Word: valleys
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...Okay-lah. Yet the sleepy, soggy Kinta Valley comes alive in Aw's fluid prose, and the mythical Seven Maidens are as idyllic as any Malaysian isles. World War II and the cloud of collaboration hang over Johnny and his country, while the absurdities of British rule clearly shape his urge to become rich and cultured. Of course, these are concerns shared by people throughout Asia, Africa and other places who have known foreign domination and who have their own quiet valleys and lush islands to treasure in this age of onrushing development. Aw's triumph is to have produced...
...book is about Lim Seng Chin, a.k.a. Johnny Lim, a poor boy of Hakka roots who rises to become a communist agent, then a Japanese collaborator and eventually the wealthiest man in the tin-laden Kinta Valley during and after World War II. The "factory" is a nondescript shophouse Johnny buys in 1942 to serve as home and headquarters for his many business schemes. "Our house was not the kind of place just anyone could visit," writes Johnny's only son Jasper, the first of the book's three narrators. "To be invited, you had to be like my father...
...Having grown up tracking his father's venality, Jasper has little use for the man. But two other observers provide a less sinister account. Snow Soong, daughter of the biggest Chinese tin magnate in the valley, is a willowy beauty whom Johnny woos and weds through guile and determination. Barely a year later Snow dies giving birth to Jasper, but not before producing a diary that forms the second narrative. It depicts Johnny as a clueless bumpkin whom she can't wait to ditch, probably for a suave, handsome Japanese professor named Kunichika who has befriended her parents...
LOIS BLAIR -- Scotts Valley, Calif...
...team is getting some rescue training this weekend from an expert in Mt. Washington Valley,” Krause says...