Zen Cho

Yes, please! to a novel with interesting magic, women and sexism (both institutional and individual), people of color and racism (ditto), imperialistic rhetoric, a leader who doesn't even want the crappy job from which racist shits keep trying to oust him, a strong narrative voice, and some delightful dynamics amongst the various characters. This book is funny and just totally alive. (And as much as I love Prunella and Zacharias, the main characters, I think Damerell and Rollo are maybe my show more heart here.) show less

{Stand-alone. Fiction, set in England 1920} (2012)

This was a short, sweet novelette about a young Malaysian Chinese girl living in London in the 1920s because she wants to have adventures. It is written as a series of diary entries beginning in August and ending with a letter dated April 1921. As an expat currently living in Singapore I could relate to her. ('"I should have gone home and tried writing for the Straits Times' - that's our local/ national newspaper.)

It opens with an entry with show more Jade, whose Chinese name is Geok Huay trading barbs over afternoon tea with her rich but stingy aunt.

"No more absurd than Bee Hoon," I said. "I've always wished I could name a daughter of mine Bee Hoon."

A vein in Aunt Iris's temple twitched.

"It means 'beautiful cloud'," I said dreamily. "Why doesn't Uncle Gerald ever call you Bee Hoon, Auntie?""

Although the author's website emphasises that it does, indeed, mean 'beautiful cloud', in Singapore 'bee hoon' is rice vermicelli noodles.

Jade keeps body and soul together by writing articles for fashion magazines and reviews for the Oriental Literary Review which is run by her friend Ravi. When she writes a damning review about a book by well-regarded, well-connected author Sebastian Hardie, Ravi is worried about the backlash if he publishes it in his journal.

"But I shouldn't think anyone of importance will read it."

Ravi's mouth quivered.

"Thank you," he said. "It's good to know you're excited about being published again in the journal."

Jade is surprised to receive an invitation from Sebastian after the review is published. She decides to go to the party (on my birthday - if I had been alive then) and finds him 'good-looking, in the style of a Romantic poet living in the Lake District' and decides to be 'properly bad'. (At this point, I must admit, her adventures caused me some raised eyebrows. And I found references to 'the worm' a bit jarring; I thought she could have used a better word.)

I liked this book; the humour appeals to me and I highlighted so many quotes on my Kindle that I had to stop for fear of highlighting the whole book.

4.5 stars show less

This is a collection of Urban Fantasy stories – “Urban Fantasy” in the more traditional (think Charles de Lint etc.) sense of magic spilling into everyday life rather than the more recent (think Charlaine Harris) of sexy vampires and werewolves. It also is a collection of stories by a Malaysian author, and the tales are deeply steeped not only in Malaysian folklore but also in the languages of Malaysia – a very distinctive way of using English which is generously peppered with show more (presumably) Malaysian terms, not to mention all kinds of exotic foodstuffs. I was glad to be reading this on a Kindle, as that way I could at least easily look up the latter, but of course I did not get very far with the words from Malay that way; so be prepared to be puzzled a lot or have frequent recourse to the internet search engine of your choice.

This might have come across as an affectation, the real world equivalent of third-rate Fantasy authors splashing made-up words all over their texts to make them look more exotic, but you never get that feeling reading Spirits Abroad: For one thing, Zen Cho is emphatically not a third-rate writer, but emphatically first-rate and her generous use of Malayan terms is actually a case on point – even if you do not the meaning of the words she uses (and I admit to having often been too lazy to look them up), there is a rhythm to her sentences, a rhythm that is slow and easy but none the less compelling for that, and a melody to her sounds, a melody made of vivid and intense tone colours (and on a side note, the cover of the e-book version of this collection really fits the stories perfectly).

It all combines to a very distinct, unique narrative voice that remains identifiable and close to itself even through various narrators. In fact that is the single small niggle I have towards this collection – the narrators, in particular those in first person, always seem in danger of becoming indistinguishable, of running together in the larger auctorial voice. It never quite happens (hence this is a really minor thing) but I at least felt there was a potential problem here. In any case, if one was to describe Zen Cho’s narrative voice, I think the term that will most likely come first to one’s mind is “charming” – there is such an obvious delight the narratives take in themselves, in the sheer act of their telling, the spinning out of their tales in this colourful, highly rhythmical manner that it seems impossible for any reader to not become enchanted by that voice and then enthuse about it in turn.

So far so remarkable – but what I think makes this collection really stand out and lifts it from the merely very good to the truly excellent, is that Zen Cho somehow manages to use that charming voice – which seems made for cute, lovely stories – to tell some very dark and occasionally even gruesome tales, the apparent innocence of the narrator’s tone heightening the haunting effect these stories have on the reader. While there are several quite wonderful stories in Spirits Abroad that are funny and heartwarming, the one that tend to stick in the reader’s memory (this reader’s, anyway) are the ones where the charm is layered over or shot through with a darker tone, like “The First Witch of Damansara” or “The House of Aunts”. The latter one in particular (according to the author, her take on Twilight – and in retrospect, you can see where she is coming from there, although I never would have noticed just from the story, it is just so different) has a huge emotional impact and I can understand why that is apparently the most popular of her stories.

This was a really enjoyable collection, and I’m eager to read more by Zen Cho – she has a novel coming out in September, described by Naomi Novik as “An enchanting cross between Georgette Heyer and Susanna Clarke, full of delights and surprises.” Needless to say, it went on my preorder list straight away. show less

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/the-friend-zone-experiment-by-zen-cho/

Renee Goh gets dumped by her pop star boyfriend on page 6, and bumps unexpectedly into her ex Ket Siong on page 26, and despite Renee’s experimental attempts to keep Ket Siong in the Friend Zone, we basically know where they will have got to by the end on page 341. I really enjoyed the ride; human beings are complex creatures, capable of misunderstanding their own best interests and getting confused about the signals show more they receive from others, and it’s entertaining (occasionally painful) to read.

As well as being a good empowering love story, with the dynastic intricacies of the Malaysian business community’s presence in London as backdrop, there is a grim subplot involving a massive political corruption scandal and human rights abuse, which peripherally touches both our lovers and also the Bad Boy rival for Renee’s affections. Renee manages to triumph here too, thanks to her ability to think outside the box, though it has an impact on her relations with her own family. show less