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Sto caricando le informazioni... The Blind Earthworm in the Labyrinthdi Veeraporn Nitiprapha
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Iscriviti per consentire a LibraryThing di scoprire se ti piacerà questo libro. Attualmente non vi sono conversazioni su questo libro. This novel is unlike anything I have read before, but I did not worry about that - I just went along for the ride. The protagonists are Chareeya and Chalika, two young sisters who grow up with their emotionally unavailable parents, and Pran, a boy who does not have a real home and spends his time at their house. The novel follows these three for many years, but not in strictly chronologically form. The reader receives snippets from their lives, chapter after chapter, but has to piece together much of it. The things that happen are often heartbreaking: Loves are lost, feelings betrayed, someone dies, children are left to themselves, emotions are hidden. All of this is infused with metaphors and images, more often than not botanical, as well as described through music (there is even a playlist in the end). Many aspects are exaggerated and even appear magical - influenced by Thai classical theatre and popular Thai soap operas - and after reading the last pages, I feel like waking up myself in the humid air of Thailand, amongst a tangle of colorful flowers and listening to tropical birds. The novel was translated into English by Kong Rithdee, who also added a very interesting introduction about the pitfalls and difficulties of translating from Thai to English.
The novel, which won Veeraporn the first of her two South-east Asian Writers Awards in 2015, is a tour de force that looks at the romantic ideals that come to us from stories and songs, and how they can cause us to lose our way, like blind earthworms in a labyrinth. . . Veeraporn, who felt compelled to write this book after seeing the clashes between pro- and anti-government forces in Thailand in 2010, seems to suggest that, just like romanticising love, romanticising political leaders can lead to madness and delusion. Tuned to the rhythms of the soap operas that air on Thai television each night and written with the consuming intensity of a fever dream, this novel opens an insightful and truly compelling window into the Thai heart. . . Dangerous and irresistible, the story can be read either as a nod to old-fashioned Thai romances, or as a sophisticated, literary upgrade of the soap opera drama, or as a bitter commentary on the myths, smokescreens and delusions that seem to have disoriented the Thai people with many years' heartbreak in attendance.
On the day Chareeya is born, her mother discovers her father having an affair with a traditional Thai dancer. From then on, Chareeya's life is fated to carry the weight of her parents' disappointments. She and her sister grow up in a lush riverside town near the Thai capital, Bangkok, captivated by trashy romance novels, classical music and games of make-believe. When the laconic orphan, Pran, enters their world, he unwittingly lures the sisters into a labyrinth of their own making as they each try to escape their intertwined fates. The original Thai language edition of The Blind Earthworm in the Labyrinthwon the prestigious South East Asian Writers ("S.E.A. Write") Award for fiction and was a best-seller in Thailand. It is translated into English by Thai film critic and recipient of France's Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, Kong Rithdee. Attuned to the addictive rhythms of a Thai soap opera and written with the consuming intensity of a fever dream, this novel opens an insightful and truly compelling window onto the Thai heart. "Mesmerising and unputdownable - a virtuoso translation of what must surely be one of the best Thai novels to make it into English." - Lawrence Osborne, author of Hunters in the Darkand Only to Sleep Non sono state trovate descrizioni di biblioteche |
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Google Books — Sto caricando le informazioni... GeneriSistema Decimale Melvil (DDC)895.9134Literature Literature of other languages Asian (east and south east) languages Other south east Asian languages Thai and other Tai languages Thai fiction 2000–Classificazione LCVotoMedia:
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This is one of the few books by a female Thai author translated into English. Veeraporn Nitiprapha has also won the S.E.A. Write Award twice, the first woman to do so. The story is a short literary fiction set in Thailand from the 1980s into the 21st century. It is a lush lyrical nonlinear story that Nitiprapha herself describes as "A melodrama of shipwrecked romance."
It begins with sisters Chalika and Chareeya, born in Nakhon Chai Si, a riverside town outside of Bangkok, into the tragic remnants of their parents’ marriage. “War, flash floods, landslides or the fall of empires can’t diminish the simple happiness that can only be felt by someone who doesn’t understand she’s just a child. The girls leapt out of the charred ruins of their parents’ marriage with only a few scars on their hearts. They rolled about in the orchards all day like animal cubs, scooping laughter and joy out of thin air as if by magic.”
The story traces the lives of the two girls and their childhood friend Pran through a series of romances, deaths, ghost stories and tragedies enough to fill either a Thai soap opera or a fever dream. The book is full of lush descriptions of food, classical music and plants. I found my attention wandering, by around the middle, and the non linear style somewhat difficult to follow. The translation was well done, although I’m not sure I needed the inserts explaining to me what Tom Yum soup is. I appreciated the beauty of the writing but the melodrama wasn’t entirely for me, so 3.5 stars overall. ( )