Reviews for Breaking the Tongue

The average rating for Breaking the Tongue based on 2 reviews is 2.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2016-03-26 00:00:00 Thomas Toppman It's pretty telling when an entire class of students, including the lecturer who assigned the text as a reading requirement in the first place, decides to drop this novel from the course because nobody wants to go through with it. To be fair, we had gone through a number of novels dealing with Malaysian and Singaporean literature during the early days of independence so we may have been slightly less forgiving. There are so many issues in this book that reading it was actually infuriating! Before I got a copy, I read reviews saying that it has a complex plot, rich narration and an experimental style. It's even compared to Jonathan Safran Foer's "Everything is Illuminated" which is one of my all-time favourite novels. I was definitely pumped to dive into this book. However, everything that has been described as its plus points are so badly executed. Complex plot? More like a convoluted storyline with about seven main characters. There are two main "main" characters but even the most minor character has a moment in the spotlight for some reason. And the author decides to do this by dividing each page of the novel with POVs from multiple characters. So, a paragraph about Claude, the main protagonist, then another paragraph for another character, then another ... It's a complete mess. I don't enjoy being mentally thrown around to several different characters at once. I have no idea why anyone would think this is a good idea. If anything, it makes you indifferent as none of the characters are engaging enough for you to care. So, when there's a big reveal, like a character turns out to be a spy for the Japanese all along, there is no big pay off because you forgot who that character is! The only character that I find interesting is Ling-Li and it is a shame that the book is not focusing entirely on her. Also, one of the major flaws of this book for me is that it is written for Western audiences in mind. Although I am Malaysian, Singapore and Malaysia have very similar socio-political issues especially during the Japanese occupation. Basically, I didn't need to be hand held to understand what is going on. However, since this book is written for Western audiences, a lot of nuances regarding the politics of that time have been replaced with rather simplistic portrayals. Race issues are handled pretty much on the surface as though the author fears people would not understand what is going on or what is at stake. It results in a rather dull portrayal of the problems at the time, leaving you to mentally go, "Well duh". Cliches abound. Some characters and scenes are represented to showcase obvious stance in some issue or other. It is not very enlightening. I gave up reading this book halfway because I really couldn't bring myself to care. To be honest, I probably would not have been so dismissive if it is not composed in the way that it is. I only started to enjoy the book when there are longer parts that focus on only one character only rather than a patchwork of 5 different characters. I do not recommend this novel.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-01-17 00:00:00 Regina Shores I finished this one a few days ago, but had to give myself a few days to sift through everything, try to figure out how I could possibly explain this book in a way that would do it justice. The Lims - father Humphrey, mother Cynthia, Grandma Soik, teenaged Claude, and little sister Lucy - are an English-speaking Chinese family living in British-ruled Singapore during WWII. None of them, save Grandma Soik, speaks or understands Chinese. They all enjoy the upper-class life Humphrey's bank job buys and seem to be a perfect family, but only till you get to know them. Humphrey's unquestioning adoration of all things British drives Cynthia into a clandestine cycle of self-destructive behavior. Grandma Soik reads all the time from *The Art of War* and tries (with no great success - one session ended with the children covered in fire ants) to teach the children life strategy lessons. Lucy - well, it's hard to say what Lucy's struggle was, as she was a mostly peripheral character til the very end of the book. Our main focus, though, is Claude. Claude, he never knew where or how he fit in. He was Chinese, raised in British-ruled Thailand, by an Angophile father. He found the "natives" distasteful, but at the same time, the British considered {i}him{/i} an English-speaking, well-mannered "native", and treated him accordingly. Claude deals by withdrawing and detaching, acting out passiv-aggressively when he's forced to entertain Jack, a British family aquaintance. Shortly after, Japan invades, and Britan loses her nerve. The Lims' cushy ride is over. This crisis throws Claude in closer than he ever wanted to be with Jack, but it also crosses his path with Ling-Li, who is a spy. As Singapore falls, the triangle of Claude, Ling-Li, and Jack is formed. *Breaking the Tongue* burrows through layer upon layer of uncomfortable racial ickyness till it gets to the core of Claude's identity. He's dual-natured, his upbringing conflicting with his heritage to the very end of the book. It's a gorgeous, visceral, heartbreaking story. The only downfall was the format - it was so segmented, it was like a toddler's attention span. Seriously. Page-breaks all over the place, characters dropping in and out, plot threads running everywhere. The best word I can think of to describe it is kalidescopic. Or maybe fragmented. Anyway. Four stars.