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Dogs at the Perimeter
Set in Cambodia during the regime of the-Khmer Rouge and in present day Montreal, Dogs at the Perimeter tells the story of Janie, who as a child experiences the terrible violence carried out by the Khmer Rouge and loses everything she holds dear. Three decades later, Janie has relocated to Montreal, although the scars of her past remain visible. After abandoning her husband and son and taking refuge in the home of her friend, the scientist Hiroji Matsui, Janie and Hiroji find solace in their shared grief and pain—until Hiroji’s disappearance opens old wounds and Janie finds that she must struggle to find grace in a world overshadowed by the sorrows of her past.
Beautifully realized, deeply affecting, Dogs at the Perimeter evokes the injustice of tyranny through the eyes of a young girl and draws a remarkable map of the mind’s battle with memory, loss, and the horrors of war. It confirms Madeleine Thien as one of the most gifted and powerful novelists writing today.
Beautifully realized, deeply affecting, Dogs at the Perimeter evokes the injustice of tyranny through the eyes of a young girl and draws a remarkable map of the mind’s battle with memory, loss, and the horrors of war. It confirms Madeleine Thien as one of the most gifted and powerful novelists writing today.
259 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2011
118 people are currently reading
3511 people want to read
About the author
Madeleine Thien
35 books799 followersMadeleine Thien was born in Vancouver. She is the author of the story collection Simple Recipes (2001), and three novels, Certainty (2006); Dogs at the Perimeter (2011), shortlisted for Berlin’s International Literature Prize and winner of the Frankfurt Book Fair’s 2015 Liberaturpreis; and Do Not Say We Have Nothing (2016), about musicians studying Western classical music at the Shanghai Conservatory in the 1960s, and about the legacy of the 1989 Tiananmen demonstrations. Her books and stories are published in Canada, the U.S., the U.K. and Australia, and have been translated into 25 languages.
Do Not Say We Have Nothing won the 2016 Scotiabank Giller Prize, the 2016 Governor-General’s Literary Award for Fiction, and an Edward Stanford Prize; and was shortlisted for the 2016 Man Booker Prize, the 2017 Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction, and The Folio Prize 2017. The novel was named a New York Times Critics’ Top Book of 2016 and longlisted for a Carnegie Medal.
Do Not Say We Have Nothing won the 2016 Scotiabank Giller Prize, the 2016 Governor-General’s Literary Award for Fiction, and an Edward Stanford Prize; and was shortlisted for the 2016 Man Booker Prize, the 2017 Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction, and The Folio Prize 2017. The novel was named a New York Times Critics’ Top Book of 2016 and longlisted for a Carnegie Medal.
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September 24, 2017
Janie is a researcher at the Montreal Neroulogical Center, but she was once known by different names in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. She once came from a middle class family, had a father, mother, brother, until War came, and Cambodia became the killing fields. Made to leave their home by the Khmer Rouge, her life and family will never be the same.
Haunted by the memories of the past, and the atrocities committed at the hand of the Khmer Rouge, Janie falls apart. Leaving her husband and young son, she seeks shelter at the home of a friend, he too has ghosts haunting him from the past. We learn of Janie's backstory, what happened to her family, and what life was like under the Khmer Rouge. Where nothing is ever the same, loyalties shift, and there is no firm ground. Eventually the two stories will combine, Heroji, searching for his brother and Janie trying to come to terms with her past.
Such a devastating time period for so many, separations, the uncertainty, the brutality, all hallmarks of this horrendous time. The writing is sometimes repetitive and fragmented, but I found it very effective. We do get a clear understanding of what these people went through, and even what Phnom Penh, looked like after the Khmer Rouge were driven out. A difficult book to read, these type of stories always are, but not told dramatically nor overly emotional. I thought this was quite well done, combining memories, trauma, with the two leading characters studying the brain in the present, but realizing that the past is never quite gone.
ARC from Edelweiss.
Haunted by the memories of the past, and the atrocities committed at the hand of the Khmer Rouge, Janie falls apart. Leaving her husband and young son, she seeks shelter at the home of a friend, he too has ghosts haunting him from the past. We learn of Janie's backstory, what happened to her family, and what life was like under the Khmer Rouge. Where nothing is ever the same, loyalties shift, and there is no firm ground. Eventually the two stories will combine, Heroji, searching for his brother and Janie trying to come to terms with her past.
Such a devastating time period for so many, separations, the uncertainty, the brutality, all hallmarks of this horrendous time. The writing is sometimes repetitive and fragmented, but I found it very effective. We do get a clear understanding of what these people went through, and even what Phnom Penh, looked like after the Khmer Rouge were driven out. A difficult book to read, these type of stories always are, but not told dramatically nor overly emotional. I thought this was quite well done, combining memories, trauma, with the two leading characters studying the brain in the present, but realizing that the past is never quite gone.
ARC from Edelweiss.
November 16, 2017
This is my second Thien novel, after Do Not Say We Have Nothing, which was my personal favourite book on the 2016 Booker shortlist. Like that book, this one is deeply immersed in history, this time exploring the brutal period when the Khmer Rouge controlled Cambodia, and as such it is not an easy read, but it is a profoundly moving one.
The story is held together by Janie, who was born in Cambodia but eventually escaped and lives in Canada with a husband and son she is separated from. She works as a neuroscientist, with Hiroji, whose Japanese brother disappeared in Cambodia while working as a doctor in the same period. The narrative switches between the present day and the 70s and between the different narrative viewpoints. In the modern part of the story Hiroji disappears to search for his brother and Janie is forced to confront her suppressed memories.
The core stories about what happened in Cambodia are understandably horrific, but there is nothing gratuitous or insensitive about the way they are told, and there is always a strong element of the personal and poetic about them. Overall this book is very impressive (but if you want dogs, the title is metaphorical).
The story is held together by Janie, who was born in Cambodia but eventually escaped and lives in Canada with a husband and son she is separated from. She works as a neuroscientist, with Hiroji, whose Japanese brother disappeared in Cambodia while working as a doctor in the same period. The narrative switches between the present day and the 70s and between the different narrative viewpoints. In the modern part of the story Hiroji disappears to search for his brother and Janie is forced to confront her suppressed memories.
The core stories about what happened in Cambodia are understandably horrific, but there is nothing gratuitous or insensitive about the way they are told, and there is always a strong element of the personal and poetic about them. Overall this book is very impressive (but if you want dogs, the title is metaphorical).
December 15, 2017
I wanted to go home but this was as close as I could bring myself, floating by sea, floating in air.
So this is how it feels, when you read a book you'd like to write, a book that exposes a similar experience or feeling. We war survivors are a disjointed group, traversing normalcy while carrying the ones we left behind, the ones who left us behind. Sometimes we find each other, the similarly wounded, and we talk about the past, careful to avoid the details; we generalize stories because remembering the whole is itself a healing process. This book was such a conversation. Although the story occurs in an unfamiliar region, the universal strife seems familiar, the survey of damaged lives realistic, as is the exploration of memory, of memory loss, of pain, and of the inherent need to let the past flow freely.
