Book Comment: The Song of Silver Frond

It’s the first day of Chinese New Year. I woke up this morning and wandered around my house in my hometown for a bit. It seems to change every time I return and I feel really excited as I tiptoe around silently like a little kid exploring forbidden land, observing the new changes!

My exploration always ends whenever I find something, which arrests my immediate attention: a new book.

I’m fanatic about reading. Plonk a book into my hands and I’ll become immediately unresponsive to the world. Of course, this only works with story books. Not autobiographies, not self-help books, not motivational books.

So I found this book this morning and STRAIGHTAWAY collapsed onto the nearest surface (my bed) and started reading.

It’s still the first day of Chinese New Year and I have finished the book. Heh heh heh.

Sometimes, I try to read as slowly as I can because I’m aware that if I finish the book, then I won’t have anything else to read – but as the plot develops, I race to finish the book. I get so impatient with myself for not being able to read faster, faster, FASTER!

Anyway, this book:

Title: The Song of Silver Frond
Author: Catherine Lim

The setting is Singapore post-WWII. It’s a story of Silver Frond and a wealthy man, The Venerable One.

Cheh, typical love story lahhh, you’ll say.

Well, not quite, because Silver Frond is 14 and The Venerable One is 66.

Yuck! A rich old man as usual playing with girls who are all out to get his money! But, this is worse! He’s a paedophile! She’s only 14!!!

Well, read the story and you’ll be surprised and awed.

I’ll tell you why the book is good. For starters, the author impressed me with her style of writing – almost poetic to me. Descriptive, vivid and yet not over-bearing.

A beautiful child-woman, in that intriguing in-between stage when people could
not tell where innocence ended and seductiveness began, and were charmed by
both.

*Gasp*. Simply breathtaking.

Catherine Lim then proceeds to weave in the Chinese superstitions, traditions and old-fashioned beliefs that hold sway over their lives and dictate the day-to-day actions of the Chinese community then.

The many wives in a wealthy Chinese family are portrayed here – the pettiness and human failings of the jealous female heart accentuated by the presence of not one, but many mistresses in a household are brought to life.

I read in admiration of loyal love, in sadness of material love and in trepidation of jealous possessive love. But, above all, I read in wordless awe of the ultimate love. The perfect love. The pure love that propels one to such heights that nothing can mar it.

Call me a hopeless romantic but such pure, unsullied love touches my heart deeply.

There’s also a personal message which I can relate to in this book: the reminder that life is never perfect, but imperfection does not mean failure. I am a perfectionist and I stress myself up trying to makes things perfect sometimes, but I’m learning to let go and relax a little.

This story also explores the sensitive issue of virginity in that period and how it was the thing back then in the Asian society.

At the end of the book, Catherine Lim still springs a little surprise on the reader, albeit a very pleasant one! I won’t tell, of course, because that would be a spoiler!

I rate this book a highly recommended five-star book! (I think girls would like this book more.)