Aw allows much to remain unknown, uncertain, or unsaid in The South, and he does so beautifully, allowing readers to find the nuance within the very specific scenes ... A strong opening for Aw’s projected quartet, a quiet yet expansive novel, and it’s with great anticipation that I discovered that he is already hard at work on the second installment. If the first book is anything to go by, there is a lot to look forward to.
Although the novel is an exquisite portrait of young love, its main theme is a different kind of highly relatable yearning: to live your life as you wish. In this first instalment, all the characters are imprisoned by custom, expectation, poverty or sometimes bonds of their own making. Whether they can break free will be revealed in the subsequent novels.
It takes a while to orient yourself ... The novel never settles into a predictable shape, switching tantalisingly between family members, first and third-person narration, past and present tense. It’s a bit disorientating, but that’s the beauty of this spellbinding story about a group of people navigating a period of upheaval ... It’s a book that reveals Aw’s greatest strength as a novelist — an ability to subtly shift and unsettle your perceptions of characters and situations. The South deliberately resists easy resolutions. We must wait — and enjoy waiting.
