Bangkok Days

It is unarguably the first modern book that I have read that has drawn me away from my Dostoevsky. I purchased this book a few months ago out of a combination of cold curiosity and courtesy. Classic literature is my true love, of which, Dostoevsky is merely an example. This has been the case since childhood. By far most of what I read was written earlier than the 19th century. Thus, in my sequestered world of reading, I had embarrassingly never heard of this author. Or any of his books. Nothing. I truly had no idea what to expect. Well, once I started reading "Bangkok Days" it went straight into my being. Not surprisingly, for it was written so meticulously and painstakingly that there exists no trace of the author's hand. I am stunned that this little book so easily roused me. The finesse of the writing aside, I found myself bypassing any academic appreciation of this book as literature, initially. That in itself is a mark of brilliant writing. Rather, I connected emotionally and even spiritually. "Bangkok Days" put me on edge. It is alive. It is so utterly beautiful, naked, and truthful. Elegant without affected austerity. Rich and luxuriant with no frivolity, no excess. Deeply touching but not maudlin. And outrageously funny! Belly laugh funny! I prolonged my reading of it simply because I dreaded finishing it. This book is exquisitely layered. On the surface it is a brilliantly written travel diary. But integrally and seamlessly woven into this often tragically hilarious and lurid tale of the author's adventures in Bangkok is nothing less than the self-aware "living out" of the human condition by the author himself. He is the real-life protagonist very soulfully grappling with age-old and always relevant burdens and joys of being human, emerging at the end a changed man. There are rich and detailed forays into the many forms of pervasive loneliness, the bonds of friendship born out of unlikely circumstances, the quiet and relentless unconditional love of a wild and fiery renegade priest for an entire community of people not visible to most, the author's terrifying and very real brush with his own mortality, and much more. This book defies categorization by virtue that it is a novel that manifests the very real experience of the author. It is a nonfiction novel. "Bangkok Days" so poignantly brought to light the "human condition" in such an elegant, comical, touching, and absolutely modern way, that I find my Dostoevsky rather dusty, heavy, and long-winded in comparison. It is one of those extremely rare cases that I could not possibly imagine changing a single word without changing the book. Not one. "Bangkok Days" is complete to that extent. Truly. Now that is art. What is so strange to me is that this is apparently classified under the genre "travel writing". "Travel writing"?! Please. This is modern literature at its finest.

Osborne pulls you into this vortex from the beginning. A dream. An adventure. Who cares about Bangkok? I don't. Matters not. In the spirit of seeking, humanity, character, thought, exchange, culture and above all exquisite writing. Nothing short of brilliant.

Initially I thought I related to "Bangkok Days" because I have visited Bangkok six times. The book is comprised of twenty-seven short independent chapters. Since I visited most places Osborne describes I related to his narrative. Then I thought I liked the book because of Osborne's literary craftsmanship. Some of his sentences are amazing! Often I wondered how long it took Osborne to write this? For instance, in discussing a Catholic nun, " . . . her white hair sticking up like the crest of some strange and sympathetic reptile, and I shook her hot hand. She seemed to suffer in the heat." But the book is not about Bangkok. It is about us. In the West we accept our relationships and cities as the best of all possible worlds even if they are often frighteningly boring, clean, neat, totally predictable and vacuous. We love "antiseptic wastelands." Bangkok is far, far more interesting, even if a great deal more chaotic, dirty and smelly - but oh, so interesting! We accept power, prestige and wealth to be the only worthwhile values in life. "Bangkok Days" asks whatever happened to fun - is there room in the West for pleasure? Perhaps Osborne's search in Bangkok is a metaphor for our search for the other half of our souls? Yes, this is a "love letter to Bangkok." A must read!

READ THIS BOOK! In the vast sea of current literature only a few books leave me with a lasting impression and 'Bangkok Days' is one of them. It haunts you with vivid imagery and deeply sensitive, international insight. ALIVE, subtle, adventerous, and so well written that you could swear that this books soul purpose is to cure the malaise of everyday life. So, to whoever has stumbled across this review, it is my suggestion that you give 'Bangkok Days' a try - I suspect you will not be disappointed.

Osborne's book presents a deft dance between Anglo cultural paralysis and the steamy, messy promise of the East. He manages to avoid romanticizing Bangkok by showing us the ways that the city affirms rather than annuls the loneliness of the western male ghosts who mostly populate his canvas. And the sexual and gustatory promiscuities that prop up the heat-wilted balloon of Bangkok life are ecstatic only in the moment. Yet, for this very reason, the tenor of solitude takes on a strangely Buddhist cast. These characters might be damned, but they're damned in part for how completely they've melted into the here and now. Osborne shows us that the underbelly of Nirvana may not be all that different from the topbelly. With the depth of this meditation, there's a great deal of humor here as well--rich language and observation of the physical fabric of a major city. All of it brings home to the reader the endlessly mysterious exoticisms and simply seedy ins and outs of his or her own fleshly being.