There is great beauty in the clarity of this prose, a composed structure that occurs between fragments of memory. Not everyone will understand this vision of trauma in words, this structure that parallels a fragile brain (Champagne in the brain).It is the story that should hold for most. The story of totalitarianism is haunting; the story of the Khmer Rouge and Phnom Penh; the story of Cambodia. Each chapter is a small story that continues into a bigger novel, a structure so uniquely tightened that you don't lose your place within an evolving narrative of the self and the soul and their relation to the body. How do survivors escape the brutality of the traumatized present? This book explores that and much more.
Terrible dreams came, but I tried to let them run through me and reach the ground. I saw that they would always return, this was the shape of my life, this was where the contours lay, this was the form. Yet I wanted, finally, to be the one to describe it. To decide on the dreams that took root in me.
So this is how it feels, when you read a book you'd like to write, a book that exposes a similar experience or feeling. We war survivors are a disjointed group, traversing normalcy while carrying the ones we left behind, the ones who left us behind. Sometimes we find each other, the similarly wounded, and we talk about the past, careful to avoid the details; we generalize stories because remembering the whole is itself a healing process. This book was such a conversation. Although the story occurs in an unfamiliar region, the universal strife seems familiar, the survey of damaged lives realistic, as is the exploration of memory, of memory loss, of pain, and of the inherent need to let the past flow freely.
The soul is a slippery thing. A door slammed too loudly can send it running. A beautiful, shining object can catch its attention and lure it away. But in darkness, unpursued, the soul, the pralung, can climb back in through an open window, it can be returned to you.
There is great beauty in the clarity of this prose, a composed structure that occurs between fragments of memory. Not everyone will understand this vision of trauma in words, this structure that parallels a fragile brain (Champagne in the brain).It is the story that should hold for most. The story of totalitarianism is haunting; the story of the Khmer Rouge and Phnom Penh; the story of Cambodia. Each chapter is a small story that continues into a bigger novel, a structure so uniquely tightened that you don't lose your place within an evolving narrative of the self and the soul and their relation to the body. How do survivors escape the brutality of the traumatized present? This book explores that and much more.
Terrible dreams came, but I tried to let them run through me and reach the ground. I saw that they would always return, this was the shape of my life, this was where the contours lay, this was the form. Yet I wanted, finally, to be the one to describe it. To decide on the dreams that took root in me.
March 8, 2013
I should start by admitting that I rarely read books with this kind of harrowing subject matter because I find them too distressing. But there is a gentle beauty to Madeleine's writing that enables you to keep reading, despite the atrocities being described.
Like Elliot Perlman's The Street Sweeper, and Kim Scott's That Deadman Dance, this feels like one of those stories that absolutely needs to be told. I had no idea of the scope of the genocide committed at the hands of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge, nor of the tortures endured by those who survived.
While reading of Janie and her family's exile from Phnom Penh, the cruelty, deprivation and terror they experienced, the atrocities her brother, still a child, was forced to commit in order to survive, I felt a physical pain in my chest. The sense of loss for the victims was immense.
Madeleien Thien writes with great compassion and understanding about the impact such events have on a person's identity, weaving a compelling and heartbreaking story, written in exquisite prose.
Like Elliot Perlman's The Street Sweeper, and Kim Scott's That Deadman Dance, this feels like one of those stories that absolutely needs to be told. I had no idea of the scope of the genocide committed at the hands of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge, nor of the tortures endured by those who survived.
While reading of Janie and her family's exile from Phnom Penh, the cruelty, deprivation and terror they experienced, the atrocities her brother, still a child, was forced to commit in order to survive, I felt a physical pain in my chest. The sense of loss for the victims was immense.
Madeleien Thien writes with great compassion and understanding about the impact such events have on a person's identity, weaving a compelling and heartbreaking story, written in exquisite prose.
August 13, 2024
This was a very heartfelt and beautifully written story about two friends now living in Canada after their traumatic experiences as children living in Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge reign of terror.
I particularly wanted to read this now, after having recently spent two weeks in Cambodia. While I was there I visited the Killing fields and the S-21 (the former school that was used for torture) and it was very confronting, so this story was particularly important for me to read. Thein has done an excellent job with her characterisations and premise, but then again she also does a good job in any subject she tackles. More Thein please!
I particularly wanted to read this now, after having recently spent two weeks in Cambodia. While I was there I visited the Killing fields and the S-21 (the former school that was used for torture) and it was very confronting, so this story was particularly important for me to read. Thein has done an excellent job with her characterisations and premise, but then again she also does a good job in any subject she tackles. More Thein please!
October 15, 2017
My father's stories came back to me, all the heroes that persisted in Khmer poems and myths, so many stories that promised us we were braver than we were.Πολλά βιβλία έχουν γραφτεί για τα τέσσερα χρόνια κατά τα οποία η Καμπότζη βρισκόταν υπό το ζυγό των Khmer Rouge, από το 1975, όταν βγήκαν νικηφόροι από τον εμφύλιο πόλεμο, ως το 1979 και την απομάκρυνσή τους από την εξουσία μετά την εισβολή του Βιετνάμ στη Δημοκρατική Kampuchea. Παρόλα αυτά, πριν διαβάσω το βιβλίο της Madeleine Thien δε μπορούσα να φανταστώ πως ένα έργο μυθοπλασίας θα μπορούσε να αναπαραστήσει μια ιστορική εποχή τέτοιας σημασίας χωρίς να υποπέσει σε κοινότυπα συναισθηματικής φόρτισης μοτίβα, χωρίς να είναι προβλέψιμο αφηγηματικά και θεματικά.
Η Thien κατατέμνει την ιστορία χρονικά, η αφήγηση εναλλάσσεται μεταξύ του παρελθόντος πολέμου της Καμπότζης και της ζωής στο Μοντρεάλ του 2005. Ο κύριος πρωταγωνιστής είναι η Janie η οποία μολονότι έχει μεταναστεύσει στον Καναδά συνεχίζει να βιώνει στο παρόν και να καθορίζεται από τα τραύματα των πρώιμων εμπειριών της ως θύμα του πολέμου στην Καμπότζη, ως μάρτυρας σε δολοφονίες και σε απώλειες. Το κατακερματισμένο υποκείμενο αντανακλάται αφενός στην αφήγηση που ρέει από το παρελθόν στο παρόν κι αφετέρου από την κατάτμηση σε δύο των προσώπων που αναλαμβάνουν να αφηγηθούν εν πολλοίς μια παρόμοια ιστορία.
