| Title | : | Jasmine Nights |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0312118341 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780312118341 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 379 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1994 |
Jasmine Nights Reviews
-
Jo Walton is usually a trustworthy guide, but at 150+ pages in, this one sure hasn't clicked with me. No fantastic elements yet. And, presuming the book is based (to some degree) on the author's childhood, he had a very colorful coming-of-age. But, so far, I'm on the verge of abandoning the book. 3/4/18: OK, officially a DNF now. Definitely not a keeper. Oh, well.
Here's Wikipedia's page, which confirms that the book is semi-autobiographical:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jasmine...
From the UK Independent's 1994 review, linked at Wikipedia:
"... Somtow gives us a fake novel. In Jasmine Nights [the] Thai landscape is artificially manufactured, its erudition is quite pretentious and its post-modern concerns forced."
Jo Walton,
https://www.tor.com/2009/03/09/betwee...
"Jasmine Nights is one of my favourite books. It’s funny and sweet and clever and awesome. It’s about growing up, and sex, and racism, and magic, and life and death, reincarnation, and identity. No, it’s more complicated than that, and better too. It’s about all these huge wonderful things, but really, it’s about this little boy." -- -
4.5 stars
What a delightful way to end the years reading! This is one of the books that has followed me around in one of many boxes over the years and has been neglected even though I bought it over 20 years ago!
Set in 1963, the novel follows Justin or Little Frog, a twelve year old Thai boy, as he lives with his extended family in a compound in Bangkok while his parents have been ‘away’ for the last three years. The compound is presided over by various older members of the family in a strict hierarchy and who are waited upon by a bevy of servants who treat them as royalty. Justin has three Aunts who he calls the Fates because of his obsession with Homer and ancient literature in general and these three provide much of the humor of the novel in their attempts to keep up with the latest fashion, music and dance trends, as well as their romantic encounters.
Playing in a ruined house on the property Justin lives in the world of his imagination as kids often do when they are lonely, burying himself in books and other worlds in lieu of company. Having lived in England for much of his life, he finds the Thai culture alien and resists integration with it. As the novel progresses, however, he begins to make friends and it is through these friends that S.P Somtow makes a commentary about the world at this time, and indeed our own.
One of these friends is Virgil, an African-American, then there is Piet a white South Afrikaner, Wilbur a white American and Piat a Thai servant boy. As these five interact in various ways learning about love, sex, war and each other’s cultures the issues of class and race loom large and cause rifts between them. How S.P Somtow resolves all this by the end of the book verges on the sentimental but I had enjoyed the novel so much by then, I just went with it.
The insight into Thai culture is fascinating and it is a culture Somtow grew up in as this novel is partly autobiographical. There is a glossary at the front with dozens of Thai terms but I didn’t find this distracting and loved all the names for different members of the family, for example, the three fates are Aunt Nit-Nit, Aunt Ning-Nong and Aunt Noi-Noi. The picture that is painted of the old Bangkok with its klongs, or canals, its temples and magic men and its lush foliage, noisy fauna and steamy weather is a wonderful backdrop. The compound is like an Eden as far as the rest of the world is concerned and it is only through venturing outside that Eden that Justin matures and become aware of this world.
Child narrators can be tricky but Justin is entirely engaging as are his friends and there were so many times in this novel that I was smiling at either slapstick comedy or cultural misunderstandings. Characters such as the promiscuous English doctor, Dr. Richardson, Busaba the Thai transvestite and the exotic science teacher Miss Cicciolini are just some that enrich and provide humor to the novel. Eventually as the world intrudes and opens up, the novel becomes more serious and Justin’s voice becomes that of a teenager but the comedy, and the enjoyment in the reading is maintained to the very end.
