Word: kowloon
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Novels do not ordinarily dabble with too much exactitude in current events or upcoming headlines; fiction writers hope, after all, that their work will outlast the rapid stream of passing fancies. But Paul Theroux's Kowloon Tong (Houghton Mifflin; 243 pages; $23) arrives as a noteworthy exception to that rule. On June 30 Britain will end its long-term ownership and control of Hong Kong and hand over the colony to the People's Republic of China. Hot off the presses, Kowloon Tong offers Theroux's imaginative version of how some Hong Kong residents have fared--and will fare...
...with his widowed mother Betty in a Hong Kong house called, in honor of their native land, Albion Cottage. The late George Mullard left his wife and son, nicknamed Bunt, half-ownership of Imperial Stitching, a garment-manufacturing firm located in an eight-story building in Hong Kong's Kowloon Tong district. The unexpected death, in early 1996, of Mr. Chuck, the refugee from China who co-founded and owns the other half of Imperial Stitching, leaves the whole shebang to the Mullards, mother and son. Their pleasure in assuming full control is dampened somewhat by the prospect...
This paraphrase of Margaret Thatcher's comment after meeting Mikhail Gorbachev pretty much tips Theroux's hand in Kowloon Tong. He is aiming at broad political satire, and nearly any target will do. Both the Mullards are contemptible. She is a snob about all things British who calls the Chinese "Chinky-Chonks" and tells her host at a Chinese restaurant, "Nothing personal, but we don't touch Chinese food. Never did. All the grease, all the glue. And it's always so wet. Makes me want to spew." Bunt, for his part, is a pathetic mama...
Readers who like to take sides will not find palatable choices in Kowloon Tong. Theroux's distaste for everyone involved in his tale registers clearly and often brilliantly. But it seems reasonable to hope that his vision of the near future is unduly dyspeptic, and that fiction will be stranger than truth...
BOOKS . . . KOWLOON TONG: On June 30 Britain will end its long-term ownership and control of Hong Kong and hand over the colony to the People?s Republic of China. Hot off the presses, Paul Theroux?s ?Kowloon Tong? (Houghton Mifflin; 243 pages; $23) offers Theroux?s imaginative version of how some Hong Kong residents have fared -- and will fare -- in the face of such a monumental and imminent change, writes TIME Literary Critic Paul Gray. Neville Mullard, 43, lives with his widowed mother Betty in a Hong Kong house called, in honor of their native land, Albion Cottage...