15 hours ago
In Tash Aw's ‘The South,' a man recalls a youthful love affair
The German philosopher Hannah Arendt once described an 'event' as an occurrence that interrupts 'routine processes and routine procedures.' By that definition, 'The South,' Tash Aw's fifth novel, is an uneventful book. The Lims, a family of five residing in a staid neighborhood in Kuala Lumpur, decide to spend the winter holidays in a rundown property they've recently inherited, 'twenty hectares of scrubby jungle and farmland' in southern Malaysia, close to the border with Singapore. You'd be forgiven for mistaking their trip for a dream vacation of sorts: Not much happens on the surface. The children — two adult sisters and their teenage brother, Jay — spend days swimming in a muddy lake on the outskirts of the farm. Jack, their father, disappears for days alone on the coast. His wife, Sui Ching, daydreams about abandoning the city and settling in the countryside.
