Book Review - The Harmony Silk Factory

This review appeared in the Sept 22 issue of Time Out Mumbai

Booker long list contender , Tash Aw’s debut novel, is a fractured and complex tale. Set exotically enough in the jungles of Malaya, it tells the story of the “infamous Chinaman Johnny Lim” ‘s rise from illiterate peasanthood to power in Malaysia’s Kinta Valley.
The book, Rashomon- like has three narratives. Which do we believe ? Is Lim the ‘liar , a cheat, a traitor’ his embittered son Jasper tells us about ? Was his meteoric rise, a ladder littered with a litany of horrific crimes ? Or is he the blandly inscrutable, distantly adoring husband , his reluctant aristocratic bride Snow Soong describes ? In an extract from her private journal , she tells of the couple’s bizarre honeymoon in Malaysia’s Seven Maidens islands .Or do we believe the third narrative ? This from Johnny’s friend Peter Wormwood’s geriatric days in an Oriental people’s old age home. Wormwood describes a simple and likeable Johnny, in chapters that shift between landscaping the old age home and his memories of the strange honeymoon trip, an almost Conradian journey in to the ‘Heart of Darkness’ ?
‘The Harmony Silk Factory’ has received critical acclaim and it’s easy to see why – the novel has all the right elements - plenty of local color in the story of the rise of Johnny from his days as a brilliant mechanic in the tin mines of Malaya ,as well as the strange tale of a bizarre jungle honeymoon shared with an odd set of characters. There’s suave Japanese military man in disguise, Kunichika , also titled ‘Butcher of Kampar’, English tin mine owner Honey Fredrick , Peter Wormwood and of course Johnny and Snow . Add to that the novel’s narrative complexity of multiple points of view, its themes of appearance and reality and the heart of darkness where the jungle takes over (‘Broken branches littered the place I worked so hard to cleanse, and above us the canopy of leaves suddenly seemed more opaque than ever’). All very promising, but the multiple points of view disperse in different directions, minus any shades of Rashomon-like brilliance, and the story remains rather unraveled despite the dramatic denouement. It does however leave you looking out for more from Tash Aw.