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Carregando... Fragrant Harbour (2002)de John Lanchester
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Registre-se no LibraryThing tpara descobrir se gostará deste livro. Ainda não há conversas na Discussão sobre este livro. En 1935 Tom Stewart, un joven inglés, deja un tranquilo futuro al frente del pub familiar y parte en busca de aventuras. En el barco que lo lleva a Hong Kong conoce a Maria, una joven monja china que le enseña cantonés. Muchos años después, en los noventa, Dawn Stone, una cínica periodista aburrida de su vida en Londres, se instalará en Honk Kong, donde sus malévolas crónicas sobre los millonarios locales atraerán la atención del dueño de la revista que los publica, un potentado con un perfil más que turbio. Y también encontrará una nueva vida Matthew Ho, un niño refugiado cuyo padre fue víctima de la revolución cultural en China, y ahora es un joven empresario que lucha por su empresa entre las convulsiones de la economía de mercado y las presiones de las mafias locales. En torno a estos tres personajes, bulle la otra protagonista de la novela, la mítica Hong Kong, la colonia exótica y ahora la moderna ciudad de expatriados y el frenético laboratorio del capitalismo moderno. John Lanchester is one of my favorite writers and this book is beautifully written in parts. It is also ambitious in structure: the greater part follows the career of Tom, an expat hotelier in Hong Kong from the 30s through the war and into the 1960s. This is framed by some present day action, mostly concerning the business interests of Tom's grandson. The long center section is interesting and Tom is a convincing character. I cannot say the same for the framing sections at the beginning and end of the novel, which were much less interesting and even opaque to me. Lanchester's more recent novel, Capital, is much better and I would recommend highly. Lanchester writes on economics and I love his lucid and involving nonfiction pieces many of which appear in LRB. To the extent I understand credit default swaps, I owe entirely to his great book called IOU: Why Everyone Owes Everyone and No One Can Pay. sem resenhas | adicionar uma resenha
Prêmios
Fragrant Harbour is the story of four people whose intertwined lives span Asia's last seventy years. Tom Stewart leaves England just before it is hit by the Great Depression to seek his fortune, and finds it in running Hong Kong's best hotel. Sister Maria is a beautiful and uncompromising Chinese nun whom Stewart meets on the boat out from England; their friendship spans decades and changes both their lives. Dawn Stone is an English journalist who becomes the public face of money and power and big business. Matthew Ho is a young Chinese entrepreneur whose life has been shaped by painful choices made long before his birth, and who is now facing his own difficulties, and opportunities in the twenty-first century.The complacency of colonial life in the 1930s; the horrors of the Japanese occupation during the Second World War; the post-war boom and transformation of Hong Kong into a laboratory of capitalism at its most cut-throat; the growth of the Triads; the handover of the city to the Chinese - all are present in Fragrant Harbouran epic novel Não foram encontradas descrições de bibliotecas. |
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Google Books — Carregando... GênerosClassificação decimal de Dewey (CDD)823.914Literature English & Old English literatures English fiction Modern Period 1901-1999 1945-1999Classificação da Biblioteca do Congresso dos E.U.A. (LCC)AvaliaçãoMédia:
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A wonderful idea of what Hong Kong was like in the 30’s and then during WWII all the way through the handover back to China.
The fictional story woven into this time is also fantastic.
This is a really good book. ( )