The Harmony Silk Factory

Tash Aw's triple portrait of the Malaysian entrepeneur/communist/criminal Johnny Lim is clever and very well written.

While it consists of three portraits of Johnny, the story is just as much about the three narrators, their relations and their perceptions of the main character as it is about Johnny himself.

Its main weakness is that it lacks a proper conclusion and that the story and the prose in the third part are less interesting than those of the other two parts, which makes the end a little disappointing.

Still looking forward to reading more from this author as he perfects his craft though!

The Harmony Silk Factory starts out very well, and Aw's crisp prose made the first of the book's three sections hum along. I was really intrigued by its setting, about which I know little—Malaysia during and after the Second World War. I was alternately engrossed and enraged by it—the book is a page turner, but I had predicted the denouement before I'd met half of the characters and there are some very clichéd elements here. I found the second section melodramatic, and the protagonist of the third section I didn't believe in as a real person. As a first novel, this really is very good, but I enjoyed Harmony Silk Factory more for the promise Aw shows as a developing writer than for the book as a self-contained entity.

The story of Johnny Lim, a man of many faces, told by four different narrators. The writing matches the setting, lush and rich. The characters are totally absorbing. The plot is not the essence of this book, rather it carries along the characters who reveal themselves more than they do Johnny, the subject of their thoughts but the most mysterious character in the book. It's not until the final narrator has his say that you can really piece together Johnny's true self.
This has piqued my interest in Tash Aw, I wouldn't hesitate to pick up another of his novels.

This is the story of Johnny Lim, a textile merchant, Communist and possible gangster. There are three narrators, Jaspar, Johnny's son, who has researched his father's life, and as a grown man is looking at his father's life in the 1940s, shortly before Jaspar's birth; Snow, Johnny's wife, whose narrative is in diary form, written at the time of the events which she describes; and Peter, Johnny's former best friend, who writes as an old man recounting the events. All three narratives at times describe the same events, from differing points of view.

The book centres around a trip taken by Snow, Johnny, Peter, an ex-pat English business man named Frederick Honey, and an enigmatic Japanese professor named Kunichika, when they voyage to the show more legendary Seven Maidens island. The imminent invasion of Malaysia by the Japanese forms a backdrop to the story.

I really enjoyed the book. Each narrator has his or her own unique character, and their telling of the story sometimes differs depending on their own perception of the situations they find themselves in. Interestingly (and I imagine deliberately on the part of the author), the reader never actually gets to know Johnny very well, as he is described according to the point of view of the narrator. Whereas Jaspar sees his father as an evil man, Snow and Peter describe a man who seems at odds with Jaspar's opinion (or course, Jaspar is also relying on sources for his research which probably differ in reliability, and both Snow and Peter are swayed by their own feelings about Johnny).

The story is less about the plot, and more about the characters themselves. For me, the most interesting character was Snow, perhaps because her story was being written as events unfolded.

All in all, this was a very enjoyable book. It is Tash Aw's first novel, and I would definitely read more by him. show less

Tash Aw is the latest graduate from the East Anglian School of Creative Writing to walk away with a major honour – The Whitbread Debut Novel of the Year. Unfortunately, this is another novel written to the modern formula of style over substance. Elements of said formula are:

1) Disguise the fact that you have very little plot by narrating the same events from different perspectives
2) Perfume your offering with excessive and overwrought symbolism
3) Deepen the superficiality of the central mystery by refusing to answer questions you raise

All of the above are frustratingly abundant in this novel – marvellous if you love this kind of writing; deeply dissatisfying if you do not.

The biggest sin ( and as Oryx has raised the question of the show more Garden of Eden, let’s talk in those terms) is that the underlying theme of the novel is based on a cliché: the enigmatic unknowability of the East. Johnny, the focal point of the three narratives and symbol of the East, is as unknown at the end as at the beginning of the novel.

My message to the author is: if you have a story to tell, tell it. Or, if you want to write a the-real-story-is-under-the-surface novel, strive for the perfection of The Great Gatsby. Keep it short. Don’t sacrifice narrative drive for the sake of symbolism. show less

Malaysia.

Aw's first novel is an extended study of one man, Johnny Lim. Stories about Johnny are told by three narrators in three sections. Each has a complex emotional relationship with Johnny. His disaffected son, eager to expose his father's crimes; his wife Snow, whose diary reveals a more tentative and vulnerable man; and Peter, a British friend who has fled to Malaysia but finds he cannot escape himself. Aw does a good job of differentiating each narrator's voice and preoccupations. There isn't a lot of action here, or even resolution. Rather, the pleasure of the story is in the reader's accretion of knowledge about Johnny, and the somewhat voyeuristic satisfaction of seeing more perspectives than each narrator.

Having read two Tash Aw books, I doubt I will read another. You feel like throwing in the towel and heave a sign of relief when you finish it. The Harmony Silk Factory started off well but became somewhat bizarre. Why did the group spend so much time on the remote island? They weren't exactly ship-wrecked and the island offered nothing. It is also bewildering how Snow came to fall in love with Peter. That was a curveball from Aw.