Product Description

Shortlisted for the 1982 Booker Prize, this novel explores the clans and conflicts of Soho's Chinatown, where the Chen family arrive and want to succeed as restaurateurs in the 1960s. No family can survive for long without encountering the Triads. By the author of "The Redundancy of Courage".

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #309277 in Books
• Published on: 1992-03-19
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 252 pages

Review
Set in London's Chinatown of the 60's, this is a novel of fierce family loyalties coupled with a pervasive fear of the Triads. Handled with a sureness of touch that allows the humour to emerge from the most unlikely situations, the narrative has a deftness and subtlety that is admirable. (Kirkus UK)

The Chens are immigrants from Hong Kong living in London. Chen, the husband and father, is a waiter in a Chinese restaurant at the start; but when goaded by spunky wife Lily, he makes a risky leap and opens his own take-out kitchen in an old garage - and is soon catering to lorry drivers who are insatiably hungry for the sweet-and-sour dishes that no self-respecting Chinese would touch. Chen and Lily have a small son, Man Kee - who grows up attracted to gardening and vegetarianism; also sharing the meager quarters behind the kitchen and front counter is Lily's fat older sister Mui - a household nonentity who seems to have a livelier life elsewhere in London (her pregnancy soon becomes too advanced to be hidden); later, the family group is joined by Chen's old father, who is shipped to England when his other children don't want him. And eventually, to meet previous obligations back in Hong Kong, Chen is forced to borrow money, then loses it in a foolish attempt to double it by gambling; so, through misadventure, is he unwittingly used by a fellow-waiter as a front for the other man's drug-running for a local criminal organization, the Hung family. Chinese/British writer Mo, new to the US, intersperses the daily doings of the Chens with the mores and martial-art savageries of the Hung gang. ("The man went for the knife in his belt. Jackie Fung threw his pall over the swordsman's face, found the socket with his long thumb, and gouged into the eyeball. The man fell back with a cry, covering his face.") But this technicolor, Kung-Fu sinisterism is not nearly as effective as the immigrant-adjustment comedy of the earnest Chens: first acquaintance with the tax man; a trip to the Channel; driving a banged-up van only Lily masters, the "Infernal Carapace"; killing a live turkey. Deft and affectionate, then, when focusing on the family, but less successful in its melodrama and Chinese-gang sociology. (Kirkus Reviews)

Customer Reviews

Remarkably vivid vignettes
Two things really fascinated me about "The Monkey King" and "Sour Sweet", the first two of Timothy Mo's novels and the first two that I read.

The first is that, despite it now being 6 years since I read these books, I am staggered by the clarity and longevity of the pictures that Timothy Mo painted in my head. I have since found this with all of Mo's novels: the vividness of the depiction of the scenery or interiors makes me feel as if I've watched a film of the story, rather than read a book. I haven't sat back and analysed his writing to find out how he does it - and partly I haven't done so now for fear of spoiling the magic with which I remember the stories.

The second is that Mo's main characters in these two novels are unknowing innocents simply living their lives, such that the reader can see the wider implications of their actions when they cannot do so themselves. For example, in "The Monkey King" the reader is all too aware that Wallace Nolasco fits in far lower down the hierarchy of the Poon family than he thinks. Again, in "Sour Sweet", the thought of triad involvement is more often with the reader than with the characters. Often, the dramas that unfold in the stories are the result of quirky accidents rather than design - but that's what gives the stories such authenticity. Consequently, you feel as if you're a privileged observer quietly watching the characters live their ordinary lives for a few years. I could quite happily believe that the main protagonists had lived their lives like this before the events told in the story, and would continue to do so, just as naively, after the book is finished.

I thoroughly recommend Mo's writing to you if you enjoy novels that totally immerse you in the observation of others' lives - even where those lives are not always pretty. I found the "Monkey King" and "Sour Sweet" so deliciously different that I've subsequently read Mo's other 4 novels: "An Insular Possession", "A Redundancy of Courage", "Brownout on Breadfruit Boulevard" and "Renegade or Halo2". I suggest that you read them at a time when you can really indulge yourself by giving each of them the attention it deserves. These are absolute gems.

should have won the booker prize that year
the story about the chinese immigrant population in London in the late sixties and seventies is vividly brought to life. It is a feat to bring every mood into one story-funny,sad,loving,violence,age,childhood-that you long to find the outcome,but when over regret havin finished. The characters stay with you far after you've put the book away. You savour the second reading with more appreciation.

Sour Sweet
The story of a Hong Kong Chinese couple facing the challenges of moving to London during the late 1960s. A little bit stereotypical in parts but generally poinant observations of having to overcome language differences, working conditions and cultural challenges.