I would like to know which part of the mind remains untouched, barricaded, if there is any part of me that lasts, that is incoruptible, the absolute centre of who I am.Πρόκειται για μια αφήγηση που στηρίζεται περισσότερο στην εμπειρία και την παρατήρηση παρά στη φαντασία, καθώς η συγγραφέας φιλοδοξεί να παραστήσει τη ζωή όπως ήταν, με τις περιπλοκές και την ωμότητά της, δίχως προκαταλήψεις κι επιθυμία συγκίνησης με την επίδειξη του πάθους. Με τα λόγια του Proust:
Αυτό που αποκαλούμε πραγματικότητα είναι μια ορισμένη σχέση ανάμεσα στα συναισθήματα και τις αναμνήσεις που ταυτόχρονα μας περικυκλώνουν[…]Η ουσία του έργου της Thien βρίσκεται λοιπόν στο μηχανισμό της μνήμης, καθώς το μυθιστόρημα δεν είναι οργανωμένο γραμμικά, μάλλον μοιάζει με πραγματικές μνήμες, με την ιστορία να λέγεται σε θραύσματα, να παρασύρεται πίσω-μπρος μεταξύ του παρελθόντος και του παρόντος, προκειμένου να ανασυρθεί η πονεμένη μνήμη.
You can follow the trail but you can't know in which direction you are headed, down to the end, or reversing, forever, to the beginning.Η κατασκευή της Thien είναι ποιητική, αρέσκεται στη λεπτομέρεια και στη γνήσια πολυπλοκότητα, με τον πόνο του παρελθόντος να είναι εξαιρετικός, να ρίχνει τη σκιά του στο παρόν και παρόλα αυτά να μην εμποδίζει το χαρακτήρα να ζήσει μια πλήρη ζωή, ενώ η πρόζα της παρακάμπτει τα συναισθηματικά «δίχτυα» τα οποία θα της περιόριζαν τη διευκρίνιση και την αποτύπωση μιας πραγματικότητας προσωπικής και συνάμα που δεν ατομικοποιείται, προτείνοντας την αλήθεια της αναγνωρισμένης πραγματικότητας.
April 13, 2020
Trochę z kronikarskiego obowiązku chciałbym zwrócić waszą uwagę na książkę Madeleine Thien, “Psy za płotem” (tłum. Łukasz Małecki), która miała się ukazać na początku kwietnia, ale została z oczywistych względów przeniesiona na bliżej nieokreśloną przyszłość (możliwe, że na sierpień). Thien poznaliśmy dzięki nagradzanej powieści “Nie mówcie, że nie mamy niczego”. “Psy…” powstały kilka lat wcześniej i zapowiadają niezwykły talent.
Dwóch bohaterów - on z pochodzenia Japończyk, ona - Kambodżanka. Połączy ich na emigracji w Kanadzie wspólna pasja do badania mózgu i przeszłość. Janie uciekła przed terrorem Czerwonych Khmerów, a brat Hirojiego pracujac dla Czerwonego Krzyża dostał się w ich ręce i zniknął. Każde na własną rękę próbuje poradzić sobie z bagażem przeszłości. Nielinearna struktura, wciągająca powieść historyczna i obyczajowa.
W tej historii jest coś z Goldingowskiego “Władcy much”, proza Then wydaje się być równie brutalna i zawiesista, jednocześnie przywodzi na myśl Flanagana i jego “Ścieżki północy” w doskonałym, niemal dokumentalnym, obrazie uwięzienia w khmerskich obozach rozsianych po kambodżańskich puszczach (dodajmy, że Flanagan napisał swoją powieść dwa lata po Thien). Jednocześnie autorka cały czas zapętla narrację, wraca do teraźniejszości, miesza to, co wyobrażone z tym, co prawdziwe. Fantastycznie pracuje tu język, który balansuje pomiędzy poetyckim opisem, a ekonomiczną oszczędnością środków stylistycznych. Cechuje go głębią i dramatyzm nie osuwający się w kicz.
Czytałem z wielką przyjemnością i czekam czasów, gdy Państwo też dostaną ją w swoje ręce.
Dwóch bohaterów - on z pochodzenia Japończyk, ona - Kambodżanka. Połączy ich na emigracji w Kanadzie wspólna pasja do badania mózgu i przeszłość. Janie uciekła przed terrorem Czerwonych Khmerów, a brat Hirojiego pracujac dla Czerwonego Krzyża dostał się w ich ręce i zniknął. Każde na własną rękę próbuje poradzić sobie z bagażem przeszłości. Nielinearna struktura, wciągająca powieść historyczna i obyczajowa.
W tej historii jest coś z Goldingowskiego “Władcy much”, proza Then wydaje się być równie brutalna i zawiesista, jednocześnie przywodzi na myśl Flanagana i jego “Ścieżki północy” w doskonałym, niemal dokumentalnym, obrazie uwięzienia w khmerskich obozach rozsianych po kambodżańskich puszczach (dodajmy, że Flanagan napisał swoją powieść dwa lata po Thien). Jednocześnie autorka cały czas zapętla narrację, wraca do teraźniejszości, miesza to, co wyobrażone z tym, co prawdziwe. Fantastycznie pracuje tu język, który balansuje pomiędzy poetyckim opisem, a ekonomiczną oszczędnością środków stylistycznych. Cechuje go głębią i dramatyzm nie osuwający się w kicz.
Czytałem z wielką przyjemnością i czekam czasów, gdy Państwo też dostaną ją w swoje ręce.
September 15, 2017
3.5 stars. This is a less ambitious, accomplished novel than Do Not Say We Have Nothing, but it’s got its own disjointed grace and eerie power. It follows two Canadian adults who lost family to the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia, and takes you down a twisted path of searing memories, discarded identities, and ghosts who walk alongside the living. Thien’s writing, although overwrought in isolated moments, is mostly sparse and powerful. It’s a hard book to get into because most of the frosty, fragmented sections come at the beginning, but if you stick with it, this is a wonderful novel.
October 26, 2016
That atrocity could be documented in writing of such lyrical delicacy is an achievement that enabled this reader to bear witness.
Sometimes confusing, the splintered arc of the story mimics the confusion of war and emphasizes the insidious reach of what is vaguely known as post traumatic stress disorder. There's hope in the message I got, that in spite of the unspeakable things that war inflicts upon people, inner peace is possible when we face our demons rather than try to deny them.
Sometimes confusing, the splintered arc of the story mimics the confusion of war and emphasizes the insidious reach of what is vaguely known as post traumatic stress disorder. There's hope in the message I got, that in spite of the unspeakable things that war inflicts upon people, inner peace is possible when we face our demons rather than try to deny them.
May 25, 2011
"We had to sign our names to these biographies, and we did this over and over, naming family and friends, illuminating the past. My little brother and I were only eight and ten years old but, even then, we understood that the story of one's life could not be trusted, that it could destroy you and all the people you loved." Evicted from their family home in Cambodia's capital, Phnom Penh, by the Khmer Rouge, Mei and her family are forced to follow the long and arduous trek through a devastated country, only to see the parents being taken away and the children ending up in a one of the many work camps. "Families are a disease of the past" and "attachment to the world is a crime", was the official position of the Khmer Rouge. Mei's voice forms the compelling centre of Madeleine Thien's extraordinary and deeply moving novel of loss and survival, of memory and identity, of past and present intermingling, and of the underlying deep-seated need to heal from the wounds inflicted on body and soul. But how?
