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In the Fabled East by Adam Lewis Schroeder (Douglas & McIntyre $29.95)
Adam lewis schroeder says he never planned to write three books about Southeast Asia. Set in bombed-out Singapore and contemporary Thailand, Schroeder's first novel Empress of Asia (2006) evolved from his curiosity about his grandfather's generation and World War II. "I first travelled to Southeast Asia with my wife in 1996-97,"; he says, "and a visit to Changi Jail in Singapore inspired me to do the work that became Empress of Asia.";
With stories set in wartime Bali, 19th-century Singapore and an opium den in Thailand, his first fiction collection Kingdom of Monkeys (2001) featured a reworking of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Kurtz is found alive and well, and the decaying set of Apocalypse Now is a shrine for a Brando cult among the locals.
Returning to Thailand in 2001, Schroeder became intrigued with Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos-the countries comprising the former French Indochina. "They loomed as this delicious mystery,"; he says, "but a mystery without a story.";
After collecting more material in Laos and Vietnam in August of 2007, Schroeder has embraced and embroidered a mystery involving a Fountain of Eternal Youth in the forests of Laos, giving rise to In the Fabled East.
As a story, the search for eternal life and Shangri La is a bit hackneyed, but Schroeder's dexterity, using multiple narrators, turns the tale into a risky literary enterprise well worth the journey.
We first travel with Pierre Lazarie, a romantic-minded Sorbonne graduate who, upon receiving his Baccalaureate in Oriental Studies, sails to Saigon to take up a clerical position as a bureaucrat. He is schooled by Henri LeDallie, an acerbic, cynical senior bureaucrat.
Adélie, a hauntingly beautiful Parisienne, begins to tell her story much earlier, in 1886, having endured deaths, sudden penury and early widowhood. By 1909, beset by tuberculosis, she leaves her nine-year-old son and her mother-in-law to search for a healing fountain in 'the fabled east,' apparently never to return.
A third narrator is Captain Emmanuel (Manu) Tremier, Adélie's son, in his 30s. He does not take centre stage until late in the novel, but he does make a brief appearance soon after Lazarie's arrival in Saigon. Prior to joining his new battalion, Captain Tremier asks Pierre Lazarie's new employer, the Immigration Department of the Colony of Cochin-China, for assistance in finding his mother.
The captain pulls out an old photo of her. One look, and Lazarie is in love. He will find her.
It matters not that Adélie would be 56, if alive-which is highly doubtful, given that she suffered from advanced stages of tuberculosis. In Heart of Darkness style, the reluctant LeDallie and the excited Lazarie begin their trek down the Mekong and beyond, into the remote jungles of Laos.
Within a tiger's leap of their goal, misfortune bares its teeth, and LeDallie can no longer continue. Lazarie is forced to retreat, and his dream of finding the woman in search of the mythical Fountain of Eternal Youth must be reluctantly abandoned. Back in Saigon he will become more and more like the old colleague he's replaced, as he loses his idealism and youth.
It's 1954. And we've begun to figure out where this is all going. The French Indochina War is limping to its bloody conclusion. France has surrendered at Dien Bien Phu and Captain Tremier is in retreat with his ragtag handful of soldiers, bushwhacking through the jungle toward Laos.
Eventually, they wind up in the village of the Sadat, modeled after an actual Khamu village, Mak Tong. More cannot be revealed. With Schroeder, the plot can take surprising turns, and revealing it would simply not do.
With this young writer, in addition to characters you want to hang out with (or eavesdrop on), you'll get an engrossing, frequently surprising plot to keep you second-guessing. You'll also get a new appreciation for how good the English language really is in the hands of a literary acrobat.
Perhaps most importantly, you'll get so immersed in the world he creates that it might take some time to emerge from it.
A member of the UBC creative writing ratpack, Adam Lewis Schroeder is setting his sights closer to home with a murder mystery, to be set in 1958, in Penticton, where he now lives.
978-1-55365-464-3
Review by Cherie Thiessen, who reviews fiction from Pender Island.
[BCBW 2010]
With stories set in wartime Bali, 19th-century Singapore and an opium den in Thailand, his first fiction collection Kingdom of Monkeys (2001) featured a reworking of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Kurtz is found alive and well, and the decaying set of Apocalypse Now is a shrine for a Brando cult among the locals.
Returning to Thailand in 2001, Schroeder became intrigued with Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos-the countries comprising the former French Indochina. "They loomed as this delicious mystery,"; he says, "but a mystery without a story.";
After collecting more material in Laos and Vietnam in August of 2007, Schroeder has embraced and embroidered a mystery involving a Fountain of Eternal Youth in the forests of Laos, giving rise to In the Fabled East.
As a story, the search for eternal life and Shangri La is a bit hackneyed, but Schroeder's dexterity, using multiple narrators, turns the tale into a risky literary enterprise well worth the journey.
We first travel with Pierre Lazarie, a romantic-minded Sorbonne graduate who, upon receiving his Baccalaureate in Oriental Studies, sails to Saigon to take up a clerical position as a bureaucrat. He is schooled by Henri LeDallie, an acerbic, cynical senior bureaucrat.
Adélie, a hauntingly beautiful Parisienne, begins to tell her story much earlier, in 1886, having endured deaths, sudden penury and early widowhood. By 1909, beset by tuberculosis, she leaves her nine-year-old son and her mother-in-law to search for a healing fountain in 'the fabled east,' apparently never to return.
A third narrator is Captain Emmanuel (Manu) Tremier, Adélie's son, in his 30s. He does not take centre stage until late in the novel, but he does make a brief appearance soon after Lazarie's arrival in Saigon. Prior to joining his new battalion, Captain Tremier asks Pierre Lazarie's new employer, the Immigration Department of the Colony of Cochin-China, for assistance in finding his mother.
The captain pulls out an old photo of her. One look, and Lazarie is in love. He will find her.
It matters not that Adélie would be 56, if alive-which is highly doubtful, given that she suffered from advanced stages of tuberculosis. In Heart of Darkness style, the reluctant LeDallie and the excited Lazarie begin their trek down the Mekong and beyond, into the remote jungles of Laos.
Within a tiger's leap of their goal, misfortune bares its teeth, and LeDallie can no longer continue. Lazarie is forced to retreat, and his dream of finding the woman in search of the mythical Fountain of Eternal Youth must be reluctantly abandoned. Back in Saigon he will become more and more like the old colleague he's replaced, as he loses his idealism and youth.
It's 1954. And we've begun to figure out where this is all going. The French Indochina War is limping to its bloody conclusion. France has surrendered at Dien Bien Phu and Captain Tremier is in retreat with his ragtag handful of soldiers, bushwhacking through the jungle toward Laos.
Eventually, they wind up in the village of the Sadat, modeled after an actual Khamu village, Mak Tong. More cannot be revealed. With Schroeder, the plot can take surprising turns, and revealing it would simply not do.
With this young writer, in addition to characters you want to hang out with (or eavesdrop on), you'll get an engrossing, frequently surprising plot to keep you second-guessing. You'll also get a new appreciation for how good the English language really is in the hands of a literary acrobat.
Perhaps most importantly, you'll get so immersed in the world he creates that it might take some time to emerge from it.
A member of the UBC creative writing ratpack, Adam Lewis Schroeder is setting his sights closer to home with a murder mystery, to be set in 1958, in Penticton, where he now lives.
978-1-55365-464-3
Review by Cherie Thiessen, who reviews fiction from Pender Island.
[BCBW 2010]
Submitted on June 3, 2010 in By David.
