Stephanie Jane recenzis Sarong party girls de Cheryl Lu-lien Tan
Difficult to review!
3 steloj
Sarong Party Girls is a difficult novel for me to review because I am almost exactly straddling the fence as to whether I loved or hated it - hence the dead centre 3 star rating! To start with the positives, Tan's having written the whole novel in Singlish (Singapore English) is an inspired touch which appealed to everything I love about global reading. The language takes a little concentration in the early chapters, but I soon got into the swing of its rhythms and idioms and, in fact, carried on thinking in Singlish for several hours after I finished binge reading the story. Singapore's night life and 'cattle market' dating scene is so vividly rendered that its sordidness and horror seeps from every page. I previously had an impression of the island as a clean, orderly place, but Sarong Party Girls allows us to ogle a very different way of …
Sarong Party Girls is a difficult novel for me to review because I am almost exactly straddling the fence as to whether I loved or hated it - hence the dead centre 3 star rating! To start with the positives, Tan's having written the whole novel in Singlish (Singapore English) is an inspired touch which appealed to everything I love about global reading. The language takes a little concentration in the early chapters, but I soon got into the swing of its rhythms and idioms and, in fact, carried on thinking in Singlish for several hours after I finished binge reading the story. Singapore's night life and 'cattle market' dating scene is so vividly rendered that its sordidness and horror seeps from every page. I previously had an impression of the island as a clean, orderly place, but Sarong Party Girls allows us to ogle a very different way of life once the sun sets and the bars open. The culture clash between predatory white 'ang moh' men just out for sex and the often equally as callous Asian women out to trap them into marriage is bizarre. The novel has a strong sense of authenticity so I could easily believe these degrading scenarios, and found myself upset and angered at the ridiculous waste of lives - and good alcohol!
Our narrator, Jazeline, is a woman in her late twenties who frequently behaves as though she is still a teenager. She is forthright and very opinionated, racist, sexist, and determined to bag herself an ang moh marriage at any cost. Anything else is completely unacceptable to her even to the extent that she is outrageously spiteful to a friend who found her Happy Ever After with a Singaporean man. I couldn't empathise with her at all and I think it was this lack of connection which took away from my enjoyment of the novel. Jazzy has a good job, but cannot envisage herself with any future other than perpetually shopping at designer stores on her wealthy husband's credit card and I cannot envisage how that kind of trophy wife existence can be satisfying! In a way, Sarong Party Girls is a twenty-first century successor to manhunt novels such as Pride And Prejudice or Bridget Jones and I recognised similar attitudes at times. What is missing though is any sense of romance or love. Jazzy isn't a romantic heroine by any stretch!