Attain We, The Survivors Expressed By Tash Aw Conveyed As Booklet

The Survivors surrounds Ah Hock, a MalaysianChinese man from a coastal village that accidentally murdered a Bangladeshi,

Don't be fool by the summary as it isn't about the murder, but the struggles of a Bthebottom income community that barely make the cut for survival.


It depicts the differential treatment towards the rural community, exploitation of foreign workers and the apathetic of upper class towards others,

The book is filled with Malaysianness, The local slang 'meh', 'lah' etc, and Cantonese are infused in the conversation, The act of bribing the authorities and our 'inborn' instinct to blame the foreigners for crimes, Also, a multilevel marketing company from America cough that Ah Hock's wife falls into,

I couldn't say I'm a fan of Tash Aw's writing, The sentences are crammed with words and descriptions, As it's a 'sliceoflife' story, there isn't a plot to proprel through, which made it a tough read,

However, I do think this book did a great job of depicting the lives of low economic classes in Malaysia and the struggles in surviving this bleak nation.
Even though the story is set in thes, it remains timely and relevant,

Rating :.This was a Shelterbox Book Club pick that I was quite behind on, and I found myself reading it amongst other books I'd committed to, I don't usually read more than one book at a time, and I'm annoyed I did it with this one as I think it would have hit even harder had I devoted my full attention to it.
Having said that, I still thought it was really good,

On the face of it this is a story about Ah Hock a Chinese man from a Malaysian fishing village who is being interviewed about a murder he committed.
He has served his time, and is now on parole his crime and victim are known, but what isn't understood is why he did it, During these interviews, Ah Hock examines his life from all angles not just the events that led up to him killing a man, but his whole existence, And that's where this book departs from the surface, and dives so much deeper, looking at the immigrant experience, migrant workers, poverty, friendship, race and class,

I can't lie, this is a bleak and almost stark book, But I was very invested in not only what Ah Hock's reasons for his crime were, but in understanding the trajectory his life took, For me, the murder itself isn't the most devastating or interesting part of this story at all, I will say, some of my enjoyment of this book was less about the story and more about understanding the realities of a country and culture that I haven't read about before.
However, that isn't to say that the almost memoirlike quality of the narrative was without it's own merit, as it absolutely was,

Very compelling. This book reminded me of Camu's "L'etranger" Ah Hock, a Malaysian villager of Chinese descent who is telling the story, commits a random act of violence and we slowly find out why.
It's a disconcerting story of social inequality set in Malaysia and how people cope with hardship and poverty in Asia it's a very compelling tale but emotionally challenging.



"But the truth is that there is no because, And because there is no because, there is also no why, He did what he did, Sometimes things happen that way, Or maybe the because was buried so far in his past that its impossible to figure out what it is, so it ceases to be real, "

We, the Survivors by Tash Aw is a poignant story of a middleclass Malaysian man named Ah Hock released from prison recently after serving the time for murdering a Bangladeshi migrant worker.
SuMin who had been doing research for her studies in America returned to Malaysia and interviewed Ah Hock about his life which later turned into book,

Ah Hock was from a Malaysian fishing village living with his mother, His father eft for Singapore when he was young and never returned, The struggling life of Ah Hock and his mother was rough, He happened to befriend with Keong, a thuggish boy from his village a few years older than him, Just like other youths, they wanted to leave the village and dreamt to become tycoons in a city, They went to Kuala Lumpur and worked random jobs, Ah Hock had his own set of moral value, He worked in restaurants whereas Keong worked as a drug smuggler, Soon, he managed to separate Keong from his life,

Years later, Ah Hock was working as a fore man in a plantation, Though uneducated, he was a diligent and hard working person, He got married and though he had not become a tycoon, he was somewhat enjoying his life, One day, he received a call from Keong and reconnected with him, Regarding a serious situation at work, Ah Hock reluctantly asked help from Keong which led to turn Ah Hock's life upside down,

From the beginning, Tash Aw let the readers know that Ah Hock murdered a man but we don't know why he did it or how it occurred.
It is not a mystery or thriller kind of novel that unravels the homicide case, I get to know Ah Hock's life from the beginning of his childhood including the misfortune family affairs, the struggles with poverty and rise from it as well as his working life and married life as an adult.


