Story Description:
Random House of
Canada|March 6, 2007|Trade Paperback|ISBN: 978-0-679-31328-1
Set during Burma’s
military dictatorship of the mid-1990’s, Karen Connelly’s exquisitely written
and harshly realistic debut novel is a hymn to human resilience and love.
In the sealed-off
word of a vast Burmese prison known as the cage, Teza languishes in solitary
confinement seven years into a twenty-year sentence. Arrested in 1988 for his involvement in mass
protests, he is the nation’s most celebrated songwriter who resonant words and
powerful voice pose an ongoing threat to the state. Forced to catch lizards to supplement his
meager rations, Teza finds emotional and
spiritual sustenance through memories and Buddhist meditation. The tiniest creatures and things-a burrowing
ant, a copper-coloured spider, a fragment of newspaper within a cheroot
filter-help to connect him to life beyond the prison walls.
Even in isolation,
Teza has a profound influence on the people around him. His integrity and humour inspire Chit Naing,
the senior jailer, to find the courage to follow is conscience despite the
serious risks involved. While Teza’s very existence challenges the brutal authority
of the junior jailer, perversely nicknamed Handsome. Sein Yen, a gem smuggler and prison fixer, is
his most steady human contact, who finds delight in taking advantage of Teza by
cleverly tempting him into Handsome’s web with the most dangerous contraband of
all: pen and paper.
Lastly, there’s
Little Brother, an orphan raised in jail, imprisoned by his own
deprivation. Making his home in a tiny,
corrugated-metal shack, Little Brother stays alive by killing rats and selling
them to the inmates. As the political
prisoner and the young boy forge a cautious friendship, we learn that both are
prisoners of different orders; only one of them dreams of escape and only one
of the achieves it.
Barely able to
speak, losing the battle of the flesh but winning the battle of the spirit,
Taza knows he has the power to transfigure one small life, and to send a
message of hope and resistance out of the cage.
My Review:
Wow, what to say
about this book! Unbelievably
stupid? Non-sensical? Dumb?
I can’t believe people raved about this novel. It must just be me but I found it very
difficult to read interest wise and it didn’t sit well with my stomach reading
the descriptions of breaking apart live lizards and eating them. The spider didn’t do much for me either. This one definitely gets a thumbs down from
me, however, I’m positive SOMEONE out there will just love it. It just wasn’t my cup of tea at all.
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