Customer Reviews

Monsoon Country

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

 

 

I found this book to be fasinating. Mr. Sudham managed to weave a simple story of one young life into the vastness of the wall between Western and Siam culture. His unique understanding of the ³western² mind-set, and his native understanding of the needs, desires and hopes of a young, poor, Siam boy make for an enchanting experience.

Having lived in Thailand for several years, one begins to appreciate the significance of this achievement. Mr. Sudham shows keen understanding of a sharp narative and insight into both Thai and Western culture. In the end, it is an enjoyable read.

However, that he did all this in English is remarkable. If it were translated, it would be understandable; however, it was written in English by this very bright author.

I have also read his collection of short stories - the title escapes me at the moment. These were less noteworthy. I wonder if he is truly retreated to Buri Ram, running some sort of NGO or something, as people say.

Jack Kelly

Thunderbird 1999

Having lived in Thailand for several years, one begins to appreciate the significance of this achievement. Mr. Sudham shows keen understanding of a sharp narative and insight into both Thai and Western culture. In the end, it is an enjoyable read.

However, that he did all this in English is remarkable. If it were translated, it would be understandable; however, it was written in English by this very bright author.

I have also read his collection of short stories - the title escapes me at the moment. These were less noteworthy. I wonder if he is truly retreated to Buri Ram, running some sort of NGO or something, as people say.

Jack Kelly Thunderbird 1999

This book is wanderful book about Thailand, unique . It gives an insight of thai people and thai history that you wont find anywhere else.

This novel is an achievement not often equalled in this climate of moving yet empty 'culture' pieces. Passages of remarkable yet stark beauty capture the degree to which we are bound by our circumstances, to which the meaning of our lives and acts is constrained by the environment in which they exist. And the book captures the difficulty in leaving that environment, in un- and redefining those things which exist at the deepest level of personhood and whose dissolution becomes an act of destruction or self-sacrifice. The doubt over whether this violent act is necessary, or wise, defines the personal journey of Prem, a young Siamese exile, as he must confront his own past as well as his nation's to define his own place in a world where West and East meet uneasily at best. It is an intensely personal journey as well; Pira Sudham is a poet, and as poets do writes from a well of inspiration drawn from his own experiences and observations. Surely the story of Prem echoes Sudham's own journey from the villages of Thailand to a respectable literary life - a joureny that involved, as Prem's does, the creation of "a mechanism to turn bitterness into wisdom" and to "transform childhood memories into poetry". The book works also as a history of sorts, narrating the difficult journey of Thailand as a nation in transition and capturing in the deeply felt experiences of a few fictional individuals the nature of a land brought so unevenly into the 'modern' world.