‘Poverty, slavery, prostitution and abandonment’ – The Road to Wanting by Wendy Law-Yone

The Road to Wanting is Wendy Law-Yone’s third novel; it’s a first person narrative tracing the troubled life of a young Burmese girl, Na Ga, through poverty, slavery, prostitution and abandonment. Sound bleak?  Well, it is, but it’s also very poetic, and an engaging and readable tale.  The Burmese, Thai and Chinese settings are vividly drawn, and Na Ga is a sharp and observant narrator.  She’s buffeted constantly from one traumatic situation to the next, but she survives, and the novel is finally, and unexpectedly, hopeful.  

The book opens with the narrator trapped in a hotel in the town of Wanting on the Chinese-Burmese border (hence the title, which I’d otherwise have thought rather overblown).  Her American lover has tired of her, kicked her out of his house in Bangkok, and arranged for her to be transported back to her homeland in Burma.  Alienated from her tribal roots and desperate not to return, Na Ga is suicidal.  It’s a powerful opening, and the novel goes on to intertwine two distinct narrative strands –  the back-story of Na Ga’s childhood and adolescence, and the present-tense tale of her time in Wanting as she wonders what she ought to do next.  The flashback sections show us how she was sold into slavery as a child before being taken in by an American family and educated; when they’re forced to flee the country because of the escalating political tensions in Rangoon, Na Ga has to stay behind.  Desperate to avoid the poverty and squalor of the remote tribal villages, she ends up working as a prostitute in Thailand.  When the brothel is raided, she’s shipped back to the Burmese border and placed in a refugee camp, and it’s here that Will, an American ex-pat with an interest in native peoples and their customs, discovers her.  She’s then installed as a lover/maid/anthropological subject in his Bangkok home where she remains for ten years until his interest wanes, and he decides to get rid of her.

Law-Yone’s writing is clear and lyrical, and The Road to Wanting is a straightforward read with some beautiful descriptive passages. The details of local colour – food, scenery, local traditions – are beautifully sketched. The book is well-paced and doesn’t really lag at any point, and even the minor characters are well fleshed-out. On the other hand, the catalogue of woes can veer towards the melodramatic; as Na Ga’s life gets worse and worse, I occasionally felt as though Law-Yone was testing my credulity. The Thai brothel scenes, in particular, seemed like an exercise in plotting-by-numbers as the narrator’s degradation reaches new (and predictable) lows. I found it a little difficult to sustain my suspension of disbelief and I was impatient to reach a turning-point beyond Na Ga’s accumulation of miserable experiences. 

The narrator’s voice was my other quibble here; Na Ga is a disengaged, clear-headed narrator, telling her own story in a clear and perceptive manner.  Although this helps to alleviate the potential misery-overdose, it does have the effect of distancing the reader from her experiences. The tone is so steady that I found it belied the traumatic content; as a first person tale, Na Ga is too calm and measured for her voice to sound especially authentic.  Although she’s been removed from village life as a small child and partly educated by foreigners, she’s also suffered countless rapes and beatings, and more than one bout of slavery, and I don’t think that this is particularly well represented in the language of her story-telling.

But these are only minor objections; I was absorbed in the novel and read it in three sittings over a day and a half.  Law-Yone spins an interesting tale and she evokes place very well.  The book’s full of witty observations, dialogue and characterisations.  She’s not heavy-handed in her treatment of Burmese politics, but there’s enough historical and social detail to give the actions of the novel a solid context.

Any Cop?: It’s a lighter read than the subject matter might suggest, and if you’re after an in-depth look at Burmese society, you might find it lacking.  But it’s very engrossing all the same – I enjoyed it and I’d recommend it.

Valerie O’Riordan