P.S. On a side note S.P Somtow sounds like a fascinating man being an author, composer and filmmaker and the rest of his novels are nothing like this one focusing on science fiction, fantasy and Vampires. -
The description of this book doesn't quite do it justice. I hate to drop high-falutin' literary terms, but it's a cross between magic realism and a bildungroman/coming of age story, in which a boy quivering on the cusp of adolescence discovers many things about himself, his family's culture and the tumult of the world outside his family compound and outside Thailand. Very different from the other books of Somtow's I've read! It's positively realistic in comparison.
The only drawback (why I gave it four rather than five stars) was that I'm curious to know a titch more about the protagonist's life before coming to live with his Thai family, as it seems like he'd not lived in the country before, but I couldn't find any mention of where he DID live. I also noticed....I hesitate to call it a "Gary Stu" element but rather a tinge of autobiography about this, largely in the moving between countries and cultures as a child and the being slated to attend Eton. I wouldn't mind knowing how intentional that was. -
This book started rather rough-- "Oh no," I thought, "another Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. God help us all." And the refusal to translate Thai words into English even when they translate extremely well is rather obnoxious.
But then it got so much better. It turns into a rather funny, sweet coming-of-age story-- think Rushmore mixed with Amarcord and set in '60s Thailand. Justin suddenly becomes a believable narrator, and the story unfolds awfully well against a background of family conflict in the days when the modern Thai nation was only just emerging. -
Way too bizarre, couldn't continue.
-
Beautiful.
-
I ended up liking this book, but I almost bailed out after the first quarter. I found it really problematic—especially the character of Virgil, the narrator’s Black American neighbor, who speaks in a dialect that is painfully stilted and does not ring true at all. Somtow addresses the use of dialect explicitly, with Virgil’s mother code-switching and encouraging Virgil to do the same (she tells him to “use the prestige dialect” when talking to non-Black people) but the actual writing of the dialect is painfully tin-eared. For a book about addressing racial divides I think it could have been a lot more racially sensitive. However it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be and aside from the issues of race (admittedly a major component of the story) it was really good.
-
In the semi-autobiographical novel 'Jasmine Nights' S.P. Somtow tells about some faithful weeks in the life of the twelve year old boy Justin, a.k.a. Little Frog. Raised in England, but left by his parents under the custody of his three aunts in Thailand, Justin comes out of his secluded childhood and learns about the facts of life. Somtow weaves themes of prejudices, inequality and racism into his tale, which is mainly about the discovery of sex, and the loss of childhood. On the way Little Frog also discovers his destination in life, but this seems a minor discovery in the scope of things.
In his writing Somtow heavily relies on references to classic literature (
Homer,
Virgil,
Ovid), which suits the main character well, but which leads to all too pompous passages, especially in the two opening chapters, which could use some heavy editing. Besides, Somtow leaves many Thai words untranslated, even if a perfect sensible English equivalent is present (e.g. Nam Plaa for Thai fish sauce). The glossary at the end of the book unfortunately only adds to the pompousness of the book.
Luckily, despite these flaws Somtow turns out to be an excellent narrator, and he brings the adventures of Little Frog in 1963 Bangkok (which feels surprisingly rural in this book) very well to life. 'Jasmin Nights' is no masterpiece, but makes an entertaining read for those visiting Thailand.
Beware: this particular edition is hampered by an abysmal cover and weird typos, which even render one sentence unreadable. -
I like this book, but it wasn’t holding my interest… It takes place in Thailand in the 1960’s and this memoir- like novel has a bit of magical realism, with a lot Odysseus, Homer and Virgil also in the mix.
I hope/ want to be in the mood for this book another time. I read 104 of 379 pages... -
Great coming-of-age story about a boy growing up in 1960's Thailand. Definitely recommended if traveling to the area.
-
When is an autobiography/biography seen as a novel? Some novels come with the blurb that uses words like 'autobiographical' but when you walk into a bookshop, there are separate sections for biography and fiction. I was very much aware of the genre - the need to tick the right box - reading this book. I would not call it a novel. Nothing happens except that a 12-year-old boy grows a year older, learns new things. Actually an awful lot happens, but it could equally be a memoir; there is no story as such: people wander in and out of the story and the boy develops, learns about sex.
