosts, see the tour page. For more information on Khanh Ha and his work, check out the author's website.]
By Ryan St. Onge
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Click here for the Amazon Listing |
I'm not an expert on the subject, but I
have noticed a shift in Asian historical fiction over the past decade or so. My
first exposure to Asian literature tended to place an inordinate amount of
emphasis on colonial powers. Whether intentional or accidental, it's hardly
surprising that Asian literature would be colored by the region’s tempestuous
relationship with the domineering west, especially among writers writing in
English such as V.S. Naipaul and Salman Rushdie, given the historical largesse
that European power expansion had on the globe until well into the 1980s. Most
(if not all) of the prominent Asian writers of the era were educated in the
colonial education system. The end result were several generations worth of
writers who examined their own culture as a reflection of a distant European
culture. While the notion of colonialism was certainly one that deserved
examination, it literally dominated the literature in a way that left very
little room for other themes. In that sense, colonialism became the
proverbial elephant in the bed for Asian writers.
However, as
colonialism in Asia gradually recedes from the
collective consciousness, we are presented with a second (and now third)
generation of post post-colonial Asian literature (if this term is not yet
coined, it's mine). And as it comes of
age, there has been a sea change in the focus of literature from the Asian
perspective. As a result of time and distance, colonialism has, mercifully,
become less and less relevant as a theme in Asian literature. Asian writers are
free to examine other, more organic experiences that have nothing to do with
the White Man's Burden. Recent authors such as Jessica Hagedorn from the Philippines , Jeet Thayil from India and Amitav Ghosh from Bangladesh are
just a sampling of the new wave of refreshingly innovative Asian writers on the
current literary landscape.
If you are
looking out for names to add to the growing list of skillful Asian writers,
look no further than Khanh Ha. His debut novel, Flesh is a
somber, brooding and grim exploration of revenge and moral responsibility in
turn-of-the-century Annam
(present day Vietnam ).
If debut novels are, in essence, a declaration of an author's intent, then you
could do a lot worse than pick up this interesting little novel by Khanh Ha.
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Khanh Ha |
Flesh is the quintessential story of
revenge. At its heart it is a brutal tale about brutal people living brutal
lives during a brutal time. But if all you take away from Flesh is
its moodily executed story of revenge, you are only getting half the picture.
At its core, Flesh is about coming of age and trying to be a
good person and do the right thing in a world where the temptation to resort to
crime and murder are all too common. Through Tai, we are exposed to a cruel and
remorseless world of banditry, savagery, and addiction. Tai walks the razor's
edge of temptation on virtually every page of the novel and, like most people,
succeeds as much as he fails in trying to be a decent human being along the
way. In that respect, Flesh is as much a novel about humanity as it is about
humanity's proclivities toward barbarity.
Ha's prose is
dream-like and poetic. It has a lucid quality that, in it's better moments,
adds volume and flair to the writing, though in portions, Ha's style gets the
better of itself and becomes a convoluted morass of thoughts. I had mixed
feelings about Ha's style. He tossed in enough great writing to make me sit up
and take notice, but its uneven quality betrays his inexperience as a novelist.
Flesh is not a
great novel, but it is a very good one. As a purpose statement, even this
inconsistent novel is worthy of notice. I should think that readers of Asian
literature, and specifically Asian historical fiction, should take notice of
Flesh. Ha has laid a foundation for what could be a very promising career.
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About the Reviewer: Ryan is a Canadian citizen lost somewhere in Asia ,
which is a terrible place to be lost if you like reading English books.
He gets by via second hand book stores and his Kindle. If given the
choice (though he rarely is) he prefers literary fiction and non-fiction.
Oh yeah... and zombies. Ryan has been an avid reader of zombie lore
for over 20 years. That's either awesome or utterly sad. You can
choose. And if you want to see what else Ryan has been reading, you can
visit his personal blog, Reading in Taiwan.
Thank you, Ryan, for a gracious review. I am glad that you liked the mood and the ambiance in FLESH and hope that readers would also find in it, besides all the sensuous descriptions, a valuable read on history lesson and moral obligations of kinship that brings together the broken lives of the demimonde, and the bruised, fallen lives of some others. (Among them the boy, psychologically damaged by his family tragedy, who no sooner gets his life together than falls in love with a mysterious girl and finds his life in peril.) What you captured from the book means much to me that others might get a chance to experience it themselves.
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