Five Star Billionaire by Tash Aw

  Shanghai, megacity, late first decade 21st century.  Here we are introduced to the diverse characters of this novel.  Phoebe - young country woman, she just wants to better herself; Yinghui - ex-activist come businesswoman; Gary - mega pop-star in Taiwan; and Justin - seemingly conservative, family spokesman and deal-maker.  Everyone seems to teeter on the edge of extreme success - or failure.

  Last, in his own voice, appears the Five Star Billionaire. As the story progresses, more and more of each person's past and present is uncovered, but we see how he is the link which eventually ties everyone together.

  The story unfolded tantalisingly, gradually.  From early on I sensed the subtle interweaving of a slim connecting thread between the characters, who felt like puppets of the master narrator Five Star Billionaire.  His grand plan was ultimately revealed in the final chapters, but on the way, the story depicted the hard-ness of getting on in a massive big and competitive city - the struggle to succeed; and the fragility of fortunes.

  This book kept me turning the pages just to see what turn people's lives would take next, and how the Five Star Billionaire would leave them all.  Because, although it wasn't really rational, I could not get rid of the sense that he controlled them.  Finally, I was left with a sense of relief - it could have been very depressing for everybody, but it wasn't.

Title: Five Star Billionaire
Author: Tash Aw
ISBN: 9780007494156
Published: 2013
Publisher: Fourth Estate, London

The Blind Man's Garden by Nadeem Aslam

  Pakistan, Afghanistan, in the months following 9/11: there is no simple path to follow; no simple choice is possible.  The effects of Al Qaeda and American retaliation and war reach deeply into a family, which is battered and torn by the actions of others that they cannot control.

  I had this book for a long time, reading sometimes only a paragraph at a sitting, because I was frightened to glimpse around the corner at what was ahead.   I was afraid!  I didn’t want people to whom I’d formed attachments to be hurt or die!  I could not imagine how impossible and painful situations could be resolved!

 Young men join a cause that betrays them; a struggling woman seeks a decent life for her daughter; people are torn between human decency and loyalty to conflicting religious dictates; an imperfect man is blinded by a jewel as he tries to keep his family intact; a couple hide their forbidden love. 
  

    Many tragedies told amongst passages of beautiful prose.  The garden that gives the book its title is also the books fragrant central setting, a constant backdrop into which the mad happenings of the surroundings sometimes intrude.

  I had no idea how they would manage, but they did.

 “ And the stars,” he says, “the twinkling of them.  I will remember them by holding the palm of my hand in the rain.”

Title: The Blind Man's Garden

Author: Nadeem Aslam

Published: 2013, Faber & Faber

ISBN: 9780571287918

Soon, by Charlotte Grimshaw [Emma. Birkenhead Library]

"Soon is a fierce dwarf who lives under the house"...

  Not fantasy.  Be ready to enter a setting which will make you think you are on holiday with a Prime Minister and cronies.   Oh, please tell me we are talking fantasy after all!

   In this book, one character in this story is certainly closely modelled on our own dear PM.  Fortunately however, he is not the main character - that would be too obvious and boring.  Instead we follow a "friend" of his, Simon, a wealthy doctor.  We are led into a subtle story of a good man maintaining a fragile equilibrium, but making bad decisions, leading to political fandangaling and manipulation of public processes, and more importantly, an evil jealous woman who tells small boys complicated fairy stories with real life parallels.

  While my closest personal experience of John Key is holding the opener to the Grey Lynn Library toilet, (and I am happy to keep it that way), I really enjoyed this novel.  I felt sure while reading that Grimshaw knows JK personally (or had infiltrated his social circle), and has merely changed some names to (ineffectually) try and protect identities.  The holiday home set up with friends and hangers-on was realistic enough to me.  This almost-familiarity is one of the things I like about Grimshaw's novels - the settings are close to known experience, very New Zealand, and you can just imagine events happening so easily.

The dwarf Soon is in a story within a story - look for clues as to what the real characters are thinking, and enjoy!

The Sly Company of People Who Care by Rahul Bhattacharya

Guyana is in mainland South America, bordered by Venezuela, Brazil and Surinam.   Guyana is beautiful and poor, it has a history of colonialism (Dutch, British), slavery (African) and indentured labour (Indian) which has led to racial-political tensions today, and a very interesting nation of people.  These are things I have learned since reading this book, and I am enriched. 

It's a novel, but it is a travel book too.  It is filled with gorgeous scenery, cricket talk and reggae music which made me think at first Guyana was in the Carribbean.  Rahul Bhattacharya has made a playlist of the ska, reggae, chutney, calypso, soca, steelpan, junkanoo, rake-n-scrape, dub, dancehall  which give atmosphere throughout this book.

The narrator of Sly Company of People Who Care is from India, and has decided to "To be a slow ramblin' stranger" for a year - in Guyana.  Because he went there briefly once before and liked it.  He loves cricket, reggae, drinking rum, women, and having adventures.  He is good at hanging out and doing not much, and at speaking patois.  (Much of the conversation is in patois, which is at times hard to understand).  The narrator embraces life in Guyana and I thought he was almost becoming local himself yet his year is at times aimless, and he retains the security of a return ticket home.  This ultimately, shows he was a traveller all along.