Many scenes are amusing, a great many very amusing, some even hilarious, and the boy's friendship with a black American boy is a marvel - so well handled from the moment they accidentally meet. There is also Thailand and a lot of Thai words. I don't know the country particularly well but if you love South-East Asia as I do, this is the book for you. -
Disclaimer: I have had a distant friendship with the author since I read slush for IASFM and Amazing magazines in the 70s and 80s.
It is a somewhat autobiographical like most things we write are... It is a very special coming of age story that cuts across time and cultural divides. How did you become the you of today? I found myself thinking about moments in my own life and how they prodded me along. He puts you into a most vibrant world with flavors and colors of many cultures, but they all blend together to shape Justin aka little Frog (the main character).
I'm about to reread it this month (Sept 2020). This has been a most unique year so far and I found a used hardback of it a few days ago. I'm intrigued to see how I've changed since I first read it in the late 90s. -
It is rare that I don't finish a book, but I just couldn't get into this one. I gave up half way. I'm currently living in Thailand, and I was hoping to learn more about the culture and the people. I think I found it a slow read because there are very few female characters, and the main plot was about a young boy who loves the Greek classics, like Homer. I just couldn't warm to the story or the characters. Unfortunately, I can only give it 2 stars.
-
This is one of my favorite books, and the one I’m most likely to recommend to people who ask for something to read about Thailand or Bangkok. Although set in the early 1960s, it still manages to accurately capture the crazy contradiction that is modern Thailand. For those that haven’t spent much time in Bangkok, many of the situations described may come across as wildly fanciful, but anyone who has lived here for any length of time will know they are dead-on accurate.
The book description on Goodreads would get my vote for worst blurb ever. Ignore it and read the story. The book is told from the point of view of a young Thai boy on the edge of puberty. It follows the adventures that he and his small multi-cultural circle of friends have in their neighborhood of large family compounds that once lined the small side-streets off Sukhumvit Road. Many of these still exist, so it’s easy to imagine the setting of this story.
The reason Jasmine Nights came to mind at this time is due to a flame war currently consuming a number of the authors and readers I follow in the m/m world. I was recently reminded that I’ve been on-line since the BBS days of the early 90s, a few years before the Internets made their appearance. Yes, I am ancient enough to remember when the only "Firefox" people were aware of was a Clint Eastwood movie.
The thing about the on-line world is that all too often a potentially useful discussion can degrade into pointless name-calling. It’s all too easy, it seems, to berate someone you’ve never met face-to-face. What I quickly learned – the hard way – was that participating in these wars, even if it was to try to inject a neutral note of sanity, was a no-win proposition. People get so incensed that they don’t want to listen to reason, or even consider what "the other side" is saying. Even being neutral becomes a negative, as some people in the current situation can attest.
So, my typical reaction to such wars is to lay low, stay on the sidelines, and wait until they blow over, which they almost always do sooner or later. This has proved somewhat difficult with the current brouhaha, as it has gone on for quite some time now, and has seriously affected several people I’ve come to respect for their writing. I’ve read some of the blog and forum posts on this topic, and it’s especially sad that there seems to be some valid points and concerns on all sides, but rational discourse has long since left the building.
Where does Jasmine Nights fit into all of this? Well, one of the most recent blog posts was by an author that I’ve come to enjoy on Twitter, although I’ve so far only had a chance to read a few of his works. In the post, the author ‘came out’, as it were, as trans, and talked a lot about the issues trans people face, both from straights and gays. This got me thinking, which is never a bad thing in my book. I know some people resent it, a lot, but I like to be challenged.
