Shifting between a series of
seemingly disparate narratives, Tash Aw’s latest work, Five-Star Billionaire,
traces the lives of five Malaysians in the less familiar land of Shanghai, all
whom share a common goal: to fulfill their material desires one way or another
due to an almost desperate fascination with the notion of success, of having,
in one of the character’s words, “made it.” Although the title inevitably
suggests a kind of material obsession worthy of a “five-star billionaire”,
there is an intricate fascination with the workings of time in narrative that
finds continuity from his previous novels, The Harmony Silk Factory and Map
of the Invisible World.
The change in environment, from the
strained conditions of the Japanese occupation and the politically charged
situation in Indonesia from his previous works, does not alter the turbulence
present in Aw’s latest world. It is a chaotic one, in both the deceptively
dazzling streets of Shanghai, and the even less defined interior lives of its
inhabitants. The thematic focus for Aw has not changed. Each narrative seems to
ask the same questions: of the unreliability of recollection, of the non-linear
framework of time, and most importantly, of an individual’s inability to
reconcile his past and present. Like the nature of memory represented through
the very form of the novel, one knows not where to begin.
Indeed, it is difficult to begin
from any one perspective without uncovering its relationship to another, and
all the characters are linked to each other, one way or another. Justin, an
established property man experiencing hard times, finds himself unable to
forget his brother’s former girlfriend Leong Yinghui, herself a former idealist
who is trying to make her way in the business world, hopefully through a
partnership with enigmatic Walter Chao, the man with a questionable background
who manages to charm Phoebe Xu Aiping, a young woman fashioning a new image
through the questionable use of self-help books and ill-conceived fabrications,
who manages her cyber-and ironically-honest relationship with a singer named
Gary, who has personally orchestrated the destruction of his promising music
career. And with each individual struggling with his or her immigrant past(s),
the realities are multiple and multiplying, as with the selves present in each
separate memory.
As we trace the disparate links
between these distinct characters, the connections in this complex web of
relationships—forged and unmade so easily sometimes to the point of
absurdity—are surprisingly devoid of any attempt at realism. As Gary finds Phoebe
amongst the millions of other QQ users, one gets the sense that it is almost
too convenient, too contrived. Likewise, Yinghui’s transition from an idealist
to capable businesswoman, and Justin’s fall in the opposite direction has the
makings of a conventional soap opera. That time may pass so quickly and change
a person makes the subject matter even more perplexing, especially when put
across in Aw’s laconic manner of speech.
Yet, what is the narrative of an
immigrant in China supposed to entail? Indeed, these characters struggle with
adaptation, simply because their personalities resist the very possibility of
change. Each of them, well developed in the terms of their past, unsatisfied
selves, remain properly unchanged through the course of the novel. We may find
it hard to empathise with them, even as each character shares his or her joys
and fears that are all the more inauthentic because of its very evident
possibility. Yet, even if their personas may appear to be counterfeits in the
mould of Phoebe’s expensive handbag, their fragility, in the face of an
uncompromising society, is startlingly real.
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