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louise_jb0's review
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.0
unabridgedchick's review against another edition
3.0
This is the kind of historical fiction that educates, effortlessly. Set in Singapore, spanning 1927 through 1946, this novel was a unique read for me in that it covered an era I love in a setting wholly unfamiliar to me. Chand's characters aren't royalty or society elite but every day people caught up in a changing landscape; real historical moments meet the every day.
Chand's focus in this novel is on three primary groups in Singapore: the Eurasians -- Howard Burns, his mother, and his sister, local citizens of indigenous and European descent, viewed by the white Europeans as only a step above 'natives'; the transplanted Indians -- Raj Sherma, who migrated to Singapore for economic independence and ends up embroiled with the Japanese by a twist of fate; and the Chinese -- Mei Lan, a smart young woman whose family straddles modern European ideas and traditional Chinese culture and is caught, herself, between accepting her family's wishes and starting off on her own.
In almost any novel, the lives of women interest me most, so I was unsurprised to find that Mei Lan's story grabbed me immediately. However, Chand's detailed plotting, character development, and nuanced study of race, class, and education sucked me and I ended up caring deeply for both Raj and Howard as well. Even though I think the jacket blurb tries to imply a love triangle, this isn't just a historical romance set up in an exotic locale. This is really a novel about Singapore and the occupation of the land, first by the British and then by the Japanese. Identity and alliance is intrinsic to the story. Howard's mother, Rose, perceives the European disdain for Eurasions to be right and appropriate while Howard chafes at the implication. Raj struggles to rectify his experiences with the Japanese -- every one he's met has mentored and educated him -- with the virulent anti-Japanese sentiment in Singapore. Both Howard and Raj are captivated by Gandhi's anti-colonial revolutionary actions in India, but are split as to whether Singapore should take up the movement. Mei Lan is desirous of the university education her brother is given, but feels committed to her Chinese identity especially when news of Japanese brutalities in China reach Singapore.
Like Nevil Shute's A Town Like Alice, this book covers the before, during, and after of occupation, and I appreciated Chand's ability to offer the spectrum of emotional responses. My only complaint is that despite the novel's length (483 pages), some moments felt thin and underdeveloped. Enormous events are skipped over, casually alluded to, and years pass with only a vague comment. The dips in and out of the lives of the secondary characters was both enjoyable and maddening: I loved the additional facets through which the story was told but I was frustrated by the lack of development and resolution with them, as they were as compelling as the leads.
This was my first Meira Chand novel but I'm absolutely going to look for the rest of her books: this was a meaty, engrossing, sink-your-teeth-into historical novel that will stay with me. I'm haunted by the characters and I wish I could follow them another twenty years.
Chand's focus in this novel is on three primary groups in Singapore: the Eurasians -- Howard Burns, his mother, and his sister, local citizens of indigenous and European descent, viewed by the white Europeans as only a step above 'natives'; the transplanted Indians -- Raj Sherma, who migrated to Singapore for economic independence and ends up embroiled with the Japanese by a twist of fate; and the Chinese -- Mei Lan, a smart young woman whose family straddles modern European ideas and traditional Chinese culture and is caught, herself, between accepting her family's wishes and starting off on her own.
In almost any novel, the lives of women interest me most, so I was unsurprised to find that Mei Lan's story grabbed me immediately. However, Chand's detailed plotting, character development, and nuanced study of race, class, and education sucked me and I ended up caring deeply for both Raj and Howard as well. Even though I think the jacket blurb tries to imply a love triangle, this isn't just a historical romance set up in an exotic locale. This is really a novel about Singapore and the occupation of the land, first by the British and then by the Japanese. Identity and alliance is intrinsic to the story. Howard's mother, Rose, perceives the European disdain for Eurasions to be right and appropriate while Howard chafes at the implication. Raj struggles to rectify his experiences with the Japanese -- every one he's met has mentored and educated him -- with the virulent anti-Japanese sentiment in Singapore. Both Howard and Raj are captivated by Gandhi's anti-colonial revolutionary actions in India, but are split as to whether Singapore should take up the movement. Mei Lan is desirous of the university education her brother is given, but feels committed to her Chinese identity especially when news of Japanese brutalities in China reach Singapore.
