Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Read & Highly Evocative of Hong Kong I Knew, 30 Oct 2001
By A Customer
I first read this while living in Stanley, Hong Kong in the late nineties, and have re-read it several times. As another reviewer says, a great Graham Greene-ish plot (with a touch or satire ala Evelyn Waugh or Gore Vidal).Aside from the great story, the numerous little observations of British, Chinese and American characters so accurately reflect the Hong Kong I experienced on a day-to-day basis. Theroux is very good on the "underbelly" of Hong Kong, the sleazy side which one had to deal with but which Hong Kong doesn't really like to talk about (nor does China - the book was banned there!). Local Chinese are sympathetically described, and Theroux does a great job of getting across the sad story of all the millions of refugees who fled China in recent decades to become Hong Kong's population of today. The American who renounces his citizenship to avoid paying USA taxes is also a (sadly) recognizable type, if not the norm, and the type of Briton who settles permanently in a place like Hong Kong is, like the above, very accurately described (however much some may object to such face-losing bluntness on the part of Theroux). An excellent depiction of Hong Kong, warts and all, that was a painful read for some (chiefly western and eastern permanent residents) but will prove a thrilling and informative read for the detached reader. As an ex-Hong Kong resident, I found this book as useful and enjoyable as Timothy Mo's The Monkey King, Austin Coates' Myself a Mandarin, Bo Yang's The Ugly Chinaman, and Jan Morris's Hong Kong - read those if you like this one, or are planning to visit/live in Hong Kong, or just plan to visit from the armchair!
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Haunting, 19 Feb 2007
For me, the way Theroux writes smacks of Hemingway. It has that seemingly naive, innocence, yet an undertone which speaks of the types of people that abound in Hong Kong. Like Hemingway, the narrative is simple, while dwelling on seemingly irrelevant circumstances. Like the great Ernest, do not expect a happy ending.
It tells of Bunt and his mother Betty. It is 1996 and the handover of Hong Kong to China (the Chinese takeaway) is looming. When Mr Chuck, Bunts business partner dies, it triggers a chain of events. Mr Hung comes over the border, with a sinister past, and unscrupulous motives, to take over his company (Imperial Stitching). As the plot unfolds we are treated to some gloomy insights of Hong Kong, the very real fears of a future under Communist China, and a bunch of mercenary colonials who cast away their nationalism for profit. It is packed full of social observations, about colonials and the Chinese, and creates a sense of helplessness which is so typified by the miserable ending.
For me, the entire story of Hung was a microcosm for the way China did its business, and the takeover of Hong Kong. He threatens, bribes, and will use any underhand technique in his arsenal to achieve his ends. This leads up to a chilling ending, that is suitably ambiguous. It never explains what happened to Mr Woo and Mei Ping, only making assumptions, which, for me, was slightly unsatisfactory.
It seemed very xenophobic with respect to the Chinese, but it is so hard to discover whether these were just the views of Bunt and co., or whether it was more deep rooted in the author. At times it paints a vivid and terrifying image of Hong Kong under Chinese rule, especially the dream Mei Ping has about Ah Fu. It sympathises with the Hong Kong Chinese, like the workers in Imperial Stitching, who have no choice, they cannot emmigrate to escape it.
Overall, thought provoking and written in a style both flowing and simplistic. It will not leave you with a warm feeling at the end, more a feeling of injustice and sorrow not just for the protagonists, but for Hong Kong itself.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A novel of the human soul with the tension of a thriller., 30 Dec 1999
Kowloon Tong reads like a tribute to Graham Greene. Certainly we are in Greeneland, a territory where people who are not bad do almost nothing that is good and where guttering hope is sustained only by the denial of self-knowledge. Bunt has always got by on comforting routines and secret pleasures but we are in the last days of British rule in Hong Kong and soon nothing will be the same again. The crisis comes like a tiny echo of the fall of Saigon. In the abandonment, Bunt loses his chance of redemptive love and the flight promises not a new life but an endless recreation of the old one. Theroux's themes of longing, compassion and entrapment together with his merciless observation of expatriates and chancers, produce the pace and tension of a thriller in a novel of the human soul. Theroux has produced one of his finest works and a book that will last.
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