Where Jasmine Nights comes in is that one of the peripheral characters changes gender over the course of the story. It’s not a big part of the story, and that’s in part why the book resonates with me. In case you didn’t know it, Bangkok is the gender reassignment capital of the world. On any given day there’s a sex change operation being performed somewhere in Bangkok. This ‘industry’ evolved to meet local demand. Thais are remarkably flexible when it comes to gender identities. I have to admit this disturbs me sometimes. I’ve met a fair number of Thai men who, apparently, were planning to get a sex change simply because they were gay. Their thinking seems to be that since they like to have sex with men, they must really be a woman inside. That seems wrong to me.
Here’s the thing: In the interest of full disclosure I must now admit that I’m a man. I was born that way. When it comes to matters of the heart, my preference is exclusively men. I was born that way too. But, I’ve never, not for one millisecond, wanted to be a woman. I like my man-bits. I’m rather attached to them, in fact. They’ve bought me years of pleasure.
So, I have no frame of reference for what it’s like to be born in the ‘wrong’ body. I don’t personally know any trans people, so I don’t ‘get’ what it’s like to be a trans person. I don’t really ‘get’ straight people either, but at least I know a lot of them. Heck, some of my best friends are straight. Even my parents were in theory straight, although my brother I recently discussed the idea that our mother might have been happier if she had figured out that she was a lesbian.
Mom was of a place and time when the idea of not marrying a man and having babies simply wasn’t an option. I doubt she even knew what a lesbian was until the 1960s, at least. Perhaps I am from a time and place where changing genders wasn’t an option.
Hmm…
Nah… not gonna happen.
Of course, just because I don’t ‘get’ where someone is coming from doesn’t mean I can’t respect them. Does knowing this particular author is trans change the way I think about them? Yes, in all honesty, it probably does, although it won’t change my plans to read more from them. Did I need to know this? I think not.
Was there a point to this review? Probably not. It was just a chance to vent, while hopefully staying out of the line of fire.
Do read Jasmine Nights, though, if the subject interests you. -
หนังสือที่จะทำให้คุณเข้าใจถึงชีวิตคนในวัง หรือ เหล่าบุคคลเชื้อเจ้าในสังคมชั้นสูงของไทยมากขึ้น ผ่านมุมมองของคนกลุ่มนั้นจริงๆ
ถึงจะเป็นนิยายที่ออกแฟนตาซีหน่อยๆ แต่เข้าใจว่าน่าจะถูกเขียนขึ้นจากเรื่องจริงของอาจารย์สมเถาตอนเด็กๆ มีติดเรตนิดหน่อย แต่ยังไงก็เป็น Perspective การเล่าเรื่องที่น่าสนใจ -
เผ็ดแน่ โฮเมอร์ ดอกมะลิ กลิ่นน้ำปลา สำหรับใครที่ใช้ชีวิตวัยเด็กหิ้วกระเป๋าใบโตไปโรงเรียนตอนเช้า เรียนพิเศษตอนค่ำ กลับมาเล่นเกม แล้วก็นอน คงอ่านแล้วรู้สึกหมั่นไส้แกมอิจฉา รู้สึกว่าชีวิตมันแสนจะธรรมดาไม่หวือหวาวาบหวาม
-
This book is 22 years overdue from the 6th form library..
-
Enchanting. I thought it was beautifully written and extra magical to read while in modern Bangkok!
-
Just couldn't get into the story.
-
Have I read this?
-
Justin, or "Little Frog", is the product of two cultures. His education, so far, has been British, where he learned enough of the Classics to inspire his twelve-year-old imagination. He now lives on his old family estate along one of Bangkok's canals (klongs), under the care of his three spinster aunts, whom he names the "Three Fates". His own parents are mysteriously absent. Justin understands Thai, but he won't speak it, so he listens disinterestedly as they talk endlessly about their social life, including a local British doctor, for whose affections they're in competition. Then, there are the household servants who refer to Justin as "Mr. Mouse" ("mouse" is what Thai people call their children, while we in English speaking societies refer to them as "baby goats"). He does enjoy the company of his nanny, who puts him to bed every night.