Rarely have I read a novel that pulled me so quickly so deeply into the emotional life and traumas of the central characters and the external circumstances that led to these upheavals. Madeleine Thien takes us deep into the brutal and devastating realities of the Khmer Rouge Regime that lasted officially from 1975 to 1978, but whose violent actions were felt inside the country for a much longer time. It seem inconceivable to us today, what happened to the people of Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge Regime, that left between one and two million people dead and many others displaced without trace.
Written with admirable delicacy and tenderness, deep compassion and understanding, Thien recounts the harrowing and life-threatening circumstances of the past as seen primarily through the eyes of ten-year old Mei. These events not only kept haunting the young girl but they inflicted such deep emotional wounds that the after-effects have been reaching, like an octopus's tentacles, into the present and continue to deeply trouble the innermost soul of forty-year old survivor, Janie. "It's in the night, I know, that the ones we love disappear[...] In my dreams I saw every one and everything[...] The Khmer Rouge had taught us how to survive, walking alone, carrying nothing in our hands. Belongings were slid away, then family and loved ones, then finally our loyalties and ourselves. Worthless or precious, indifferent or loved, all of our treasures had been treated the same."
"Mei" was not her real name, but a name given to her by one of the guards controlling the children's camp, a youth hardly older, but with AK 47s slung over his shoulder as a sign of power. "Names", Mei learned, "were empty syllables, signifying nothing, lost as easily as a suit of clothes, a brother or a sister, an entire world. " For her it felt normal, when, some time after finally escaping and arriving in Canada, she requested a Canadian name: Mei became Janie. If only suffering and trauma could be stripped away as easily as a name! Janie, now thirty years later and working as a neurological researcher in Montreal, cannot free herself from the past: "How many lives can we live?" [...] "I have too many selves and they no longer fit together." While memories are vivid in her dreams, she sees bare walls when she wakes up. She is still not able to find a voice to share any of her harrowing experiences, not even with those closest to her. One day, however, her search into the disappearance of her fatherly friend and mentor, Hiroji, "cracks open" something hidden deep inside her... and her life shatters into more shards than she is able to catch as they fall. Convinced that Hiroji left for Cambodia in search of his brother Junicho (James), who had disappeared in Phnom Penh in 1975, she also has to embarks on a journey...
Madeleine Thien's novel opens with Janie's investigation into Hiroji's disappearance. Her search for clues as to his whereabouts provides the trigger to bring her own past vividly back into focus and to relive Mei's ordeals and her struggle for survival. It is an intimate account, a journey that, at times, is harrowing, always emotionally charged, fast moving and totally absorbing. With a confident hand, a tender gentle touch and a deeply compassionate mind, Thien has brought a story to life in which the past and the present blend together in the minds of her characters, where the world of the past demands attention in the world of the present, where wounds can only heal when the causes for the paperthin scars are confronted again and written or talked about with those who love and can give of themselves.
Madeleine Thien's new novel is a marvel in many ways. She writes with such gentleness and thoughtfulness as well as deep understanding of a particular historical time that as readers we feel drawn completely into the mind of "Mei", the ten-year at the centre of the harrowing events and her forty-year old adult self, Janie, whose life is in danger of total disintegration if she cannot heal from the past experiences. Depending on her needs, Thien's language can be sparse or rich with poetic imagery and unusual rhythms; often her descriptions are impressionistic, evoking situations rather than spelling out the gruesome details, leaving it to the reader to complete the picture or thought in their own minds. Some images remind me of Chinese painting where a few brushstrokes can tell a complete story. Thien's many personal encounters with survivors, both in Cambodia and elsewhere, has given her rare insights into the long-term effects of deep trauma even decades later. She has transposed these authentic voices into an extraordinary, powerful and important novel.
Rarely have I read a novel that pulled me so quickly so deeply into the emotional life and traumas of the central characters and the external circumstances that led to these upheavals. Madeleine Thien takes us deep into the brutal and devastating realities of the Khmer Rouge Regime that lasted officially from 1975 to 1978, but whose violent actions were felt inside the country for a much longer time. It seem inconceivable to us today, what happened to the people of Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge Regime, that left between one and two million people dead and many others displaced without trace.
Written with admirable delicacy and tenderness, deep compassion and understanding, Thien recounts the harrowing and life-threatening circumstances of the past as seen primarily through the eyes of ten-year old Mei. These events not only kept haunting the young girl but they inflicted such deep emotional wounds that the after-effects have been reaching, like an octopus's tentacles, into the present and continue to deeply trouble the innermost soul of forty-year old survivor, Janie. "It's in the night, I know, that the ones we love disappear[...] In my dreams I saw every one and everything[...] The Khmer Rouge had taught us how to survive, walking alone, carrying nothing in our hands. Belongings were slid away, then family and loved ones, then finally our loyalties and ourselves. Worthless or precious, indifferent or loved, all of our treasures had been treated the same."
"Mei" was not her real name, but a name given to her by one of the guards controlling the children's camp, a youth hardly older, but with AK 47s slung over his shoulder as a sign of power. "Names", Mei learned, "were empty syllables, signifying nothing, lost as easily as a suit of clothes, a brother or a sister, an entire world. " For her it felt normal, when, some time after finally escaping and arriving in Canada, she requested a Canadian name: Mei became Janie. If only suffering and trauma could be stripped away as easily as a name! Janie, now thirty years later and working as a neurological researcher in Montreal, cannot free herself from the past: "How many lives can we live?" [...] "I have too many selves and they no longer fit together." While memories are vivid in her dreams, she sees bare walls when she wakes up. She is still not able to find a voice to share any of her harrowing experiences, not even with those closest to her. One day, however, her search into the disappearance of her fatherly friend and mentor, Hiroji, "cracks open" something hidden deep inside her... and her life shatters into more shards than she is able to catch as they fall. Convinced that Hiroji left for Cambodia in search of his brother Junicho (James), who had disappeared in Phnom Penh in 1975, she also has to embarks on a journey...
Madeleine Thien's novel opens with Janie's investigation into Hiroji's disappearance. Her search for clues as to his whereabouts provides the trigger to bring her own past vividly back into focus and to relive Mei's ordeals and her struggle for survival. It is an intimate account, a journey that, at times, is harrowing, always emotionally charged, fast moving and totally absorbing. With a confident hand, a tender gentle touch and a deeply compassionate mind, Thien has brought a story to life in which the past and the present blend together in the minds of her characters, where the world of the past demands attention in the world of the present, where wounds can only heal when the causes for the paperthin scars are confronted again and written or talked about with those who love and can give of themselves.
Madeleine Thien's new novel is a marvel in many ways. She writes with such gentleness and thoughtfulness as well as deep understanding of a particular historical time that as readers we feel drawn completely into the mind of "Mei", the ten-year at the centre of the harrowing events and her forty-year old adult self, Janie, whose life is in danger of total disintegration if she cannot heal from the past experiences. Depending on her needs, Thien's language can be sparse or rich with poetic imagery and unusual rhythms; often her descriptions are impressionistic, evoking situations rather than spelling out the gruesome details, leaving it to the reader to complete the picture or thought in their own minds. Some images remind me of Chinese painting where a few brushstrokes can tell a complete story. Thien's many personal encounters with survivors, both in Cambodia and elsewhere, has given her rare insights into the long-term effects of deep trauma even decades later. She has transposed these authentic voices into an extraordinary, powerful and important novel.