Like Nevil Shute's A Town Like Alice, this book covers the before, during, and after of occupation, and I appreciated Chand's ability to offer the spectrum of emotional responses. My only complaint is that despite the novel's length (483 pages), some moments felt thin and underdeveloped. Enormous events are skipped over, casually alluded to, and years pass with only a vague comment. The dips in and out of the lives of the secondary characters was both enjoyable and maddening: I loved the additional facets through which the story was told but I was frustrated by the lack of development and resolution with them, as they were as compelling as the leads.
This was my first Meira Chand novel but I'm absolutely going to look for the rest of her books: this was a meaty, engrossing, sink-your-teeth-into historical novel that will stay with me. I'm haunted by the characters and I wish I could follow them another twenty years.
jeanetterenee's review against another edition
4.0
This took some time to get through thanks to the small print and density of the prose, but it was effort well spent. The story often lacks momentum, but the payoff for a little patience is a wealth of fascinating detail about Singapore from 1927 through 1956.
Chand explores the mix of ethnicities in Singapore and the racial hierarchy resulting from British colonial rule. She weaves together the lives of several major and minor characters representing all levels of that hierarchy, including Indian, Malay, Chinese, Japanese, Eurasian, and British.
The story begins and ends with citizens agitating for freedom from British rule. In between is World War II and the atrocities of Japanese occupation. That brutality is faithfully represented, along with the ruin Singaporeans faced when the war ended.
The author lives in Singapore and sought assistance from native sources, so her narrative has that ring of authenticity and gobs of local flavor.
If you cannot abide flaws in the mechanics of writing, this novel may try your patience. Chand dangles more modifiers than anyone I've ever read, leading to some puzzling and amusing constructions. I have to paraphrase, as I no longer have the book, but one example that made me laugh said something like "He had received a request to meet with BK in a ball of sticky rice." Hmmm...interesting choice of meeting place...
Chand is also prone to excessive use of past perfect tense, especially in the first half of the book. I confess, this did begin to get on my nerves. Just plain past tense is so much easier to read.
I was happy to overlook the writing flaws for the sake of my strong interest in the topic. I mention the errors only because some people cannot bear them.
Chand explores the mix of ethnicities in Singapore and the racial hierarchy resulting from British colonial rule. She weaves together the lives of several major and minor characters representing all levels of that hierarchy, including Indian, Malay, Chinese, Japanese, Eurasian, and British.
The story begins and ends with citizens agitating for freedom from British rule. In between is World War II and the atrocities of Japanese occupation. That brutality is faithfully represented, along with the ruin Singaporeans faced when the war ended.
The author lives in Singapore and sought assistance from native sources, so her narrative has that ring of authenticity and gobs of local flavor.
If you cannot abide flaws in the mechanics of writing, this novel may try your patience. Chand dangles more modifiers than anyone I've ever read, leading to some puzzling and amusing constructions. I have to paraphrase, as I no longer have the book, but one example that made me laugh said something like "He had received a request to meet with BK in a ball of sticky rice." Hmmm...interesting choice of meeting place...
Chand is also prone to excessive use of past perfect tense, especially in the first half of the book. I confess, this did begin to get on my nerves. Just plain past tense is so much easier to read.
I was happy to overlook the writing flaws for the sake of my strong interest in the topic. I mention the errors only because some people cannot bear them.
zararah's review against another edition
4.0
One to read if you're in an emotionally stable place; this is brutal, and heartbreaking. Left me thinking about the book when I wasn't reading it, but knowing that reading it would make me sad. I'm glad I did, but it's a tough read in terms of topic matter. Beautifully written, and all too easy to establish an emotional connection with the main characters (which makes the events in the book even harder to read!)
reallifereading's review
“The races don’t mix here, you see. Chinese keep to themselves in Chinatown, as do the Malays in Geylang, the Indians in Serangoon Road, the Eurasians in their Eurasian pockets and we of course, being the ruling race, can’t afford to hobnob with any of them. Live apart, work apart, socialize apart. That old adage, familiarity breeds contempt, is more true than we know.”
