Bangkok Wakes to Rain

Brilliant book, great delivery service

I visited Bangkok for the first time in 1966 as a student on a year-abroad program. I have now been visiting for 54 years and am due to visit again in February 2020. As such I was quite excited to hear the positive reviews and looked forward to a novel that promised to provide a sense of place. Some of the vignettes were engaging and did, indeed, conjure up familiar scenes, but as the book progressed it got more and more unreadable for me. Part of that was due to the apocalyptic territory into which it moved. I am not a fan, at all, of such writing and felt that I had been duped into this ending. As with many such visions, it did not hold water for me (or in this case, way too much). Bangkok is at risk, profound risk, as seas rise, but trying to speak meaningfully about how that will play out just didn't work for me at all.

I struggled with this, like many other reviewers have noted. There’s a thread in there, maybe, but too many characters that are never fleshed out result in a lurching text that never engages the reader - it’s impossible to know what is happening and what is going to happen. Starts with a Victorian doctor, then a guy coming and going between Bangkok (sorry, but calling it Krungthep is like calling London Londres, a literary affectation), then a girl wanting plastic surgery then a flooded, future Bangkok and finishing with a recovering Jazz musician and a swimming instructor. Clever perhaps, but too clever for me, and not a novel but just fragments of a creative writing course bundled together. Poorly edited too. The section set in England was bad, not very English - I didn’t recognise what was being written about (being from the U.K.), too many Americanisms and scenarios that are just not right and it felt strange and forced. Whilst looking forward to this book as a regular visitor to Bangkok, sorry, Krungthep, I dreaded picking it up to force my way through a bit more. Elated with finishing just so I can read something else. I can’t recommend it.

I bought this as was recommended by the FT and have not gone wrong on their recommendations before. Sadly it's pretty basic in terms of story telling / scene setting and vocab - like a teenager's stab at a book, and not a good read. I gave up half way when it just didn't improve and seemed like there was no real point to the various threads of story. Boring book.

This is a wonderful book and so evocative of Bangkok. The author's prose is magical. Having lived in Bangkok for three plus years, I was brought back to that complex and compelling city by this book.