November 2, 2024
I was awed by the beauty of the writing and the intensity of the storytelling in this novel of Cambodia during the rule of the Khmer Rouge. The reader first meets Janie (her Western name) as an adult living in Canada. It is clear that the events of Janie’s childhood in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge continue to torment her. We are introduced to other characters whose lives have been deeply affected by the same events. The story moves seamlessly back and forth from Cambodia to Canada. Each character is beautifully and fully drawn, and the reader knows them as youths and as adults. The writing is magnificent and quite poetic. There are flashbacks that are so well woven into the story that the reader is slightly confused and, therefore, must really think about the tragedy portrayed in the scene. The main characters had different names at different points in their lives, which I found to be a unique means by which the author made the broken lives of her characters even more real. I was deeply moved by this novel, and I will remember it for a long time.
February 11, 2025
"Hiroji knew what it was to have the missing live on, unending, within us. They grow so large, and we so empty, that even the coldest winter nights won't swallow them"
"Many of the missing, the officer went on, no longer wish to be themselves, to be associated with their abandoned identity. They go to these great lengths in the hope that they will never be found"
una història dura sobre les identitats que es forgen durant la guerra, de la multiplicitat de vides que es comprenen dins d'una vida, de la (im)possibilitat de ser totes i cap a la vegada. des de Cambodia a Vancouver. quatre personatges que han de sobreviure al règim Khmer Rouge que va matar al 25% de la seua població en qüestió de 4 anys
"Many of the missing, the officer went on, no longer wish to be themselves, to be associated with their abandoned identity. They go to these great lengths in the hope that they will never be found"
una història dura sobre les identitats que es forgen durant la guerra, de la multiplicitat de vides que es comprenen dins d'una vida, de la (im)possibilitat de ser totes i cap a la vegada. des de Cambodia a Vancouver. quatre personatges que han de sobreviure al règim Khmer Rouge que va matar al 25% de la seua població en qüestió de 4 anys
January 19, 2018
3.5 stars
‘I remembered beauty. Long ago, it had not seemed necessary to note its presence, to memorize it, to set the dogs out at the perimeter.’
This was my first Madeleine Thein book, not having read her more famous Do Not Say We Have Nothing and although I admired the writing and was interested in learning about the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, this wasn’t quite as successful as I expected.
The book is initially set in Canada, where Janie a former Cambodian citizen who fled the country during the Khmer Rouge rule, is struggling with the memories and experiences of that time coming to the surface. Her friend Hiroji lost his brother at the same time and has recently gone missing himself and it is this in part that seems to have stimulated her suppressed memories. We move from her thoughts and dreams in icy Canada, to her youth in Cambodia in the mid 1970’s as well as looking at Hiroji’s brothers experience during the same period and finally to Hiroji himself as he searches for James.
I’m glad I kept going after the initial sections in Canada as their fragmentary nature made it difficult to get a toehold on the novel, difficult to understand what was real. The sections set in Cambodia, Thailand and Laos were, heart wrenching, well written and absorbing. I knew the Khmer Rouge period was one of persecution and torture but having it in front of you on the page is quite different. The way in which people were taken from the city to the villages and made to work for nothing, the way in which interrogation and torture made people say anything, spy on anyone, lose their minds and their pasts. The Khmer Rouge used to make citizens write down their life history, their backstory and there is the sense that by doing this, they were taking it away, stealing people’s identity and memories.
We see with Janies’ brother Sopham, and Hiroji’s brother James, that to survive they have to become someone or something else and have to hide who they really are and where and who they come from. Janie says;
‘My little brother and I were only eight and ten years old but, even then, we understood that the story of one’s own life could not be trusted, that it could destroy you and all the people you loved.’
The book has a lot to say about the nature and fluidity of identity, the idea of the soul, and of the importance of language. Janie and Hiroji work in the neurological field and their clients include those who have lost language or body awareness. I felt Thien intended this work they were doing tied into the importance of words in the period of the Khmer rouge and the notion of what is being but the connection felt a little forced if that’s what it was.
Even when Nuong and Mei are adopted and sent to America, their names are changed as though this simple act is enough to forget their past but at the end of the novel the only way Janie seems able to come to terms with the past welling up is by the concept of memory theatres, a way of packing away the painful and accepting that it will always be there. ‘The pages would remain, like a library, like a city, holding the things I needed to keep but that I could not live with. If such a library, a memory theatre, existed, I could be both who I was and who I had come to be.’
As you can see the writing is often beautiful and the subject matter is important, the difficulty of reading the initial chapters may be there to illustrate the fragmentation of Janie’s mind but it made it hard to progress initially. I am still very keen to read Do Not Say we Have Nothing and feel sure that I will enjoy that one to a greater extent as Madeleine Thien is clearly a talented writer.
‘I remembered beauty. Long ago, it had not seemed necessary to note its presence, to memorize it, to set the dogs out at the perimeter.’
This was my first Madeleine Thein book, not having read her more famous Do Not Say We Have Nothing and although I admired the writing and was interested in learning about the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, this wasn’t quite as successful as I expected.
The book is initially set in Canada, where Janie a former Cambodian citizen who fled the country during the Khmer Rouge rule, is struggling with the memories and experiences of that time coming to the surface. Her friend Hiroji lost his brother at the same time and has recently gone missing himself and it is this in part that seems to have stimulated her suppressed memories. We move from her thoughts and dreams in icy Canada, to her youth in Cambodia in the mid 1970’s as well as looking at Hiroji’s brothers experience during the same period and finally to Hiroji himself as he searches for James.
I’m glad I kept going after the initial sections in Canada as their fragmentary nature made it difficult to get a toehold on the novel, difficult to understand what was real. The sections set in Cambodia, Thailand and Laos were, heart wrenching, well written and absorbing. I knew the Khmer Rouge period was one of persecution and torture but having it in front of you on the page is quite different. The way in which people were taken from the city to the villages and made to work for nothing, the way in which interrogation and torture made people say anything, spy on anyone, lose their minds and their pasts. The Khmer Rouge used to make citizens write down their life history, their backstory and there is the sense that by doing this, they were taking it away, stealing people’s identity and memories.
We see with Janies’ brother Sopham, and Hiroji’s brother James, that to survive they have to become someone or something else and have to hide who they really are and where and who they come from. Janie says;
‘My little brother and I were only eight and ten years old but, even then, we understood that the story of one’s own life could not be trusted, that it could destroy you and all the people you loved.’
The book has a lot to say about the nature and fluidity of identity, the idea of the soul, and of the importance of language. Janie and Hiroji work in the neurological field and their clients include those who have lost language or body awareness. I felt Thien intended this work they were doing tied into the importance of words in the period of the Khmer rouge and the notion of what is being but the connection felt a little forced if that’s what it was.
