The South (2025)
Why this one?
Continuing with a few selections from the Booker longlist.
Tash Aw (1971- ; active 2005-) was born in Taipei, Taiwan to Malaysian parents of Chinese descent. He was raised in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, before moving to England. He studied law at Jesus College, Cambridge and the University of Warwick, and later earned a Master's degree in creative writing from the University of East Anglia. He is now based in Paris.
His first novel, The Harmony Silk Factory, was published in 2005 and won the Whitbread First Novel Award and a Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. His 2013 book, Five Star Billionaire, was longlisted for the Booker in the year that Eleanor Catton’s The Luminaries won. Outside of fiction, he has written nonfiction essays dealing with the changing face of Asian society, migration, and “outsider” identity. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2023.
Thoughts, etc.
The South is the first book in a planned quartet that centres on a family navigating a period of significant change both in Malaysia and in their own lives. The main events of the novel are set around 1997 and the Asian financial crisis, following the Lim family as they travel from their home in Kuala Lumpur to a dilapidated farm they have inherited in Johor, southern Malaysia. The central plot of the novel revolves around 16-year-old Jay's coming-of-age and sexual awakening. On the farm, he meets Chuan, the son of the farm's manager, and a transformative relationship develops between them over the course of the summer.
Their relationship is set against the backdrop of the family's larger tensions and the external pressures of a changing world, including the economic anxieties of the time. Alongside Jay’s story is that of his unhappily married parents Sui Ching and Jack, and Jack’s illegitimate half-brother Fong (Chuan’s father). The fact that Fong has managed the farm diligently for years and yet the previously absent Lims are the ones set to inherit the farm is another primary source of tension in the novel.
It’s a beautifully written piece, overall, which is never anything other than a pleasure to read. I’ve seen a few reviews describing Aw’s work here as ‘masterly’, and I can certainly see why. There’s clearly a lot going on - symbolic layers upon layers, with tensions of many kinds (cultural, social, familial, sexual) all deftly intersected in a way that never feels heavy-handed. It’s evidently the work of a great craftsman, and a writer of real weightiness. At times, I did find its heft and austerity in danger of feeling somewhat suffocating: for all its depth and stylistic qualities, there are at times fairly long sections in which there’s very little fun to be had.
Its standout moments are very definitely those involved Jay and Chuan. They feel much more vibrant and exciting, colourful and contemporary, than the farm-set passages and those involving the older generation. While there’s (as with everything here) a deliberateness to that choice - alongside all the other oppositions in the book there’s also a clear intergenerational divide. The sections involving Jay and his sisters, Chuan and his friends, and various permutations of the more youthful characters feel much freer, more energetic and ultimately enjoyable, placed next to the relative tedium of the inheritance drama and broken relationship that takes over the farm-set sections with the older relatives. Deliberate it may be, but at times I felt these sections felt a little like Jack’s watercolours - blurry, repetitive, and unlikely to give much pleasure to the viewer.
Overall, I’m inclined to agree with the various reviews that have criticised this book in the context of it being the first of a series. I’m not someone that necessarily looks for easy ‘resolution’ in every novel, so I’m not especially concerned by that aspect of it - I thought it was reasonably self-contained, and not one of those books that feels incomplete without its sequels. However, nor was I sufficiently grabbed by it to want to dive immediately into a follow-up (luckily I suppose, as there isn’t one yet). It’s a slow-moving book, lacking in major moments of inciting drama, and its stakes are not especially high.
And while the fact that some of it is narrated from the future is effective within the context of this book, it at least seems to give a little too much away about any of the questions that might intrigue us about the future of these characters. I guess the sequels could surprise us, but it seems like there’s little doubt as to the general direction of travel, which makes it slightly hard to get engaged with what might happen next. On top of this, beyond Jay and Chuan (and possibly Fong) the characters felt a little loosely drawn so again not so demanding of attention.
Score
7
Generally a pleasure to read, with moments of excitement, and some weighty and important themes. I found some of it lacking in engagement though and it drifted over me at times, so I’m unlikely to be tempted to pick up its sequels.
Next up
The shortlist! Coming soon.,..
