Swallowing Clouds [Hardcover]

Lillian Ng (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 10, 1999

In a vivid "past life" in Shanghai in the summer of 1918, Syn was drowned in a pig's basket for committing adultery. Now in her present life in 1985, a blind soothsayer warns her that she will never find happiness in love and must seek her revenge on men for past wrongs.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The emotional plight of a Chinese exile is the theme of Ng's second novel (after Silver Sister). Born in a mud hut in a village near Shanghai, Syn endures her first exile, to Inner Mongolia, during the Cultural Revolution. Later, she seizes an opportunity to leave China on a temporary visa to study English in Sydney, Australia. In 1989, when she watches TV coverage of the Tiananmen Square uprising, Syn joins other overseas Chinese in protesting the massacre. Immediately, she is blacklisted, money ceases to arrive from her family in Shanghai and she is forced to take a job in Zhu Zhiyee's butcher shop. Stout, middle-aged, lascivious and married, Zhu becomes Syn's lover, sets her up in her own home and introduces her to the possibilities of erotic love. Their sexual exploration is stark and disturbing, graphic in its pain and pleasures. When Zhu tires of her, Syn remembers the words of a soothsayer about a woman drowned for the sin of adultery while her lover goes free. Her stoic despair when she seems to have lost everything is moving. The descriptions of the affair are juxtaposed with scenes several years later, in 1994, when Syn (in her 40s) returns to China with an Australian tour group and is reunited with her long-suffering mother. Ng uses the tour group as a device to explicate Chinese history and mythology, via the tour guide's narration. The contrast between the vicissitudes of one life and the relentless sweep of history is more effectively evoked through Syn's own story: her abandonment to erotic love, and her hopes for a safe future, seen against the dramatic backdrop of China's political upheaval. Readers seduced by Ng's sensuous prose and her unusual story may overlook the fragmented structure and chronological inconsistencies (references to Syn's age during certain historical events do not add up; a missing decade is never accounted for) but the intensely erotic love scenes overpower the rest of the narrative, to its detriment. (July) FYI: Silver Sister won the Human Rights Award for fiction in 1995.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Syn, an older Chinese student studying English in Australia, finds herself financially depleted and desperately in search of employment. Zhu, an older, married butcher, offers the unsuspecting Syn a job in his shop. Over time, the two find themselves engaged in a passionate love affair. Syn's position as Zhu's mistress is openly acknowledged by Zhu's familyAshe even becomes highly favored by Zhu's mother over KarLeng, Zhu's wife. The affair continues unbeknownst to KarLeng until the death of Zhu's mother. Written in retrospect, the story of Syn's past merges toward the present with each successive chapter. Much of the novel consists of detailed erotic passages describing Syn and Zhu's regular sexual exploits. Sydney-based novelist Ng has written a tale of love, lust, power, greed, money, and passion in which the strong overpower the weak. A work for more mature audiences, this may find a place in some fiction and Asian literature collections.AShirley N. Quan, Orange Cty. P.L., Stanton, CA
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 306 pages
• Publisher: Ecco; 1st edition (August 10, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0880016442
• ISBN-13: 978-0880016445
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,344,794 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars an absorbing seduction, July 10, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Swallowing Clouds (Hardcover)

as absorbing as is Lillian Ng's narrative with its past lives, spiritual journeys and cultural comparisons, Swallowing Clouds is dominated by sex... Raw, manipulative, seductiion and erotic sex. It concerns Syn who in a past life in ancient China was drowned for committing adultery. In this life, Syn finds herself stranded in Sydney and unable to safely return to China because of the crackdown on students and dissidents after the Tiananmen Square massacre. She soon begins a torrid affair with Zhu, the local butcher, and for a while the relationship serves as a panacea for Syn's fantasies and desires, but gradually she finds her happiness waning, her identity disappearing and her life consumed. Restoring all these three is the crux of Ng's story and in telling it she offers an evocative portrait of Chinese history and modern Chinese life in Australia. Stuck between two cultures, Syn's struggle is timely, but also quite original, the ultimate reward for the reader being an arousing novel about the need to be needed, the desire for happiness and fulfilment and the importance of indivuality and respect.