Book Club discusses "Bangkok Tattoo"

Bangkok Tattoo was the book selection for the book club for May (as mentioned in the previous post) and it was a first this respect: an explanation about the writer and his work was emailed before the book club. Author John Burdett was featured in an original essay entry for "Powells.com" as a writer about Thailand who decided to base a detective series there. (Here's a pix of John that matches the one in the back of the book lap.)

Entitled "The Power of Difference," Burdett's essay details Thailand culture and environment through the narrow perspective of Theravada Buddhism (in Southeast Asia) and women sex workers in the bar scenes.

I suspected the essay would be helpful to put the book in perspective or understand it and some book clubbers agreed.

Here are some other points made regarding the book: two had visited Thailand years ago and didn't recognize it from the novel (of course, Burdett writes about a small community of Thailand), the wry humor (mainly as told by narrator Sonchai Detective Jitpleecheep with his observations of life) was appreciated and one person skipped the book after reading a number of pages while another went on to read the first "Jitpleecheep" novel, Bangkok 8. Additionally, it was pointed out that frequently used term for foreigners farang seemed to be a derogatory (maybe on the sly side?) code name for Americans and Europeans. One book clubber said she never heard that expression in Thailand.

Finally, the author's writing was considered good (although unduly graphic at times as one pointed out and I read a graphic scene that jumped out at me) and crafty with the story broken into sections that relay the entire novel. And the writing style of long (elaborate) sentences caught my eye as, for instance, the detective prepares for breakfast out and considers: I'm pretty hungry, so I choose kuay jap, a thick broth of Chinese mushrooms and pork lumps streaming with nutrition as the hawker dips and raises his ladle, a great writhing knot of kuaytiaw phat khii mao (literally "drunkard's fried noodles"; a stir-fry of rice noodles, basil, chicken, and crimson tide of fresh sliced childes), a single fried trout with naam plaa (a transcendentally sauce made of fermented anchovy__an acquired taste, farang), a glass of cold, clear nongaseous water from the world-famous Krung Tep Faucets, a 7-Up--and I'm all set.

OK, now there's a sentence that tries to say it all.