genre: fictionalized memoir
In colonized Vietnam, a fifteen year old girl from a French family (whom we never know by name) finds her life utterly changed the day she meets the older Chinese man while on the ferry to school. This part-reminiscent part-stream of consciousness look at the narrator's family and life explores not just this Lolita-like affair but also her struggles within her poor family and the racism and complicated relationships among the colonizers and the colonized.
This is such a short book but it took me a lot longer to work my way through it than I'd anticipated. I chose it because it was on a list of big award winners for French writers For one thing, it's not linear. None of the main characters have names and even the narration switches between third and first person as our main character explores her painful memories. There are some truly vivid scenes and images, both of her as a young person with a quirky nature and especially of Siagon and the lives of the French living in Indochina at the time. The strange dreamlike quality of the "scenes" with the Chinese man aren't super open-door but they aren't non-descriptive either. It's almost like she can't even look at what happened straight on. What does really intrigue me is that the author says that it is based on her own experiences from pre-war Vietnam so I can really appreciate it as a look at a place and time that no longer exist in the same way.
Honestly, I can't say I loved it. I can see the value of it from a literary point of view but it just didn't capture me.
content: super adult themed with sexual scenes
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