Through the interviews, his life is unfold, Although it is told in Ah Hock's narration, I believe it is not to diminish the crime he committed but to showcase the dull yet strenuous life of workingclass people in Malaysia.
At the same time, distressing lives and obscurity of migrant workers from Bangladesh, Burma, Indonesia, and Nepal as well as Rohingya refugees were attentively portrayed,

Many times in the story, I see Ah Hock's shoulda, coulda, woulda moments, Regrets for doing this or not doing that and most of them are related to his association with Keong, His conversations with SuMin are interlaced between his recount on his life, In a glimpse, the reader gets to see insights of an intellectual like SuMin, Though it may not portray the entire upper class or the intellectuals, it is an interesting read, Aw's storytelling is crafty and evocative, Sometimes brisk as the necessity of plot but most of the time steady and compassionate,

The story brought the reader's attention with a homicidal plot at the beginning but Aw doesn't rush in telling how it occurred, He takes time in telling Ah Hock's story, After reading it, I contemplate on the importance of the narrative in the stories, Of course there will be differences between how others tell our stories and how we tell our own even each of us tell the truth, Some won't see the adversity faced by the bluecollar people from their perspective, Some will only tell what they see from their point of view, If you read FIVE STAR BILLIONAIREas I have, and loved it, as I did, the first thing youll notice in this new novel by Tash Aw is that these two books are quite different in scope and depth.
FSB was what I would call literary mainstream, But WE, THE SURVIVORS is more intimate, literary, and not so mainstream, Its for readers who can submerge into an enclosed, at times crushing portrait of a Malaysian mans life, ruled by poverty as a child, who tried to rise above and maintain a decent level of equitable improvement.
Ah Hock wanted a middleclass life and ended up in prison for killing a man, And this is his story to an educated, worldly reporter after his stint in prison, the story of his life,

This isnt a mystery or thriller the story of homicide is less poignant than the story of Ah Hocks survival, ambition, and his struggling rise from poverty in a villagemiles from Kuala Lumpur.
He grew up in thes, in a village that was isolated before industrialization led to bridges, roads, and passages closer to the city,

Ah Hocks obscure beginnings relied on fishing and later the fish factories, His father left for Singapore when he was young and never returned, leaving his mother to fend for them, Her own evolution was rough, but she did teach Ah Hock the will to survive above all, After he met a friend of sorts, Keong, a much older boy that was a hustler and wannabe gangster, Ah Hock began to develop his own kind of values and attitude related to the word at large.
His ambition in youth was to be a tycoon, but as he matured, he longed to work in a comfortable job with a nice salary, and find a good wife.
Although he tried to shake off his association with Keong, the hustler would reappear in his life, a magnet for trouble, Keong still wanted his big dreams of becoming a tycoon,

This is not a fast paced or actionpacked book, It is a measured, unhurried, and nonlinear portrayal of a young mans life, and the choices he made, The author explores themes of heritage, hope, and fate, as well as attitudes toward immigrants and the implications of the class system, But it never patronizes or preaches, Tash Aw is a keen writer who gives a finely wrought depiction of one mans life of hope and dreams, “The more we longed for something, the more impossible it became, You only dream about things you can never obtain, ”

There are also subtle things about the rhythms of village life, the effects of modernization on outlook, and the desire for obscurity by Ah Hocks ancestors who lived through war and preferred invisibility to transparency, and how fate shapes our character.
Besides Ah Hock, we are intimately drawn in to the lives of the people hed knownfamily, friends, wife, workers, acquaintances, Many of the passages were penetrating, painful, flanged with regretbut often with the bittersweet tides of hope,

“What shed hated back then, she now loved: the sense of continuity, of surrenderingthe pulling in of her horizons, the comfort to be found in the death of ambition.
”

Thank

you to the publishers of Farrar, Straus and Giroux for sending me a copy, .