The Portrait of a City: Lawrence Osborne’s Bangkok Days
The Portrait of a City: Lawrence Osborne’s Bangkok Days
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2012
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eng
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application/pdf
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24 pages
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Eclectic Representations 2.1. (July 2012): 11-34. Chennai, India: Madras Christian College
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Abstract
The novel
Bangkok Days
(2009) by Lawrence Osborne offers reflections on the identity of Thailand’s capital and its expatriate residents. The novel taps into Westerners’ imagination and misconceptions of Asia and their fascination with Bangkok. Through a semi-fictional narrative where personal experiences of a wandering narrator, subjective impressions and historical facts merge, the novel attempts to disentangle many of Bang-kok’s apparent complexities and enigmas. This paper seeks to analyze
Bangkok Days
’ portrayal of the city and its approach to central themes which include urban lone-liness, the interplay between East and West, as well as the city as a stage, chaos and mystery. The objective is to arrive at an in-depth understanding of these concepts and Osborne’s portrait of Bangkok.