Malaysian dad s childhood stories of Pahang and World War Two memoirs inspires book by Aussie-Brit who teaches robotics | Malaysia malaymail.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from malaymail.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Fragile Monsters by Catherine Menon review: truth and lies collide in this multigenerational story Madeleine Feeny
Some grandmothers are cosy, some indulgent, and others are craftier than any wolf in disguise. The grandmother in Catherine Menon’s debut novel
Fragile Monsters falls into the third category.
Australian-British Menon is a London-based lecturer in robotics whose CV combines a Pure Mathematics PhD with a Creative Writing MA. She draws on her Malaysian heritage in this multigenerational story that traces the country’s history from the 1920s to 1985: British colonial rule; the Japanese occupation in the Second World War; the rise of communism; the Malayan Emergency (the 1948–1960 fight for autonomy that saw the British inter civilians in resettlement camps); and the postcolonial legacy.
A few years ago, I was enjoying a steaming bowl of pan mee with my grandfather, both of us huddled under the tin roof of the stall in his old neighbourhood. As he sipped on his anchovy broth, his eyes would peer out into the distance and glaze over. When I was a young boy, he said, pausing for dramatic effect before continuing, I would walk to school and these streets would be littered with bodies.
In that moment, it hit me that my
kong kong lived through the most traumatic events of Malaysian history, from the times of Japanese occupation through to the May 13 violence. And it was this gut-wrenching feeling of confusion and fascination that I kept coming back to as I read Catherine Menon s spellbinding debut novel,
Top 10 homecomings in fiction
From Colm Tóibín to Margaret Atwood and Yaa Gyasi, these stories reflect on the ambivalent complications of going back to where you’re from
Regret and duty … Saoirse Ronan in the film version of Colm Tóibín’s Brooklyn (2015). Photograph: Allstar/Lionsgate
Regret and duty … Saoirse Ronan in the film version of Colm Tóibín’s Brooklyn (2015). Photograph: Allstar/Lionsgate
CatherineMenon
Wed 7 Apr 2021 05.28 EDT
With lockdown stretching on, one thing my friends and I are quietly admitting to each other is that we feel homesick. Homesick for life as it was, of course, but also for the places we can’t return to any more. The ones we didn’t even realise were still “home”: the countries where we were born, the cities where we grew up, the villages we couldn’t wait to leave.