Our book club discusses two books today: The Rent Collector (2013, by Camron Wright: 13,8k) was September read but got cancelled due to covid. The October read is The Wisdom of Sally Red Shoes (2020 by Ruth Hogan: 8,616).
Both are novel and I liked neither: The Rent Collector is a third-world or anyplace story written for the first-world readers, and The Wisdom of Sally Red Shoes. This book is about a contemporary London mother losing her young son, which I started to listen to while in London, and failed to see wisdom.
The Rent Collector tells the story of Sang Ly, a Cambodian woman living with her family in a garbage dump, struggling to provide for her ailing son. I went to Cambodia last December and was surprised to find it more modern and orderly than I expected. The book’s first-world sensibility made it unreal – I knew because I came from a third world. Our book club leader read a letter from her sister-in-law, a friend’s wife from Cambodia, who had never wanted to discuss her past. She said the book is incorrect in many aspects. I understand it’s a novel. And Cambodia is still a lesser-known country; with 13,8k reviews on Amazon, the power of a story made the book real.
The leader asked me, if the two worlds (such as Cambodia and China, and the West) are different. I said, in short, no because we are all aspire to get education, move upward and to have a better life.
In reality, there are many shades between Cambodia and the West. Some are similar or identical, while others are drastically different. Some are major (the system), some are minor, such as food (rice vs bread). But fundmentally, we are all the same, humans who wants safety, fairness and freedom.
I wasn’t going to suggest any books since they like novels, mostly. But in light of The Rent Collector, I could help but think of Peter Hassler, whose books on China (so many, such as River Town 2006: 1,253 reviews) and Egypt (The Buried, 2019: 418 reviews): so readable and so real.
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