To mark this special day and night, I am going to read my final and eighth Chinese-themed book of this month, The Embrace of Harlots (out since December 2010, 574 pages) by David T K Wong. I bought this book from mph bookstore in Kuala Lumpur while on holiday in December 2010.
About the author: David T K Wong was born in Hong Kong and received his early education in China, Singapore and Australia. He has degrees in political science and journalism from Stanford University in America and a postgraduate diploma in public administration from the Institute of Social Studies at The Hague, and was a Fellow in Economics at Queen Elizabeth House at Oxford.
He worked as a journalist in Hong Kong, London and Singapore for a number of years before joining the Administration Service of the Hong Kong Government. After retirement he became the Managing Director of an international trading firm for nine years before embarking on a writing career. He is now resident in Malaysia.
He is also the founder of the annual David T K Wong Fellowship in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia in the UK. The Fellowship awards £26 000 to each successful candidate writing a work of fiction set in the Far East in the English language. You can find out more about the author by clicking on the author's website.
His other works are Hong Kong Stories (1996), Lost River and Other Stories (2000, currently out of print), Connections - Stories of East Asia (2001), The Evergreen Tea House (2003) and Chinese Stories in Times of Change (2009).
About the story: I like this review posted on the backcover by Jon Cook, Professor of Literature, University of East Anglia, UK -
"David Wong's new novel begins on an intimate scale, exploring the lives of a well-to-do family living in Hong Kong just before the ending of colonial rule. He charts their guilts, desires, ambitions and memories, showing in compelling detail how they live together and apart. Through the recollections and thoughts of the novel's principal character, Suen, the story moves from an intimate scale to encompass social and historical themes: the history of Hong Kong in the twentieth century, the destructive effects of financial greed, the problems and the opportunities of living with different and opposing cultural values.
The novel ranges widely in both time and space, moving from Hong Kong to London, Oxford and Paris. It engages with some of the central dilemmas of modern life, but is also full of vivid characterisation and narrative surprises. It is written in the distilled and elegant style that has become a hallmark of David Wong's stories."
My take: This is a beautifully told story of a life of a man who is fortunate enough to live his life in riches but at the same time, has to learn to deal with hardships and sufferings just as much as the next person. After all, money does not shield anyone, rich and poor, from life's pitfalls.
This book contains much of everything you can expect in a good book - love, hate, loss, the tug-of-war between traditional and contemporary cultures, Eastern and Western lifestyles, the uncertainty of a fast and ever-changing world, abuse of justice, the divide between poverty and avarice, clashing cultures, prejudices, politics, thought-provoking discussions about the meaning of life, regrets, human ambitions and desires, religion, etc, and most notably, the characters who make the story believable and personal.
The author's depth of understanding Man's greedy and self-centred nature is evident throughout and he has done an excellent job of telling us a truly worthy and valuable story based on a Chinese family in Hong Kong. The gist of the story is that life is fleeting, difficult, full of uncertainties and unsolvable dilemmas, whether one is laden with money and power to last a few lifetimes or whether one lives in a hovel, whether you are a good person or a bad one, no one is immuned to the vagaries of life.
A book that can make you think is a good book and I personally think this is one. I therefore highly recommend it.
You can watch videos of the author reading from his book on youtube.
Rating: 5/5
So what did you think? Have you finished it yet? Please post your reviews for us!
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