LEAVING HOME BLUES.
A review of Rufus Lin's Trout Rising Again.
Koh Poh Lee
Rating: *** out of *****.
Publisher: Perdana Press. Singapore. 1994.
Rufus Lin's Trout Rising Again can be purchased on-line from The Singapore Bookshop.
In this novel, Rufus Lin, a nondescript Canadian who spent some years living in Singapore, explores the reasons why a person would want to leave home and set up roots elsewhere.
The protagonist for his story is Maria, a Singapore born Eurasian who starts a new life away from Singapore, oddly enough in Canada. Her reasons for leaving the country of her birth are delicately traced in this novel through her conversations with her friends, her own personal thoughts, and through her friends lives. Those familiar with Singapore's culture may identify with some of Maria's reasons, which makes this tale of making another home away from home poignant.
Lin has a unique method of storytelling. The story does not unfold before you in any coherent linear time sense. Instead, it comes in chunks and pieces, and sometimes even brief flashes which initially seem unconnected. Several colourful analogies are also employed along the way, ostensibly to further illustrate certain points which the writer wishes to emphasize. Frankly, this method of writing out of chronological order only served to confuse this reviewer, but that may just be the author's intentions as he might have been trying to demonstrate that there is no one single logical reason why a person leaves home. The answer cannot be found in a straight forward manner but rather lies somewhere in a mass of confusion. After all, this story is about Maria and why she left Singapore to make a home elsewhere, and her reasons for leaving are as subjective as it can get.
On the whole, this book was a good read from start to end, and I was delighted with the way it ended once I got a hang of the style. Be ready for some pleasant surprises towards the end.
Koh Poh Lee is a fitness trainer who works exclusively with kids. In her spare time, she interrogates them about their hobbies.
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