Customer Reviews

Breaking the Tongue: A Novel

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This absorbing, utterly original, gorgeously written debut novel, much of which takes place during the chaotic days leading up to the Japanese invasion of the British colony of Singapore during World War II, delves into the psyche of both the conquered (in this case, the British and the ethnic Chinese inhabitants of Singapore) and the conqueror (the Japanese). At the center of the story is Claude Lim, a conflicted Chinese adolescent (who could have been a character out of Graham Greene) whose world is upended by the fall of the British empire as well as by his complicated relationship with a beautiful, strong-willed spy named Ling-Li, from whom he learns to embrace his Chinese roots. I must warn you that the novel is extremely sad and contains some harrowing depictions of violence and torture, but the ending has got to be one of the most breathtaking in recent memory; it is both awe-inspiring and uplifting. If you are tired of reading predictable, thinly-veiled autobiographical fiction, I COMMAND you to pick up this book! It is a dazzling achievement.

A very intricately written novel. Loh deals with huge themes: war, colonization, national identity, historical and personal truth, and self knowledge--an ambitious range in a first novel. The language is powerful and moving, and I enjoyed being transported to a part of the world I know nothing about. The book revolves around the interrogation of Claude Lim, a prisoner-of-war of the Japanese in Singapore in World War II. Claude's story and his association with a suspected British spy, Han Ling-li, unfold under torture by the Japanese, but the questions always remain: how much of his story is true? how much is imagined or made up/hallucinated? how can we know for sure? The sure and confident way in which Loh achieves this without sacrificing the narrative and sense of the book reveals her mastery of craft and makes reading the book both delightful and disturbing.

Breaking the Tongue is a courageous, daring and unflinching account of the fall Singapore under Japanese invasion. Weaving the personal with the historical, Loh, has written an absolutely devastating account of the fall of the "the diamond shaped jewel of the Far East." The narrative centers on a young Chinese boy Claude Lim, who has been bought up along with his little sister to be totally British in action and thought - his family can't even speak Chinese. Claude is ashamed, uncomfortable, and quite mortified at his own traditions. His father, Humphrey, a banker, a man born to serve, and his decorative, wife Cynthia spend their time cow towing to the British rulers, and insisting that the family climb as far as they can up the ladder of British acceptance and colonial authority. They crave tradition, ceremony, and aristocracy, and they are forever grateful to the British "for their unfailing leadership, their unflappable disposition." Watching them with an air of authority, and traditional judgment is Grandma Siok, who surreptitiously tries to get Claude to accept his Chinese heritage, while constantly peppering him with advice and excerpts from the ancient Art of War.

Claude's life changes forever when he encounters Ling-Li, an elusive young Chinese nurse, who is acting as a spy for the British, and the stately Jack Winchester, a disparate traveler who has fallen maddeningly in love with the sites, sounds and smells of this colonial outpost. Jack and Claude form a formidable friendship, which is further cemented when Jack becomes sick, and Claude, on the eve of the Japanese invasion, with the "bombs falling and the claxons wailing" has to get urgent medical attention for him. When Jack and Claude stay to help Ling-Li with the sick, and war torn in a local medical center, both are led inadvertently into a web of intrigue, stratagems and safeguarded secrets. When the British and Australian forces crumble, so does Claude - "he loosens his hold on the world and falls." Finally, beleaguered by treachery and facing the horrors of torture he is forced to "grow up" and "face a lie of existence he cannot deny."

Loh paints a portrait of a colony undergoing enormous upheavals. On the brink of multi-ethnic unrest, Indians, Malays, the Fifth Columnists and the Chinese are all vying for political superiority and are all intent on furthering their own agendas. This is a newly forming world where everything else is coming into being or disintegrating into fragments, transitions and struggle. Racism is also rife as the occupying British laud it over the native Chinese, employing them as servants and restricting them to particular areas. "It's like sorting rice - white-not white."

The final part of the novel details the horrors of the Japanese invasion and the retreat of the mighty Britannia. The invasion leaves a landscape of battered fields, blackened villages, a setting fetid with corpses. In Singapore there are burning death houses, the disbelieving are maimed, the air is singed, and the Harbour is bombed and torched. Claude runs from a world "distinguished only by shades of charcoal and light." Breaking the Tongue seduces us through beautiful, stark and uncompromising language. There is a grace and simplicity of voice in the narrative that is impossible not to like. This is a gorgeous, ambitious, larger-than-life story - a real literary and artistic achievement. Mike Leonard April 04

This is such an important novel. Everyone needs to read this book, especially as the issue of torture is finally center stage in American politics. The author's writing is beautiful, unusual, and distinctive. She is clearly someone whose career readers should follow. I recommend this book whole-heartedly. I could not put it down.

Loh's delicious use of language enticed me into the heartbreaking world of Singapore on the brink of WWII. Painful and beautiful, BREAKING THE TONGUE is a mirror reflecting the best and worst of humanity. The passages weaving in the philosphies of Sun Tzu and martial arts are moments of grounding/hope/centering in a novel dealing with physical and emotional chaos and conflict. This book's a keeper.

First, I would like to say if half-stars were allowed, this would have been a 3 and 1/2. The very basic plot is of an adolescent boy, named Claude, who is Chinese, lives in Singapore, but grew up very Anglesized. The only language he knows his English! He goes from living a very privelegded life until the Japanese start bombing the area, and he must be self-sufficient and begin questioning the role of the British in his world.

Overall, the book was very well-written. It's probably at least 50 pages too long (probably portions in the "Generals" book could've been removed.) The book really begins to get interesting once the bombing begins, but it is a slow start. Also, a good portion of the last few pages are in Chinese. I've heard that you get a lot more out of the book if you can read this. As an American living in the South, I do not know Chinese, and it is frustrating that key elements of the book are in a foreign language.

