Levi reviewed Sightseeing by Rattawut Lapcharoensap
None
5 stars
This is a first rate collection of short stories about people in Thailand, all of them Thai people except one. Several of the voices sound the same but some of them are distinct. The content and themes of each story vary quite a bit though, and there was never a dull moment. These are stories that feel very authentic to real life, no moralism or Disney endings slapped on. They show a world that is full of vibrant life among darkness, a full world, sometimes quite dark, but even in those stories there is usually some kind of small victory against the darkness. And the prose is wonderful.
I didn’t realize when I bought this book that it was a collection of short stories, and because it’s written in first person and the narrators’ names are never disclosed, this became confusing, but after a while I figured out that these …
This is a first rate collection of short stories about people in Thailand, all of them Thai people except one. Several of the voices sound the same but some of them are distinct. The content and themes of each story vary quite a bit though, and there was never a dull moment. These are stories that feel very authentic to real life, no moralism or Disney endings slapped on. They show a world that is full of vibrant life among darkness, a full world, sometimes quite dark, but even in those stories there is usually some kind of small victory against the darkness. And the prose is wonderful.
I didn’t realize when I bought this book that it was a collection of short stories, and because it’s written in first person and the narrators’ names are never disclosed, this became confusing, but after a while I figured out that these were short stories and the world made sense again.
Each story shows a handful of different characters so that by the end of the book you get a pretty good composite view of life in Thailand. There’s a lot of foreigners, too, showing different ways that Thais view others, including Americans, Cambodian refugees, and a Filipino cockfighter.
This author has first rate writing chops. He must have lived quite a while in the States, or else read a whole lot of English literature, because he uses words like thespian, recalcitrant, monomania, etc., and uses them correctly. So this book is a real gem for any English speaking person who wants to learn about Thai culture, because you have someone who knows Thai culture and is a first rate author in English.
Of course there is a bit of a downside there, because that means that his perspective is going to be a bit more American than the typical native Thai person’s. But all the same. Excellent book.
