Joined: 22 Jul 2006 Posts: 2143 Birthday: 10th June
Location: Scottish Borders
Posted: Wed Jul 15, 2009 10:55 pm Post subject: The Hungry Ghosts - Anne Berry
From Amazon:
Quote:
A novel for those who loved Behind the Scenes at the Museum, The Poisonwood Bible and The Lovely Bones. Raped then murdered in Japanese occupied Hong Kong, 1942, Lin Shui's 'Hungry Ghost' clings tenaciously to life. Holing up in a hospital morgue, destined to become a school, just in time she finds a host off whom to feed. It is 12-year-old Alice Safford, the deeply-troubled daughter of a leading figure in government. The parasitic ghost follows her to her home on the Peak. There, the lethal mix of the two, embroiled in the family's web of dark secrets and desperate lies, unleashes chaos. All this unfolds against a background of colonial unrest, riots, extremes of weather and the countdown to the return of the colony to China. As successive tragedies engulf Alice, her ghostly entourage swells alarmingly. She flees to England, then France, in a bid to escape the past, only to find her portable 'Hungry Ghosts' have accompanied her. It seems the peace she longs for is to prove far more elusive that she could ever have imagined.The Hungy Ghosts is a remarkable tour-de-force of the imagination, full of instantly memorable characters whose lives intermesh and boil over in a cauldron of domestic mayhem, unleashing unworldly spirits into the troubled air.
The best way to describe this book is weird
I loved learning about Yue Lan, the Hungry Ghosts' Festival, the history of Hong Kong Island and its handover back to China from the UK as well as the relationship between the unlikeable characters and Alice's ghosts. There were a couple of things that bothered me including the mention of Ralph's sister who has a prominent role in Alice's apparent disappearance as she is not mentioned again until near the end of the book. The second thing was Alice's inability to see her ghosts until a certain point. Alice never tells her story though and it is a unique point of view having a ghost describe her feelings.
The format with each chapter following the point of view of a specific character made this book easy to read and with so many different topics including rape, murder, abortion, affairs and mental illness really kept my interest. Unfortunately while there were very real topics covered described in hauntingly graphic detail there was an element of the unbelievable which did border on the comedic.
Spoiler:
Um seriously - decapitated budgie ghost
Annoyingly I have a superproof and it certainly did have super errors which was putting me off the book.
This wasn't a perfectly written book but I'll definitely look out for whatever Anne Berry has in the future.
Joined: 29 Jul 2006 Posts: 4137 Birthday: 12th December
Location: Cumbria
Posted: Thu Jul 16, 2009 8:02 pm Post subject:
I agree it is weird. It did have a few loose ends or unexplained beginings but I think I would read her next book and think she will het better.
This is what I put on Amazon about this book.
The story of this dysfunctional family held my attention and the sights, sounds and colours of Hong Kong were brought to life. The history was interesting because even though I watched the handover of Hong Kong to the Chinese on tv at the time I didn’t know anything about the events that led to it or anything about the life of the people on the island.
The appearance of the first ghost – Lin Shui added to the story but then came the distorted ‘monkey’ which I didn’t feel was the most sensitive description considering what this ghost was in life. The next ghost to appear was plausible but I am afraid the ghost of the headless budgie was over the top and spoiled the story. I wasn’t quite sure if the author was trying to bring a touch of humour with the bird or if she was being serious.
The idea of a different person narrating each chapter worked well and I was satisfied with the way each member of the family ended up in the novel, except for Ralph, I did have a bit of sympathy for him.
For me the book would have been so much better with as a story of a rich, influential but flaw family and with only the one ghost -Lin Shui.
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Born 30/12/08