Even when Nuong and Mei are adopted and sent to America, their names are changed as though this simple act is enough to forget their past but at the end of the novel the only way Janie seems able to come to terms with the past welling up is by the concept of memory theatres, a way of packing away the painful and accepting that it will always be there. ‘The pages would remain, like a library, like a city, holding the things I needed to keep but that I could not live with. If such a library, a memory theatre, existed, I could be both who I was and who I had come to be.’
As you can see the writing is often beautiful and the subject matter is important, the difficulty of reading the initial chapters may be there to illustrate the fragmentation of Janie’s mind but it made it hard to progress initially. I am still very keen to read Do Not Say we Have Nothing and feel sure that I will enjoy that one to a greater extent as Madeleine Thien is clearly a talented writer.
April 9, 2018
My mom is a Cambodian refugee, my dad is Malaysian, and naturally, this novel was obligatory reading for me. Asian American/Canadian authors have been on the rise recently, with Khmer authors especially resurgent after First They Killed My Father (Luong Ung, 2000) was made into a film by Angelina Jolie last year.
Thien worked to align a narrative of diasporic life in modern and quiet Canada, with the roots of internecine chaos from a 1970s Cambodian childhood. She skims the surface of the horrors at the time, but it might not be her intention to provide a compelling narrative, nor do I fault her, since she isn't of Cambodian descent after all.
Still, I appreciate Thien for bringing the stories of diaspora populations and intergenerational trauma into modern Western literature. The scattered narratives in this novel depict the assemblage of lived experiences Cambodian Americans/Canadians have endured, and continue to face to this day. The plot hobbles along at times, and her near-midlife crisis manner in dealing with childhood trauma both helps and hurts the flow of the novel. The narrator, blessed with a family and stable career in peaceful Canada, is fortunate in her narrative. Unfortunately, this isn't the case for many resettled refugees, Cambodian or otherwise.
Thien worked to align a narrative of diasporic life in modern and quiet Canada, with the roots of internecine chaos from a 1970s Cambodian childhood. She skims the surface of the horrors at the time, but it might not be her intention to provide a compelling narrative, nor do I fault her, since she isn't of Cambodian descent after all.
Still, I appreciate Thien for bringing the stories of diaspora populations and intergenerational trauma into modern Western literature. The scattered narratives in this novel depict the assemblage of lived experiences Cambodian Americans/Canadians have endured, and continue to face to this day. The plot hobbles along at times, and her near-midlife crisis manner in dealing with childhood trauma both helps and hurts the flow of the novel. The narrator, blessed with a family and stable career in peaceful Canada, is fortunate in her narrative. Unfortunately, this isn't the case for many resettled refugees, Cambodian or otherwise.
December 17, 2022
This novel is likely meant to be emotionally affecting but I remained cold to it. Perhaps it's the prose that acts like a veil between this reader and the reading experience, suggesting much but not showing certain things directly. When Thien and I talked after her effective reading from it years ago she mentioned it was a difficult book to write since it has to do with the Khmer Rouge and the devastation they brought to cambodia. This book could have been called I Will Remember. A reviewer complained in the TLS that when "Thien details the science of the brain [it] can disrupt the flow of the narrative," but this misses the point of the book and quietly tries to assert that there is a flow. There isn't. The narrative is disrupted in many ways, and within a sentence, let alone a paragraph or section, one event in the past impinges on another part of the past that was already in motion, and Thien may move into the present on the next line. Instead of flow, the narrative jumps around, and the science fits in with how a traumatized brain compresses time states.
Still, this book doesn't leave much impression. I realize it must have taken effort to write. Others will undoubtedly like it more than I did.
Still, this book doesn't leave much impression. I realize it must have taken effort to write. Others will undoubtedly like it more than I did.
May 10, 2025
I would have given this 5 stars for the prose alone…Madeleine Thien is an absolute wordsmith, a conjurer, a magician in her very own league. If you read this incredible novel, do yourself a favour and also read Y-Dang Troeung’s beautiful analysis of it through the lens of refugee aphasia and debility—it adds a rich and heart-rending critical valence to the already deeply moving stories set forth, and is a gorgeous example of how literary criticism can open up new worlds.
March 25, 2012
Dogs at the Perimeter is an emotionally charged story about the lingering effects of the Khmer Rouge war in Cambodia on fictional characters Janie, Hiroji and James. It’s a short novel at just over 250 pgs.
The story is set in 2005 in Canada and is told in first person account by the protagonist, Janie, a Cambodian woman who has separated from her patient husband Navin and kind-hearted son Kiri. Janie is a lost soul, with an unresolved past stemming from her early experiences as a victim of the war in Cambodia. Witness to death, murders and first-hand experiences of grief, loss and trauma. Her fragmented self is reflected beautifully in the story-telling by the author which flows from the past to present and the past again. I sometimes get confused when the timeline is jumpy in a story, but I managed to keep up with Dogs at the Perimeter and I think that’s because it just made sense and mirrored where Janie was at in dealing with her past.
Janie’s friend Hiroji, a Japanese neurologist in Canada goes missing and she moves into his apartment and begins to piece together her past and present and ultimately her future. Hiroji’s story is told through the eyes of Janie. He is driven to track down his brother James, a doctor who went missing during the war.
Through glimpses of the past in each of these character’s lives, it brings together the various fragments of their lives and a broader understanding of their current functioning. I think what stood out most for me, was “the unknown’ that many people of the war have to endure. The uncertainties of whether their loved ones survived or perished, whether they died of natural causes or were brutally murdered or whether they could still be out there with a new name, new family and a hazy recollection of what their lives once were.
Dogs at the Perimeter was a novel that I was drawn to because I loved travelling through Cambodia when I was overseas a couple of years ago and how the day I visited the Killing Fields and the Genocide Museum will stay with me forever. I have quite an interest in Cambodia’s recent war history and have read several autobiographies from survivors of the war. The author of Dogs at the Perimeter has provided a vivid account of the wartime using fictional characters that could very easily be real-life memoirs.
For those with an interest in the effects of trauma, war and in particular Cambodia’s history, then I’d highly recommend picking up this book to read.
The story is set in 2005 in Canada and is told in first person account by the protagonist, Janie, a Cambodian woman who has separated from her patient husband Navin and kind-hearted son Kiri. Janie is a lost soul, with an unresolved past stemming from her early experiences as a victim of the war in Cambodia. Witness to death, murders and first-hand experiences of grief, loss and trauma. Her fragmented self is reflected beautifully in the story-telling by the author which flows from the past to present and the past again. I sometimes get confused when the timeline is jumpy in a story, but I managed to keep up with Dogs at the Perimeter and I think that’s because it just made sense and mirrored where Janie was at in dealing with her past.
Janie’s friend Hiroji, a Japanese neurologist in Canada goes missing and she moves into his apartment and begins to piece together her past and present and ultimately her future. Hiroji’s story is told through the eyes of Janie. He is driven to track down his brother James, a doctor who went missing during the war.
