AKICILJ: Cambodia

[kate_nepveu]

Before I disappear into reading Harry Potter—

Is there anyone reading this who is either from Cambodia or is knowledgable about contemporary Cambodian culture, and who's read Geoff Ryman's Hugo-nominated novellete "Pol Pol's Beautiful Daughter" (pdf)? Because I read it last night and its use of Cambodia is making me uncomfortable, but I am very ignorant on the subject.

ETA: I've now booklogged this story and the rest of the nominees in the category.

Comments

[kate_nepveu]

Yeah. I've now got a head full of Harry Potter, but it seemed to me when I was thinking about it this morning that the ultimate take-home message of the story is that modern Cambodia--*all* of it, not just those who are living off the money their evil father hide away--isn't doing enough to honor its dead. And that's a hell of a sweeping judgment to make, especially for an outsider, which made me really uncomfortable. But I don't know anything about Cambodia.

Even more so if there's an actual person with the role of the daughter here (I think that's what Niall meant in comments here, though I'm waiting for his clarification), because the emphasis on how the story's not *true* would be denying the existence of such a person.

If it had been a secondary-world fantasy story I would have liked it a lot.

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

I ended up elaborating here (http://bellatrys.livejournal.com/328327.html?thread=2749575#t2749575).