Bangkok 8: WTF?

[sub_divided]

Posted a review of Bangkok 8 (first in the bestselling Royal Thai Police mystery series by John Burdett) to wtfdidijustread, manticore's community for weird fiction. Puu originally started this community for Natsuhiko Kyogoku's Summer of the Ubume which I also read this week (thoughts to come).

Here's an excerpt from my Bangkok 8 review:

Here's the premise: a meth addict turned Buddhist arhat turned non-corrupt cop (that is, he doesn't take bribes only because he has renounced all material desire on the path to enlightenment) is following orders when his partner and soul brother, whom he loves more than life itself, dies. The rest of the novel follows Sonchai's quest for revenge.

There are some standards of the genre, namely, a beautiful American FBI agent who is assigned to work with Sonchai and develops feelings for him. Frankly I am not sure why the romantic subplot is even included in the book other than perhaps Burdett cynically figured he could move more units by including something like this on the back cover copy.

Another standard of the genre - though done exceptionally well here - is the humor that comes from Sonchai's amateur ethnographizing. He is the son of a very successful whore and spent time as a boy in Paris, Berlin, Hong Kong, and Miami - his English is impeccable and sarcastic, and he loves to philosophize on the differences between Southeast Asian ways and the ways of the industrialized West.

Less standard in crime fiction, even crime fiction set in Southeast Asia, is Sonchai's - the author's - hilariously deadpan existentialist humor. Buddhist flavored!

More here. Note that you really DON'T want to highlight the spoiler text - trust me, you want to read the novel instead - even though the resolution to the mystery is SERIOUSLY WEIRD and is the reason I was moved to post this review to wtfdidijustread in the first place.

Comments

[karalee]

Tossed it into my cart on Amazon XD;;;;;; Probably won't buy it until I rack up enough stuff for free shipping, but it sounds too amazingly hilarious not to try!

[sub_divided]

It's great! Sadly I can report that the author does run out of ideas after this book - plots about the porn biz and bigshot lawyers, really John Burnett? Buddhist existentialism is confined to a half page about global warming? Sonchai has given up a life of desperation for the profits from [spoiler]?

Bangkok 8 reads fine as a oneshot, though, so that's okay. XD

[karalee]

Okay I finished it and ... the end ... WTF indeed o_____O

I didn't catch the bit about unnecessary suffering actually, hmm. I'm not sure if I saw that in the book - or did I just miss a passage somewhere, you know my swiss-cheese reading failure ...

And the, uh, how the end involves Sonchai's old partner, okay, good, I thought I was hallucinating or just REALLY CONFUSED. Thanks for your write up XDDDDDD IT CLEARED UP A FEW THINGS.

[sub_divided]

I could have sworn I replied to this months ago???

You don't think the morality of the author is "anything goes, but suffering is bad"? That's what I got out of it. It's a pretty idiosyncratic moral code Songchai has, XD.