Through glimpses of the past in each of these character’s lives, it brings together the various fragments of their lives and a broader understanding of their current functioning. I think what stood out most for me, was “the unknown’ that many people of the war have to endure. The uncertainties of whether their loved ones survived or perished, whether they died of natural causes or were brutally murdered or whether they could still be out there with a new name, new family and a hazy recollection of what their lives once were.
Dogs at the Perimeter was a novel that I was drawn to because I loved travelling through Cambodia when I was overseas a couple of years ago and how the day I visited the Killing Fields and the Genocide Museum will stay with me forever. I have quite an interest in Cambodia’s recent war history and have read several autobiographies from survivors of the war. The author of Dogs at the Perimeter has provided a vivid account of the wartime using fictional characters that could very easily be real-life memoirs.
For those with an interest in the effects of trauma, war and in particular Cambodia’s history, then I’d highly recommend picking up this book to read.
August 12, 2016
Dogs At The Perimeter is a flawed novel.
Loosely, it is about the separation, dislocation and loss of identity caused by the Khmer Rouge rule in Cambodia. We open in Vancouver with a woman, Janie, a neurological researcher looking for her colleague, Hiroji who has gone missing some three months earlier. Both Janie and Hiroji have ties to Cambodia – for Janie, it was the country of her childhood; for Hiroji it is where his brother disappeared in 1975.
What follows are a series of narrations, some set in 1970s Cambodia and some set in later (uncertain) times. The narratives can flick back and forth, use multiple points of view and characters change their names as various points in their lives. It is difficult to piece together a coherent narrative from the fragments – made all the more difficult by every key event being shrouded in opaque language. It probably could be pieced together but the characters all seem rather wooden and it hardly seems worth the effort.
There are some positives. The description of the horrors of the Khmer Rouge are written with a care and compassion. Yes, there were atrocities, but this was set against daily life, hope, ideologies. Some of the Khmer Rouge were kind idealists and some of the rural people (the old people) were welcoming towards the displaced urban people (the new people). However, the good was far outweighed by the bad – the arbitrariness of decisions and behaviours; the shortage of food; the mistrust of education; and the suspicion and intolerance of dissent. There are scenes of the evacuation of Phnom Penh; scenes in the villages; and scenes in a prison. Powerful though these scenes are, they are quite similar to Vaddey Ratner’s (far superior) Shadow Of The Banyan, suggesting that the two novels may have drawn their material from the same source.
Alas, the positives do not outweigh the negatives. The story of Hiroji is disjointed and the structure is wrong. Hiroji’s mystery is mentioned very briefly at the outset and is then followed by Janie’s story, only for Janie to be abandoned and Hiroji revisited at the end in a time sequence that frequently left the reader imaging one era and one character whilst then metamorphosing into someone else, somewhere else and at some other time. Much as one would like to express solidarity with those brave people who survived this awful time, it does not redeem a flawed novel.
Loosely, it is about the separation, dislocation and loss of identity caused by the Khmer Rouge rule in Cambodia. We open in Vancouver with a woman, Janie, a neurological researcher looking for her colleague, Hiroji who has gone missing some three months earlier. Both Janie and Hiroji have ties to Cambodia – for Janie, it was the country of her childhood; for Hiroji it is where his brother disappeared in 1975.
What follows are a series of narrations, some set in 1970s Cambodia and some set in later (uncertain) times. The narratives can flick back and forth, use multiple points of view and characters change their names as various points in their lives. It is difficult to piece together a coherent narrative from the fragments – made all the more difficult by every key event being shrouded in opaque language. It probably could be pieced together but the characters all seem rather wooden and it hardly seems worth the effort.
There are some positives. The description of the horrors of the Khmer Rouge are written with a care and compassion. Yes, there were atrocities, but this was set against daily life, hope, ideologies. Some of the Khmer Rouge were kind idealists and some of the rural people (the old people) were welcoming towards the displaced urban people (the new people). However, the good was far outweighed by the bad – the arbitrariness of decisions and behaviours; the shortage of food; the mistrust of education; and the suspicion and intolerance of dissent. There are scenes of the evacuation of Phnom Penh; scenes in the villages; and scenes in a prison. Powerful though these scenes are, they are quite similar to Vaddey Ratner’s (far superior) Shadow Of The Banyan, suggesting that the two novels may have drawn their material from the same source.
Alas, the positives do not outweigh the negatives. The story of Hiroji is disjointed and the structure is wrong. Hiroji’s mystery is mentioned very briefly at the outset and is then followed by Janie’s story, only for Janie to be abandoned and Hiroji revisited at the end in a time sequence that frequently left the reader imaging one era and one character whilst then metamorphosing into someone else, somewhere else and at some other time. Much as one would like to express solidarity with those brave people who survived this awful time, it does not redeem a flawed novel.
January 3, 2023
obligatory 5*—as difficult to get through as DNSWHN, though for different reasons? like DNSWHN, this book traverses decades and familial lines, but it has much less room to do so. it helps that there are 3 very clearly identifiable central themes/motifs to ground a reader (neurological responses to trauma; written biography/confession/fragmentation; and the containment of multiple fractured, fractal selves within one psyche, either intrinsic or exploded through violence), but there is somehow, startlingly, more absence in this book than there are in DNSWHN. maybe because our narrator is among those caught in the violence rather than reacting/responding to it a whole generation later, maybe because incompleteness is an inescapable symptom & consequence of war.
in any case, this is a fast, absorbing read, & it displays a lot of thien's glinting, surprising prose. i also am just surprised that the second of thien's books i've read also pulls at one of my latent interests (neuroscience) when the DNSWHN did so as well w classical music... its destiny! i dont know if thien has any new work coming out soon other than the v cool librettos she worked on recently but i would really love to interview her for sine theta so fingers crossed
anyway i read this for my dissertation as a companion to DNSWHN which will be one of my primary texts & think that through reading it i've gleaned a better understanding of thien's ideas about trauma & endurance & reactive survival. i don't always understand where the longer passages in thien's books are going, but i do think they're a window into a way of thinking that is jarring & enlarging, & i think that's a valuable thing to witness & interpret & iterate on
in any case, this is a fast, absorbing read, & it displays a lot of thien's glinting, surprising prose. i also am just surprised that the second of thien's books i've read also pulls at one of my latent interests (neuroscience) when the DNSWHN did so as well w classical music... its destiny! i dont know if thien has any new work coming out soon other than the v cool librettos she worked on recently but i would really love to interview her for sine theta so fingers crossed
anyway i read this for my dissertation as a companion to DNSWHN which will be one of my primary texts & think that through reading it i've gleaned a better understanding of thien's ideas about trauma & endurance & reactive survival. i don't always understand where the longer passages in thien's books are going, but i do think they're a window into a way of thinking that is jarring & enlarging, & i think that's a valuable thing to witness & interpret & iterate on
April 25, 2014
This was a follow up read after breezing through her first book - of short stories. This novel is far different and definitely not as breezy to read. I felt it to be more dense, more studied and more exact. Some of the metaphors Thien uses make my head spin, wondering how she could have come up with something so apt. The title is perhaps the most telling one of all as it tells of how the protagonist learned to live her life, through hardships unimaginable.
