Customer Reviews

Siam: or The Woman Who Shot a Man

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

This is a novel that obviously promoted strong pro and con sentiments. I found that many of the reasons that the readers were disturbed by the novel was what I liked best about it. This is certainly not a book for those that must have all their questions answered. This novel is a suggestion of Thai history, allusive, mysterious and provocative.

This is a story of a rather naive young American woman, Claire, who marries impulsively to a military contractor working out of Thailand during the Vietnam war. She must cope with a new culture, servants she distrusts and a husband that she becomes suspicious of. Yet, there is a tone of mystery, a friend they met at a dinner party disappears. Based on a real event, Jim Thompson, an American silk buisnessman disappears during a vacation. Claire becomes obsessed with his absence, along with other issues of her life that begin to unravel.

At first, her arrival prompted her to take Thai language lessons, research Thai history and culture in the local library and join a military wives weekly tour group. The plunge into Thai culture begins to take it's toll on Claire. She mistrusts the servants, and later finds items missing that she treasures. Worst, she doubts her debonair husband and fears he is having affairs with friend's wives. She takes to examining his dirty laundry for evidence of infidelity. She can't sleep and begins to drink more. She misses her home and her family. She finds the Thai food disgusting and the outside town filthy. There is a palpable tension that the author alludes to, a crisis in the making and a constant referral to the violence of the Thai past intersecting with this woman's life.

I guarantee all your questions will not be answered. The ending is allusive and disturbing. While accepting the novel as it is would be my advice, I would relish the opportunity to review this book in a book club setting. I am sure the interpretations would be various and vast. Don't let the originality put you off to an incredible unique novel.

Although somewhat hard to find, this book is well worth the effort- It's an engaging piece about life in the Sixties that doesn't revolve around the American "Free Love" Era. Instead, it focuses on the tremendous influence America had in Thailand and the pathetic ignorance of the Americans who were there to "help" during this time. As Claire takes us around the Thailand she knows, she gives us a little bit of history and a LOT of first hand observations, which allow us to form our own opinions and conclusions. This isn't a mystery or a travelogue, but, instead, is a facinating look at the personal reflections and interactions of a single person who is wise enough to open her eyes and take it all in. Let the reader/listener interpret it for themselves . . . and, just maybe, be a little sad to see Claire get on the plane bound for home, with so much still to see.

I think the author deserves credit for some originality, but the book is a bore, even with the Bangkok setting. (I lived there for 2 years recently, and I often wondered what the city was like during the Vietnam War. After reading this book, I still wondered, and felt like there was little more insight in "Siam" than what one could find in a guidebook) However, it was nice to read fiction about Bangkok that didn't dwell on the seedy, commercial-sex aspects of Bangkok, which a lot of other writers fixate on, as if that's all there is to Bangkok. And what a great counterpoint to recent fiction about bratty slackers slumming in Thailand...however...

My major problem with the book is that it relies too much on outside information and is not on its own merits a compelling read. Both the main character and the writer seem to be too self-consciously aping, then revising, the myth of Anna Leonowens. I'm personally tired of hearing all cultural references to Thailand, writerly or not, filtered through the veil of "The King and I"--and I was put off by the epigraph quoting a letter King Mongkut sent to Anna L. "The King and I" may be a cultural presence in the Western imagination that anyone writing about Thailand today must contend with, but that's partly because writers keep recycling/paying homage to the myth! I read William Warren's biography of Jim Thompson awhile back, after visiting the Jim Thompson house in Thailand. His life story is indeed captivating, but the author does little to bring him to life or to dramatize the parallels between the main character's life and Jim Thompson's, or to justify the main character's obsession with his fate. Thompson's simply not well-known enough to drop into the narrative and expect the general reader to be spellbound. And, lastly, the backdrop of the Vietnam war (and Bangkok's simultaneous, dubious rise as an R and R/sex tourism destination) is indeed fertile ground for writerly exploration--but the author expects the reader to fill in too many of the blanks. ("Oh, okay, Jim Thompson and Claire are as lost in Bangkok/Asia as the Americans were in Vietnam...") I almost feel like the writer expects the reader to be as conversant with "The King and I", Jim Thompson's biography, and Vietnam history as she is.

