Customer Reviews

A Thousand Wings

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

 

 

This book is a literary gem. It chronicles the life of an immigrant from Laos to America and vividly paints an accurate picture of the tragedy of the communist takeover of Laos. Symbols crafted by angst are interwoven into a realistic story of the loss of culture and homeland. Complicated by the fact that Fong Mun, the main character is gay, a complex and nostalic look at his past is colorfully revealed to the reader. This a wonderful human story and is poetically crafted. Huo's first book is a beautiful and passionate book about survival and the human spirit. I hope he continues writing.

Although I do not mean to underestimate the pain of a Chinese youth losing his home in Laos, the author does not seem to realize how comparatively lucky he was (or he and his character were) to have a (Chinese) network in Thailand to help get out and get restarted. Ethnical Laotians suffered more than unexpressed desires! Still, he writes effectively about some of the Pathet Lao depredations of the family business and disruption of education.
The fantasy of the Laotian American is puerile in the worst sense and the attempt to do a Southeast Asian _Like Water for Chocolate_ fails.Writing about a wimp doesn't have to be wimpy!

I really enjoyed this book although I am more used to tales of emmigration from a Hispanic American perspective. In this book the art of cooking serves to demonstrate how we absorv our cultural heritage and proceed to reproduce it at a later stage in our development. The protagonist is aware of his own weaknesses but accepts them and lives out a life with many interruptions, yet still he focuses on the essential truths that will make his life work in the states or wherever he finds himself. I really enjoyed it.

The subject matter of this book is raw: banishment from home (Loas to Thailand), exile to the US from the refugee camps, and lonely adaptation to a new home. But the texture of the book is sweet, the roots of Fung Mun are grounded in food (memories of which travel well) and the tale is engaging and delicately told. I enjoyed this book tremendously, it is well written and a pleasure to read. Perhaps the only missing element was a little passion, to introduce some reality to the sparse and lyrical trill on which this tale floats. But that is just the jaded carnal side of me, wanting to see Fung Mun locked in passion with his earstwhile paramour, Raymond, or hoping that he would consummate at least one token dalliance along the way from Laos to Thailand to San Francisco.

As a person who lived in Laos recently I was very disappointed by this book. The broad bawdy humor of the Lao and their unique balanced view of life is not in this book. The Lao laugh. They enjoy life. This book depresses.

I want to recommend a very good novel by T.C. Huo, but I have to confess that I'm a friend of the author (you'll find my name listed in the acknowledgments). Nevertheless, I'd recommend the book even if I didn't know the author.

The story is about a gay man who's a successful cookbook author and caterer specializing in the cuisine he grew up with as a Chinese living in Laos during the late '60s and '70s. The dishes he creates -- or rather recreates -- connect him to the place and people he lost as a refugee fleeing Laos for a Thai refugee camp. They tie him to his mother who disappears mysteriously and forever during the family's nighttime escape from Laos in the hands of a smuggler. They tie him to his grandmother, who herself fled China to escape the Japanese; she dies in the Thai refugee camp, leaving father and son to fend for themselves, the remnants of the protagonist's once close family.

The scenes of life in Laos just as the Communists ("Brothers") begin to take over -- going from home to home, hut to hut, taking inventory of the country's wealth, tallying up every tree, every animal -- are the most powerful. There are compelling images of mandatory student rallies in soccer stadiums, with daylong slogan shouting.

Throughout, there's the protagonist's growing recognition of his sexuality, his attraction to men that supercedes -- or ignores -- political bent.

I especially like the author's portrayal of a protagonist with personality traits appealing and unappealing. As a child he's as precociously possessive of the trees, plants, and land around his family's home as the Communists are of redistributing it. It's a portrayal real, poignant, and funny.

As a person who lived in Laos recently I was very disappointed by this book. The broad bawdy humor of the Lao and their unique balanced view of life is not in this book. The Lao laugh. They enjoy life. This book depresses.