Annabel Lyon said "Madeline Thien writes with a diamond on glass. Her stories are windows between worlds: childhood and adulthood, east and west, love and loss..." I couldn't agree more.
Annabel Lyon said "Madeline Thien writes with a diamond on glass. Her stories are windows between worlds: childhood and adulthood, east and west, love and loss..." I couldn't agree more.
August 22, 2017
Exploring the deep, long-lasting trauma that follows historical atrocities, this book follows a Cambodian who escapes to Canada, and a Canadian who travels to and becomes trapped in Cambodia during the reign of the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s. There are some gripping passages, but the book becomes scattered in places and more intellectual than heartfelt. Despite its inconsistencies, it is a worthwhile read.
August 12, 2019
discordant and puzzling. reminded me of the dazed dreams i have before actually falling asleep.
September 28, 2025
so fucking good that i finished it and then went right back and read it again immediately
I remember how the oratory, St. Joseph, held the sun the longest, while everything below it slid into a coppery twilight. (53)
We were the sun going down, we were nothing but projections of light on the wall. (83)
"B-52s," Prasith said. "Whomp-whomp-whomp, like that, everywhere." He tilted his head back and stared at the sky as if it might fall down on us. "The light, it breaks. It breaks people open as if they're dogs or dirt. I looked up and there were no houses, no people. Just this hole." (93)
Until now, he'd had no idea how vast these rice fields were, how much effort and waste and life were needed to feed a country as small and weak as his. There was too much water and there was too much sun. There were broken dams and flooded crops, there were crabs in the mud and shoddy seedlings. There were closed doors all over this country so farmers died without anyone noticing, they had died generation after generation, from starvation and swindling and finally bombs, until Angkar came and turned the world upside down. (105)
My father's stories came back to me, all the heroes that persisted in Khmer poems and myths, so many stories that promised us we were braver than we were. I wanted to shake him, I wanted to tell him that the things we try so hard to keep, the beloved, most precious things, keep slipping through. We had always been powerless to keep them safe. I got to my feet, went outside for air, and then I kept walking, kept going. At the junction where Bopha had parted from me, I stood, weeping, trying to will myself to return. Go back, I told myself. She needs you. She'll die without you. (121)
I told myself that I could protect him. The love I felt for him was like air, everywhere in side me, pushing me on. (130)
Look back, my mother said, one last time. I followed her through our twilit apartment, walked in the shade of my father, past bare walls and open windows, the noise of the street pouring in. Between us, she said, I had known love, I had lived a childhood that might sustain me. I remembered beauty. Long ago, it had not seemed necessary to note its presence, to memorise it, to set the dogs out at the perimeter. I felt her in the persistent drumming of water against the boat's hull. Guard the ones you love, she told me. Carry us with you into the next life. (135)
I remember how the oratory, St. Joseph, held the sun the longest, while everything below it slid into a coppery twilight. (53)
We were the sun going down, we were nothing but projections of light on the wall. (83)
"B-52s," Prasith said. "Whomp-whomp-whomp, like that, everywhere." He tilted his head back and stared at the sky as if it might fall down on us. "The light, it breaks. It breaks people open as if they're dogs or dirt. I looked up and there were no houses, no people. Just this hole." (93)
Until now, he'd had no idea how vast these rice fields were, how much effort and waste and life were needed to feed a country as small and weak as his. There was too much water and there was too much sun. There were broken dams and flooded crops, there were crabs in the mud and shoddy seedlings. There were closed doors all over this country so farmers died without anyone noticing, they had died generation after generation, from starvation and swindling and finally bombs, until Angkar came and turned the world upside down. (105)
My father's stories came back to me, all the heroes that persisted in Khmer poems and myths, so many stories that promised us we were braver than we were. I wanted to shake him, I wanted to tell him that the things we try so hard to keep, the beloved, most precious things, keep slipping through. We had always been powerless to keep them safe. I got to my feet, went outside for air, and then I kept walking, kept going. At the junction where Bopha had parted from me, I stood, weeping, trying to will myself to return. Go back, I told myself. She needs you. She'll die without you. (121)
I told myself that I could protect him. The love I felt for him was like air, everywhere in side me, pushing me on. (130)
Look back, my mother said, one last time. I followed her through our twilit apartment, walked in the shade of my father, past bare walls and open windows, the noise of the street pouring in. Between us, she said, I had known love, I had lived a childhood that might sustain me. I remembered beauty. Long ago, it had not seemed necessary to note its presence, to memorise it, to set the dogs out at the perimeter. I felt her in the persistent drumming of water against the boat's hull. Guard the ones you love, she told me. Carry us with you into the next life. (135)
January 12, 2018
A beautifully written book about the aftermath of genocide for several people who were caught up in it. At times, I struggled to follow which timeline was currently happening -- flashback or present day? -- and the plot moved pretty slowly. Not a perfect book, but a vivid depiction of choices, compromises, and identity under an autocratic regime.
February 9, 2016
Beautifully written, complex, and thoughtful novel about the impact of war, disappearance, and genocide. The protagonist, Janie, is a young electrophysicist and mother in Montreal, who arrived in Canada as an unaccompanied child refugee from Cambodia. Her mentor disappears, and she is convinced that he has gone to search for his long-lost brother, who vanished in Cambodia during the genocide. Janie's own sense of self begins to fracture, and she has trouble reconciling the different 'selves' she has been over the course of her life. I knew little about the Khmer Rouge, Angkar, and events in Cambodia during that time period, and was grateful for the opportunity to learn more. Thien also raises sophisticated questions about the nature of the self and trauma. Fantastic.
February 5, 2018
2.5 stars. This book was very fragmented and lacked a cohesive narrative. The changes from present to past, character to character, and place to place were rough. I found myself constantly in need of reorientation and had to grasp for some coherence in any of the stories. While there is an argument to be made that this disjointed narrative echoes the senselessness of the genocide - not to mention the scattered aftermath - I felt that it really lacked the strength of Do Not Say We Have Nothing.
February 21, 2016
A beautifully written book about haunting and harrowing effects of genocide, war, and loss, during and after the reign of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia during the late 70s. Written in fragments, about fragmented lives and fragmented relationships in a fragmented country, Thien blends beauty and atrocity, with seamless fluidity.
July 1, 2022
I liked parts of this though it was very hard to get into because the characters and situations are so mixed up and interwoven. I almost DNFed, though the middle got me hooked. Then at the end, I had a lot of trouble again. I just didn't really understand what was going on anymore.
December 28, 2011
OH MY GOD! Madeleine Thien; you have such beautiful prose! If you wrote a technical manual, I bet I would still read it.
January 2, 2018
This is the kind of novel that generates its own light. Madeleine Thien's writing - about trauma, grief, loss of self, war, memory, and kindness - is lovely beyond measure.
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