Other thoughts...I just didn't care about Claire or her husband James. I found the climax ludicrous and uninvolving. There is little comic relief in the book. Claire is self-absorbed and annoying, too much of a blank slate. Blank slates don't make for compelling reading. James is an archetypal, almost-ugly American dope. Claire and James are so unappealing, why should the reader care about their relationship? Claire's tracking of Jim Thompson reads like Nancy Drew. I think the book would've been stronger in the first-person limited voice, with Claire analyzing/deconstructing herself rather than the reader doing so with the limited background the author has provided. Check out "Gold by the Inch" by Lawrence Chua for a 90s take on Bangkok...if you could take the story of "Siam" and the psychological/cerebral take of "Gold by the Inch", I think you'd have quite a book!

I rushed out to buy "Siam" at a hardcover price, which I never do. It's a fast read and perhaps interesting to people who've lived/traveled in Thailand. But I wondered how much the book had been edited. It reads like too much has been pared down, stripped away, leaving us with the blueprints for a pretty good novel but not the execution of one. I simply don't understand why "Siam" has won such glowing reviews from some quarters--are the good reviews from people who've never travelled?

Set in Thailand in the 1960's, this haunting novel describes the struggles of a young woman to understand and adapt to Thai culture while living in the equally alien American colony in Bangkok. The narrative is dreamlike and compelling. Lily Tuck gives a vivid picture of Bangkok with all its complexities and mysteries. A thoughtful and well-crafted novel that casts new light on the American presence in Southeast Asia.

"Siam" captures Bangkok, history, and an excellent personal narrative within a sharply written novel, offering more than most written these days. Lily Tuck masterfully reveals the a surreal, beautiful city of Bangkok through the character of Claire, a woman whose experiences with a new culture and a new husband provide "Siam" with a rich, vivid, intriguing story. Claire's fascination with the real-life character of Jim Thompson creates wonderful symbolism with multitudes of meaning, ranging from the personal trials of a woman in a new land to the dangerous involvement of America in Southeast Asia. Tuck's swift, elegant, evocative writing perfectly reflects a human and a city on the edge of devastation.

Having just returned from a trip to Thailand, I found this book mesmerizing and was disappointed only that it wasn't longer! I think this book is especially enjoyable for someone who has visited the places featured in the book. The Jim Thompson House is still there, and it is just as described in the book. The book does not have a tidy and neat plot, but I think that gives it some originality. Like another reviewer, I wish I could be part of a book club to discuss many of the "mysteries" contained within the book.

Lily Tuck's third novel is a gem. There is no need to compare her writing to that of anyone else as her style stands on its own, evocative and elegant. Set in Bangkok in the 60's, Lily Tuck has created an authentic and piercing look at the internal and external atmosphere of the times, when many young women married because it was "expected," without any idea, really, of who they were or what they wanted, without any idea of what marriage was about (what is it about?) - blindly moving into the state of matrimony as Claire did as she moved into a foreign city, wondering and wandering, dazed and amazed, following the inexorable flow of life as it seemed to be being dished out. Anyone who lived through that time, prior to all the consciousness raising of the following decades, will instantly recognize what she so tellingly reveals. One acquiesced "for some reason," without quite knowing why; one had to mystify one's surroundings because it gave meaning to what was, in some ultimate sense, meaningless, "made up." Lily Tuck's spare writing is gorgeous. She creates an entire world with a phrase, a word. Less is more could never be more convincingly demonstrated than it is here in this book. One could draw comparisons about the debacle of American participation in SE Asia and the microcosm of Claire's newly married life in Bangkok, her inability to communicate with her well-meaning but blinkered "shooting for sport" and monkey brain eating husband, her isolation and removal from reality (whatever reality is)as a veiled aversion to America's testosterone driven need to dominate - but this might well be unfair to the novelist, not what she had in mind, who knows. Interpretations are self-serving anyway, a need to show off. This is a beautiful dreamlike novel with the mood of a memoir, a gauzy, illusive and seductive dance. Passivity can lead to strange and dire circumstances. I highly, highly recommend this book!