Oh Singapore, land of my birth and residence for most of my 30-odd years of life. So I suppose I should know you well. But really, my Singapore is one from the 1980s onward, and having lived here in the US for a few years now, perhaps I don’t know Singapore as it is today anymore. It is after all a country that changes so much in such a short span of time. Buildings get pulled down and replaced, roads appear out of nowhere. Shops and restaurants pop up and fade away so quickly. I’m likely to get lost the next time I visit.
But one thing I do know, vaguely that is, is Singapore’s short history, as we were made to learn it in secondary school, although in a dull, bored-out-of-the-eyeballs kind of way. So it was with a little trepidation that I picked up A Different Sky from the library, for Indian-Swiss writer Meira Chand takes us through 1927 Singapore and the unrest stirred up by the communists, through to the horrors of WWII and the subsequent Japanese Occupation of Singapore, then to liberation and the promise of independence.
We first meet our three main characters on a trolley in Kreta Ayer, which has been stopped by communist demonstrating during the second anniversary of Sun Yat-Sen’s death. Young Howard is with his anxious mum Rose, little Mei Lan is on an outing with her amah Ah Siew, and Raj is heading back to the cloth shop in Serangoon Road where he works.
Their lives are so different, and Chand makes full use of her disparate characters to illustrate the broadness of Singapore society. Mei Lan, born into an elite Chinese family whose fortunes have now fallen. Howard, a Eurasian, furious at the way his people are treated by the colonial British. Indian-born Raj, an enterprising youth interested in working hard and making his fortune. Their lives intertwine in these tumultuous years of change, although early on, the different races tend to keep to their own kind.
Here I have to interrupt and add that Singapore was founded by the British in 1819 and became a major trade city, attracting many settlers from Malaya and the rest of Asia, especially China and India. During World War II, Singapore was occupied by the Japanese from 1942 to 1945. After the war, Singapore reverted to British control, with increasing levels of self-government being granted. It eventually became an independent republic in 1965.
“Howard found he had returned to a place of shifting landscapes, regroupigs, realignments and new beginnings. Singapore was now a place of strikes, mass meetings and general unrest, stirred up by communist activists and socialist-minded nationalists. Assassinations were commonplace, as was the sight of rioting school children proficient in mayhem as much as in study.”
While a work of fiction, Chand draws on important historical figures of Singapore such as its first Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, Japanese diplomat Mamoru Shinozaki (credited as the ‘Japanese Schindler’ for saving many Chinese and Eurasians during the Japanese occupation of Singapore), Singapore’s first Chief Minister David Marshall etc. Chand succeeds in bringing to life these crucial events in Singapore’s history. Perhaps if I had read this book in secondary school, I might have appreciated Singapore’s history more. Chand weaves in plenty of well-researched details about life in Singapore during those various times, perhaps the most interesting of which were the ethnic divides – Europeans vs everyone else:
“You can’t trust the Asiatics; most of the Malays are illiterate and, except for a minority of Straits Chinese who have been educated in English-medium schools, none of that lot can speak our language, and neither do the Indians, by and large. We depend upon the Eurasians to manage everything for us. They’re a dependable lot.”
The Eurasians, in particular, have a tenuous place in Singapore society, a “people of shadows”. Rose’s family, for instance, is described as such:
“Her ancestors carried the names of disparate European cultures: Pereira, Martens, Rodrigues, de Souza, O’Patrick, Thomas, McIntyre, van der Ven. Washed upon the shores of Malaya these men married local women, and their children then intermarried again and again until a hybrid people was formed.”
