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Kowloon Tong: A Novel of Hong Kong
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780395901410
ISBN: 0395901413
Label: Mariner Books
Manufacturer: Mariner Books
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 256
Publication Date: July 06, 1998
Publisher: Mariner Books
Studio: Mariner Books
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Editorial Review:
Paul Theroux, whose inveterate globe-trotting marks him as one of the most restless writers working today, lands us in the Far East with this novel of personal lives swept up in the handover of Hong Kong from Britain to China. But the end of Colonial rule is perfectly unwelcome for Neville Mullard and his mother Betty, who run a textile factory that's been in the family for 50 years, and who have spent a lifetime insulating themselves from the Chinese culture that's all around them. Now, the shadowy and dangerous Mr. Hung wants to buy the business, and he won't take no for an answer--whether or not the Mullards want to sell. Theroux, the author of several travel books, has few equals when it comes to the portrayal of exotic cultures, a skill that makes this one of the first great novels of the Hong Kong handover of 1997.
Ninety-nine years of colonial rule are ending as the British prepare to hand over Hong Kong to China. For Betty Mullard and her son, Bunt, it doesn't concern them - until the mysterious Mr. Hung from the mainland offers them a large sum for their family business. They refuse, yet fail to realize Mr. Hung is unlike the Chinese they've known: he will accept no refusals. When a young female employee whom Bunt has been dating vanishes, he is forced to make important decisions for the first time in his life - but his good intentions are pitted against the will of Mr. Hung and the threat of the ultimate betrayal.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Disappointing. This novel has not aged very well.
This book was a real disappointment for me. An OK but not particularly interesting plot, and no proper conclusion at the end. This novel was written in the run-up to the handover of Hong Kong in 1997, and in hindsight seems rather alarmist and off the mark. Its description of Hong Kong bears very little resemblance to the Hong Kong of today, and I doubt that it really describes the Hong Kong of 1997 either. Its perspective is limited to a small sliver of colonial Hong Kong society, British ... Read More
Rating:  - A pre-97 Hong Kong thriller
Set in the year or two just before the British handover, this book really brings back that strange period of a few years when noone knew quite what was going to happen. Would the Chinese move in with their tanks 1 month early just to make a point? Would capitalism in Hong Kong end? Would the progress made under the British be rolled back and the province absorbed into the mother country without trace? Well of course none of that happened (at least not yet).
As usual Theroux's characters ... Read More
Rating:  - One of Several Essential Books on Hong Kong for Visitors
This Hong Kong classic is both a great read and a great help for Westerners planning to live in, or visit Hong Kong. I first read it when I lived there in the late 90's, even began reading it on the Star Ferry when it came out in early 1997. Bunt is an old "Hong Kong Belonger", British, lives atop Victoria Peak ("the" address to have), has a factory in the district of Kowloon Tong, and has a pretty easy life thanks to the protection of British rule and law in a region better known ... Read More
Rating:  - A cobbled piece of fiction
Paul Theroux's Kowloon Tong (meaning nine-dragon pond, a district in Hong Kong) is a novel of Hong Kong on the verge of the 1997 handover. Written against the historical backdrop of handing a free Chinese city back to a totalitarian Chinese state, Kowloon Tong is far less glittering from the inevitably rip-roaring story for the global media, it is a piece of cobbled (opportunistic, maybe) fiction.
Neville "Bunt" Mullard was born and raised in Hong Kong, went to the posh Queen's College, and inherited ... Read More
Rating: - Riding the Iron Rice Bowl
Theroux's early travel writing places him firmly alongside Lewis and Newby; his middle period novels only a little below Greene. This novel, however, makes 'Nobel House' seem well-researched and insightful.
The plot of Kowloon Tong is loose and although the novel is thankfully short, Theroux seems to anticipate his reader's ennui with the whole concept well before the middle of the book. It is the sort of thing you would expect of someone who'd paid a fortnight's vist to the Territory to stay with friends ... Read More
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