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Pitchaya Sudbanthad

• Jul 18, 2023 Bangkok Wakes To Rain By Pitchaya Sudbanthad I didn't really know what to expect going into this, and I was quite pleasantly surprised. A clean and compelling novel of a somewhat experimental structure falls in and out of history, giving us brief moments in interconnected lives spanning some centuries into the future. Definitely reminiscent and perhaps directly inspired by the structure of Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell (and his earlier Ghostwritten) - except Mitchell's project in structuring those stories was to study interrelationships throughout characters reincarnating in different times, identities, and genres. Sudbanthad's project, examined from the same light, must be to study the reincarnation of the city of Bangkok itself, and how it relates to different characters (or maybe the reincarnation of a haunted structural beam? Part of the issue with audiobooks is that subtle clues breeze by and are difficult to reconstruct). The strength here is the slices of life, the compassionate and interesting stories that get me invested in particular characters...just for them to be swept away in time, and me be reintroduced to them as not the main character, but the aged swim teacher of the aunt of the protagonist.