Customer Reviews

World of Suzie Wong

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Whatever your expectations based on watching the film by the same name, The World of Suzie Wong is actually a beautifully written book that provides an intimate portrait of post-WWII Hong Kong. For anyone who has lived in the former British colony, I guarantee you will be fascinated by Mason's astute observations of life in the territory. For those who have never set foot in Asia, Mason's themes about class and culture conflict are timeless, and the book surprisingly avoids easy cliches because it is so well executed. This is one of the most underrated books of the past 50 years, much deeper than the broadway play or Hollywood's film interpretation.

Watch for this to come back in print in the US. I just picked it up and devoured it flying home from Hong Kong. Mason truly captures the flavor of Hong Kong, which is great for travel buffs. But, there's another key theme, as he chronicles the feelings and attitudes of prostitutes with a very sensitive and seemingly realistic touch. Further, he can really write! His own acknowledgement in the volume I purchased in HK tells us that he only wrote a couple of books and ran out of ideas. Hard to believe, since this is such excellent story-telling and pure quality writing.

It's 44 years since Richard Mason's classic story made its entrance. Mason is still alive, living in Rome. Would he recognize Hong Kong? I doubt it. Today little remains of Mason's British Colony, the old Hong Kong, inhabited back in 1957 by Suzie, the pretty Wan Chai bar girl. Back in the 1950's Hong Kong was a small sleepy town. Traffic, if you believe Mason, as I do, was minimal and there were no back alleys with neon signs or red taxis charging exorbitant fares. The barefoot rickshaw drivers in harness to their two wheeled carts ran their cargoes of humans around town the hard way. Now the one driver left spends his time posing for tourist pictures and charging five Hong Kong dollars a shot. In Wan Chai the trams that Suzie took still work their way through the jammed streets that have their share of smoke filled pick up bars. One even bears the name Suzie Wong in honor of the character. The bars remain here but the girls are not Chinese. The girls come in from Burma, Thailand, Cambodia and the Philippines. The old business of "No money, no talk" still holds, but the prices have gone up. The hostesses of modern times don't even know Suzie nor have they read the book. But they too would cheer her story, the way the hostesses of the 50's did, championing Suzie's cause to become "a respectable girl." The book was followed in 1958 by a succssful stage play that ran for two years on Broadway starring France Nuyen as Suzie and none other than Star Trek's William Shatner as Robert Lomax. In 1960 a popular film version was released starring Nancy Kwan and William Holden. In a way, the Suzie Wong story helped bring Hong Kong before the world's gaze and played a part in the popular recognition of the territory and in that way contributed to its development. If you want to have some fun, read the book and compare it to the film. You'll learn (again) that there is no substitute for literature, especially great literature created by a great writer.

I remember seeing the William Holden film of this book many years ago, and liking it. So, when I saw this book at the YMCA book store in Kowloon, I picked it up to pass the time between meetings.

The book is very different than the movie. It is much more nuanced and descriptive of Hong Kong (and even British) society of the Fifties. Lomax is British in this book, not an architect or middle class, but rather an ex-pat who had worked in Malaya, and now wanted to paint. His romance with Suzie grows organically, and by the end of the novel, more truthful than the movie. That they end up living in Japan after time in racist England is so unexpected, but perfect... strangers in a strange land, to each other and to all around them, yet loving and supporting each other through life.

Highly recommended - for the story, the ambience, social commentary and historical detail.

The plot of this novel can be summarized easily: a painter who is a British subject falls in love with and eventually marries a prostitute, originally from China, who plies her trade in Hong Kong. In the hands of many authors, this would result in a book with two-dimensional characters and a plot that would be little more than the summary that I just gave.

The World of Suzie Wong is much more than that. Both Robert Lomax, the narrator, and Suzie are full-blooded characters, with all the contradictions that come with being a human being. The course of love definitely does not run smooth, and the end result is definitely not inevitable.

I don't know whether Richard Mason wrote any other books. I'm certainly not aware of any. This one, however, is enough to secure his lasting reputation.

I have never read, nor ever expect to read a novel as beautiful as this one. The World of Suzie Wong reads like pure song. Richard Mason takes an oftentimes tawdry subject matter and delivers a charming novel. If any novel could be classified as poetry, this novel would qualify. Upon completion the reader will feel as though he or she has just finished the most satisfying of meals, complete with dessert, cigar, and cognac. This is one that you will return to again and again; it will never let you down. I can not recommend it enough.

I found my hard copy in an antique store - excellent condition, too; probably only read a couple of times. Only paid five bucks for it! The movie I ordered from Amazon. One of my favorite movies from the fifties. The story line was similar to my mother's life back than in the Philippines. She raised me using the money she got from the service men she met in the bars outside the military bases. She also used the money to buy my uniforms for the Catholic school I attended. How ironic was that?! Anyway, she married a sailor (my step-father) and now I'm here typing this. What a great story! (Both of them)

If you are a China lover (though Hong Kong is very different than mainland China}, or have a weakness for "hooker with a heart of gold" stories (Yes, I admit I do!) then this book is for you. The writing has a nice atmospheric tone most of the time, and the author is a good observer of human nature, however there are some definite weaknesses, which include a somewhat wandering plot and a character or two that seem entirely superfluous--which is why I say the movie is better --more cut down to specifics, cleaner storyline without all the meandering, and of course, Nancy Kwan, who is charming as always--she gives a perfect face to Suzie. I like the book more for the descriptions of old HK and some of the backstory--but then, I have been a fan of the movies since I was around 12 and saw it for the first time. I would recommend this book as an interesting weekend read--it's not boring, in spite of the meandering, and the character of Suzie, who is FAR from one-dimensional, will stay with you a long time. For those of us old enough to remember how racy this book/film was considered (and what a guilty pleasure it was to experience it) , it is a fond perusing of an old memory--I also recommend the movie, shot in glorious color and containing scenes of a world gone now. There is, by the way, a famous bar in Beijing, called "The "World of Suzie Wong", where besotted Westerners go to find their "Suzie", or at least, try to--I've been highly amused watching them go after those tiny Chinese girls, porcelain lovely and fragile as flowers--big Westerners who have maybe watched the movie and want their dreams fulfilled--good luck, as Chinese hookers are expensive and not always too healthy, but then, the book and movie rather slid right over that tawdry reality! Anyway, get the book and movie used here or Ebay--well worth the bucks!

Read this book not for its story but for its descriptions. The "hooker with a heart of gold" is arguably the oldest and most flailed to death device in Western literature. It's a trope all the more stale when told through the eyes of the chivalrous man who saves the sweet girl from her sordid fate.

However, "The World of Suzie Wong" is worth the read not for its obviously silly plot but rather for its amazing descriptions of Hong Kong, from the seedy Wan Chai to the sophisticated snobbery of the Peak, in the 1950s. With its detail of chaotic streets, lecherous sailors, and the noble [people] themselves, it's less a bird's eye view of the port city than a roach's perspective, but sometimes the roach gets a more accurate portrait than the bird.

Mason has a meticulous eye for detail, and that's what has made the book a classic. The minitae of outfit and carraige, the lighting and seats at a late night restaurant, the layout of a shop window, the drinks and predjudices at a cocktail party...these are the things that old Hong Kong alive to the reader.

Credit is also due to the author for mostly avoiding, and often forthrightly criticizing, the racism of the time. The book works ultimately because Suzie is a multi-demensional character, not a characature of the Chinese Doll. She's not even sympathetic much of the time, although we're made to understand what the narrator sees in her.

Ultimately, what matters of this book is not Suzie Wong herself, but the world she inhabited, and which we get to visit for a few brief hours.