As someone who has read a lot about Thailand of the 1960s, I found this novel difficult to bear. Worse still, it struck me as dull and disjointed. It inexpertly tries to weave together the mystery of "Silk King" Jim Thompson's disappearance with the unhappy marriage of a strangely spaced-out American housewife enduring life in the midst of "exotic" Bangkok. Throw in a murder and the muddle is complete. The fiction seems oddly amateur, the history uninformed, and the descriptions of Thailand and Thai customs come straight out of a second-rate guidebook. The decision to include "Siam" in the title seems crass and dishonest as the novel has nothing to do with Siam. Tuck appears guilty of breaking the cardinal rule of beginning writers: write about what you know. Tuck demonstrates that she knows very little about the setting or circumstances of this novel. I rarely dislike any book about Thailand. I guess for that reason, this novel is special.

It isn't often that I read a novel by a respected and admired author that I find so little to like and undeserving of any kind of literary merit or praise.

Lily Tuck's "Siam" tells the story of a young, twenty-five year old woman named Claire, who impulsively marries an American, who helps build airfields for the army and is living in Thailand on the eve of the Vietnam War.

Claire joins her husband in Thailand, and the novel describes her experiences living in a country which is exotic and strangely beautiful on the surface, but also extremely "ugly" and even "sinister" beneath the country's seemingly beautiful facade.

Despite this short novel's well depicted, exotic locale (realistic and well done), the book isn't really about much of anything. Claire's marriage is shown to be falling apart:no reasons or motivations given, other than the fact that James doesn't seem to be in love with her (if, in fact he ever was) and seems to enjoy being away, working. Claire and James are sketchily described at best and never rise above being shown as more than just "types"--rather than interesting "individuals" in their own right.

What small amount of plot there is, concerns itself with the mysterious disappearance of a Silk enprenneur, named Jim Thompson, and Claire's obsessive attempt to find out the reason for his disappearance while he was flying somewhere else in Thairland supposedly while vacationing.

Claire's interest in Bill Thompson, (an actual, historical figure who disappeared under mysterious circumstances, is never plausibly spelled out for the reader, other than just to be told that the object of her search was an exceedingly polite and well bred man, who had exquisite artistic tastes)and seemed altogether different from her husband, whom Claire is obviously no longer in love with anymore than her husband is with her.

Lily Tuck's unwillingness to describe any of her characters in any depth made it impossible for this reader to care in any way what happens to them---which isn't much of anything, except that Claire never finds out what happened to Jim Thompson and an unexpected act of violence occurs in the swimming pool of the house where she is living, at the close of the novel.

Besides the dearth of an interesting plot and the lack of interesting characterization, there is a seemingly endless attempt on the part of the author to explain the intricacies of the Thai language as Claire struggles to familiarize herself with with Thailand's customs and traditions.

Page after page is filled with ITALICIZED Thai words and expressions--as though Lily Tuck is trying to compensate for her lack of plotting and poor attempts at characterization, by illustrating how much she knows about the Thai language.

Perhaps other readers will find virtues in the book which I have somehow missed seeing. But as far as I'm concerned--except for the lush descriptions of Thailand's fauna and plant life--there is little reason to read "Siam."

Don't waste your time!

This is a book to read by a pool in Bangkok, before going to visit Jim Thompson's house or the Royal Palace and heading to a nice restaurant. By no means deep, it catches well the flavor of Thailand, and Claire, the main character, is definitely not the most interesting heroine in litterature. Nonetheless, there is some suspense and we get an idea of the Thai monarchy, its recent history, some of the complexities of this beautiful country, and what it means to be an expat in Bangkok. Things haven't changed much since the late sixties. I liked it, though.