The most endearing Malaysian novel
The world-famous author Anthony Burgess writes:
Malaysia has entered the league of Commonwealth fiction, and I for one, am delighted.
Ong's chief characters are Chinese, contemporary Chinese with all the preoccupations of a hard-headed but passionate – even manic-depressive – race, sex, money, family, the conflict between ancient traditions and the obsessions of the consumer-society. They are real people. They live.
There is something of the immemorial Chinese instinct for form, shapeliness, about his first novel. It is well-made and, except for the odd cliché, well-written. More than that, it presents a recognizable Malaysia – the gamy scents, the heat, the multiracial crowds of the town streets, the bewildering variety of sensuous experience available in that incredible country.