Other than that, this book was wonderful. Great character development and great description of war. I really was nervous while reading the book. I just wish I had gotten to the good part sooner than I was allowed by the author.

I held on to this book for more than a year, and had several false starts before I was able to make it past the first chapter. I'm so happy that I did. Ms. Loh has created a beautifully rendered story about class, race, language, culture, and national identity. Prior to the start of the War young Claude is caught in a kind of cultural limbo- not quite Chinese enough for his grandmother and the rest of the traditional, less prosperous Chinese community who live in Singapore, but also not fully committed to his father's plans for assimilation, and painfully aware of the racism that separates him from Singapore's British rulers. Claude's relationship with Ling is pivitol to him claiming his language, culture, and heritage. It is telling that Claude cannot write the story of Ling until he becomes fluent in Chinese.

In BREAKING THE TONGUE Vyvyane Loh successfully brings to life the myriad of cultures and languages resulting in a rich tapestry of colors and flavors of Singapore, situated at the tip of the Malay Peninsula. The days of the British Empire are numbered as the Japanese threaten to invade Singapore in the days leading up to Second World War. Within the unstable economic and political landscape is Claude Lim, a young Chinese boy who was raised to only speak the language and admire the mannerisms of England. His parents taught him that the Chinese along with other non-whites are barbarians; the British are much more civilized and cultured. There is little uncertainty that the British will succeed in protecting Singapore from the Japanese menace.

Despite their initial beliefs the Japanese experience minimal difficulties advancing south through Malaysia towards Singapore. After his family flees to the relative safety of the countryside Claude is left behind to resume his studies. However, shortly after their departure the routines of everyday life are interrupted when the bombings begin and war becomes more apparent. Claude along with Brit Jack and Chinese Ling-li who strive to survive day by day while running a defunct medical clinic. They dodge bombs and the chaos of the streets to buy food and run the injured to the hospital without knowing when or if any type of normalcy will return to Singapore.

One of this novel's strengths is the manner in which Loh highlights and exposes the issues of cultural identity and belonging. There is Claude who is a devout Anglophile and who has essentially turned his back on his cultural identity, Jack who is British but is interested in the peoples of Singapore, and Ling-li who is strong pro-China. These three divergent individuals bunker down and explore their own cultural identity. Throughout the course of this book Claude slowly realizes that all his father taught him is not necessarily true. He begins to regret not knowing the various Chinese dialects and opens his eyes to the futility of his parent's choices.

BREAKING THE TONGUE is a book that is well worth seeking out and reading. It is filled with mystery, intrigue, and action and there's much to enjoy.

A brilliantly-written, moving book about the takeover of British-occupied Singapore by the Japanese in WWII.

This story is ingeniously told through masterful writing which is at times poetic, at times cryptic and always beautifully descriptive.

The superbly-drawn characters are utterly human, believable and many-layered. No cliches or stereotypes here.

This novel is political, historical, psychological, and deeply emotional. It seems to transcend time and place.

An American reader confronted with a passage of Chinese characters might think: "Well, this is Chinese text so if it were read aloud it would come out as Chinese." This however is completely false. The tens of thousands of incredibly complex Chinese characters are ideograms, they represent not sounds but meanings such as man, flower or war. As a matter of fact, there are many Chinese languages such as Mandarin, Cantonese or Hokkien. All of these spoken languages sound entirely different but they are all written in the same set of Chinese characters. A long time ago the Japanese also adopted Chinese characters to write their language which is of course completely different from Chinese. The practical Japanese use an alphabetic script as well, so in practice a passage of Japanese writng might consist of a mixture of Chinese ideograms and alphabetic symbols. It is clear therefore that if you were erudite enough you could write any language including English in Chinese characters. Conversely, if you were to read aloud a passage of Chinese text you could do so in any language including English. Chinese text in other words is sound-independent, language-independent or as we might say tongue-independent.

In this book, near the end, the English text is occasionally replaced by passages of Chinese characters which are of course incomprehensible to the average American reader. This does not mean that the author has switched from English to Chinese but only that she has abandoned (or broken) the tongue. This is one meaning of the book's title, but only the metaphorical meaning.

There is a literal meaning as well. At the end of the book, the main character Claude Lim cuts out (or breaks) his own tongue. This operation is described in very clinical detail reminding us of the fact that the somewhat intimidatingly brilliant author is in fact a practicing physician who writes Nobel Prize quality novels in her spare time. The reason Claude cuts out his tongue is that he is an "English educated" Singaporean Chinese which meant in the colonial pre-war period that he was taught only English and could not speak a word of Chinese. After the Japanese conquest in 1942 and related personal events, Claude rejected his English education and wished to revert to his Chinese heritage. Since he could speak only English he accomplished this by cutting out his tongue ao that he could no longer speak any language but make only grunting sounds.

The reader may be pleased to hear that in modern independent Singapore Claude Lim's linguistic dilemma can no longer occur. English is now the primary language of education for all Singaporeans but each ethnic group is also taught their "mother tongue" whether it be Malay, Tamil (a southern Indian language) or (Mandarin) Chinese. So there are four official languages in Singapore and every Singaporean of normal intelligence is at least bilingual.

Well, it has taken me the space of a longish Amazon review and I have managed to explain only the title. To explain the body of the book as well is obviously beyond the scope here. But perhaps you can see what I mean when I describe this book as of Nobel Prize quality. I do not mean that Vyvyane Loh will receive the Prize in the near future since the Swedish Academy will not award it for a first novel. What I mean is that there is not the slightest doubt in my mind that she will receive the Nobel eventually. This book has the literary quality and the depth that would be expected. It is also has the exotic setting that is evidently much liked in Stockholm. So congratulations Vyvyane, a great literary future for you is assured.