Yet for all it’s lush sweaty historical details, it is hard to really sink into this book. Perhaps its (too) many characters, and the way they are put together to showcase different aspects of Singapore’s history and its diversity, put me off a little. It felt a bit too heavy-handed. Still it makes a great introduction to Singapore, its history and its people.
Oh Singapore, land of my birth and residence for most of my 30-odd years of life. So I suppose I should know you well. But really, my Singapore is one from the 1980s onward, and having lived here in the US for a few years now, perhaps I don’t know Singapore as it is today anymore. It is after all a country that changes so much in such a short span of time. Buildings get pulled down and replaced, roads appear out of nowhere. Shops and restaurants pop up and fade away so quickly. I’m likely to get lost the next time I visit.
But one thing I do know, vaguely that is, is Singapore’s short history, as we were made to learn it in secondary school, although in a dull, bored-out-of-the-eyeballs kind of way. So it was with a little trepidation that I picked up A Different Sky from the library, for Indian-Swiss writer Meira Chand takes us through 1927 Singapore and the unrest stirred up by the communists, through to the horrors of WWII and the subsequent Japanese Occupation of Singapore, then to liberation and the promise of independence.
We first meet our three main characters on a trolley in Kreta Ayer, which has been stopped by communist demonstrating during the second anniversary of Sun Yat-Sen’s death. Young Howard is with his anxious mum Rose, little Mei Lan is on an outing with her amah Ah Siew, and Raj is heading back to the cloth shop in Serangoon Road where he works.
Their lives are so different, and Chand makes full use of her disparate characters to illustrate the broadness of Singapore society. Mei Lan, born into an elite Chinese family whose fortunes have now fallen. Howard, a Eurasian, furious at the way his people are treated by the colonial British. Indian-born Raj, an enterprising youth interested in working hard and making his fortune. Their lives intertwine in these tumultuous years of change, although early on, the different races tend to keep to their own kind.
Here I have to interrupt and add that Singapore was founded by the British in 1819 and became a major trade city, attracting many settlers from Malaya and the rest of Asia, especially China and India. During World War II, Singapore was occupied by the Japanese from 1942 to 1945. After the war, Singapore reverted to British control, with increasing levels of self-government being granted. It eventually became an independent republic in 1965.
“Howard found he had returned to a place of shifting landscapes, regroupigs, realignments and new beginnings. Singapore was now a place of strikes, mass meetings and general unrest, stirred up by communist activists and socialist-minded nationalists. Assassinations were commonplace, as was the sight of rioting school children proficient in mayhem as much as in study.”
While a work of fiction, Chand draws on important historical figures of Singapore such as its first Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, Japanese diplomat Mamoru Shinozaki (credited as the ‘Japanese Schindler’ for saving many Chinese and Eurasians during the Japanese occupation of Singapore), Singapore’s first Chief Minister David Marshall etc. Chand succeeds in bringing to life these crucial events in Singapore’s history. Perhaps if I had read this book in secondary school, I might have appreciated Singapore’s history more. Chand weaves in plenty of well-researched details about life in Singapore during those various times, perhaps the most interesting of which were the ethnic divides – Europeans vs everyone else:
“You can’t trust the Asiatics; most of the Malays are illiterate and, except for a minority of Straits Chinese who have been educated in English-medium schools, none of that lot can speak our language, and neither do the Indians, by and large. We depend upon the Eurasians to manage everything for us. They’re a dependable lot.”
The Eurasians, in particular, have a tenuous place in Singapore society, a “people of shadows”. Rose’s family, for instance, is described as such:
“Her ancestors carried the names of disparate European cultures: Pereira, Martens, Rodrigues, de Souza, O’Patrick, Thomas, McIntyre, van der Ven. Washed upon the shores of Malaya these men married local women, and their children then intermarried again and again until a hybrid people was formed.”
Yet for all it’s lush sweaty historical details, it is hard to really sink into this book. Perhaps its (too) many characters, and the way they are put together to showcase different aspects of Singapore’s history and its diversity, put me off a little. It felt a bit too heavy-handed. Still it makes a great introduction to Singapore, its history and its people.
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