Book Review: Bangkok Wakes to Rain

Bangkok Wakes to Rain, by Pitchaya Sudbanthad (Riverhead Books/Penguin Randomhouse, 2019, 360 pages, $27) Available at the Howard County, MD, Public Libraries.

A Nice. Pleasant Book (for the most part)

A unique organization of a book: 23 chapters (stories), possibly read-alones, about 5 people (and extended families) over several decades and one traditional Thai teak house that Bangkok grows around until climate change rears its ugly unsettling head and becomes part of a 27-story condominium.

From a medical missionary to a young girl during the Thai upheavals in the seventies to an expatriate in London/HK/Stockholm/LA (anywhere but Bangkok) all over the world to a Thai restaurant in Japan and how the characters all come together and weave in and out, mostly chronologically, over the span of a hundred years and on into the future.

It is fun (challenging?) to turn the page to the next chapter and figure out as quickly as possible who the chapter’s central characters are this time as the clues fall into place and you remember bits and pieces of their previous story.

Much like Thai society – pleasant, little character development or plot, but you are there: the fragrant smells, the delectable dishes, the cacophony of the city and the quiet park-like sois – and the birds, natural and man-made.

For those who are familiar with Thailand, you will know that Old Krungthep is the Thai word for Bangkok while others may not remember as they read. That soi is a small narrow street, perhaps an alley. Those who are familiar with Thailand will even understand filling up the sink with water when anticipating a feared disruption in electricity and also ordering soup on the street in a plastic bag ‘to-go.’

Bangkok is a book you can take with you and read in short spurts, but do take notes on who’s who!

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Ah, finally I read about the cholera pandemic in the early 1800s that I had heard about. It really happened. They say a king designed a symbol that chased the cholera away: I have a necklace of that symbol and find it quite lovely.