Customer Reviews

Lane With No Name: Memoirs and Poetry by a Malaysian-Chinese Girl (Three Continents Press)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is a work to savor, rich with stories, lore, wisdom, e.g., the tale of Grand-Uncle Three and his coffin, the man who put rat's meat in egg noodle soup (ugh!), the description of Ms. Tham's bossy paternal grandmother, the author's coming to terms with the death of her younger sister (Jadegreen Plumblossom) and father, and so much more. I wasn't left at a distance by the fact that the memoirs are about a girl growing up (i.e., would there be something that I as a male could relate to there?) because Ms. Tham captured so much that is universal. If she or the book were more akin to the Princess Nohran or Fadzillah whom she described in it (Ms. Tham was, at one point when she lived in Malaysia, a tutor in English and Mathematics to princesses in a royal family), i.e., bubbling over with fascination regarding the merits of Revlon versus Elizabeth Arden skin-care cosmetics, that would have been a turn-off. But not the beautiful rendering of the past that deals with family, love, marriage, death, mythology, and art that is in evidence throughout the memoirs.

I've read (and own) all of Hilary Tham's books. Most of them are volumes of poetry, wise, lucid, direct, witty poems. In her poems, Hilary is a great story teller, so it should be no surprise that her first prose work, a memoire, is moving and rich. The material of her life is, in itself, intriguing: She's Chinese, but raised as part of a Chinese minority in Malaysia, married an American Peace Corp. member, converted to his faith and became active in her synagogue in the U.S. Besides her Chinese background (with its stew of Confusianism, Buddhism and Taoism) and her Judaism, she was educated in a Catholic school -- she "covers" a hell of a lot of culture. But apart from the interest of her unusual background, she has wry charm, humor, truthfulness, common sense and a warm, friendly presence in her work.

This book is a work to savor, rich with stories, lore, wisdom, e.g., the tale of Grand-Uncle Three and his coffin, the man who put rat's meat in egg noodle soup (ugh!), the description of Ms. Tham's bossy paternal grandmother, the author's coming to terms with the death of her younger sister (Jadegreen Plumblossom) and father, and so much more. I wasn't left at a distance by the fact that the memoirs are about a girl growing up (i.e., would there be something that I as a male could relate to there?) because Ms. Tham captured so much that is universal. If she or the book were more akin to the Princess Nohran or Fadzillah whom she described in it (Ms. Tham was, at one point when she lived in Malaysia, a tutor in English and Mathematics to princesses in a royal family), i.e., bubbling over with fascination regarding the merits of Revlon versus Elizabeth Arden skin-care cosmetics, that would have been a turn-off. But not the beautiful rendering of the past that deals with family, love, marriage, death, mythology, and art that is in evidence throughout the memoirs.