Otherwise, he only has a pet chameleon for a friend, and his active imagination, until people begin popping into his life. He meets his invalid grandmother while role-playing the Trojan War in a house on the family compound he thought was vacant. Shocked, he makes a quick exit. The second time he meets her is at a family wedding reception at an expensive hotel. His chameleon has escaped, he searches for it under the table, and sees two things that are the beginning of change in his young life: his nanny doing something very shocking, and his chameleon dying under someone's heal. While wandering around with his dead chameleon, weeping, he meets his grandmother again. She weaves her presence in and out of the story, a wise old woman, giving him the gentle push he needs in the right direction.
Another key person is Virgil, the son of an American Black family who rent the house at the far corner of the vast property. He finds him running around with the son of one of the servants. Their first meeting is rather bumpy, but they make friends. It continues to have its ups and downs, partly due to their perceptions of one another and themselves, Justin being from a Thai aristocratic family, and Virgil perceiving himself as the repressed underdog. Their friendship is sealed when Justin throws off his clothes and jumps naked into the filthy klong to join Virgil and the local neighbourhood boys (confession: I borrowed from this scene in my own novel, Pepe).
Somtow tells all this brilliantly as though remembering his twelve-year-old perceptions. At some points it verges on satirical, and at others, intense and even surreal. He once even receives communication from his dear departed chameleon through the local spirit medium. Little Frog's world is surrounded by a typically Thai Buddhist/spiritualist cosmology in which the influences of karma make themselves felt in the outcome of the narrative. There are also other realities you might not find in a story about young teens, but might in a coming of age novel -- including a few scenes of a sexual nature. And his first word of Thai come out spontaneously, "F--- your mum!"
During the course of the story, John F. Kennedy gets assassinated, and Martin Luther King Jr. goes on making his influence felt, even in far off Bangkok. Over all, Somtow succeeds in disproving Rudyard Kipling's maxim regarding East and West; the twain do meet indeed. -
When I worked at the Elliott Bay Book Company I was always looking for good books I could recommend to shoppers search for something for a twelve to fourteen year old boy. I wanted something other than the popular wizard stories. Not every boy is in to the Sci-fi "Ender's Game" and not many of them are willing to jump into the language of Verne or Kipling.
If I was working there now, I would be sure to have Somtow stocked. Not billed as a young adult novel, Jasmine Nights is still a perfect fit. Justin is nearing thirteen years of age, battling his crazy family, his crazy morphing body, his crazy world in 1960's Bangkok, where he has been deposited by his parents and where he learns about friendship, love, family and himself.
Though I didn't read this one out-loud, I think it would be a prime candidate. -
In 1960s Bangkok, 12-year-old Justin, known as Little Frog to his family, is left in the care of his strange aristocratic aunts and a rather frightening uncle until he is old enough to attend Eton school in England. In order to prepare himself for his intended future, he insists on speaking only English and will eat only bacon and eggs for breakfast, though he is prepared to accept Thai dishes at other meals. In this peculiar situation the boy finds himself between three worlds, the Thai world of his family and his regal ancestors and their apparently pointless rituals, the western world of logic and common sense which he finds more compatible with his temperament, and the imaginary world of his sheltered childhood.
-
I've written a
review of Jasmine Nights on my
book blog.
In summary: if I had to think of any other novel matching this one for its mixture of warmth, humour, and issue-tackling, it's To Kill a Mockingbird that springs to mind. Jasmine Nights is that rare thing – a novel on a par with To Kill a Mockingbird, with the added benefit of being set in a place and culture somewhat less familiar to Western readers. Very enjoyable, very funny, very smart, and with a warmth about it that makes it a joyful read. -
I LOVE this book! Although I read in Thai translated version, I could feel the vibes of S.P.Somtow's brilliance. I read this book about 2-3 times (which is quite a rare reading behavior for me) and the more I read, the more I sensed the understated joy, humanity, and wisdom of the story. The characters are so vivid and familiar you can picture them someone you know. It's the celebration of life, friendship and youth. I totally recommend this :-)
