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The Road to Rangoon Lucy Cruickshanks 9781782063452 Books

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The Road to Rangoon Lucy Cruickshanks 9781782063452 Books

I was excited to order this book because of my interest in Burma, especially in "Ruby Land" (as they call Mogok) where I visited about a year ago. There were almost too many descriptive words as if they were added to make the sentences longer. The similarities in names I couldn't pronounce made it difficult to stop reading and then pick up the story thread the next day. I gave up, sorrowfully, and put it aside for another time. The description of the story that appears on the paperback is what I was hoping for. The picture was taken in one of the huge underground ruby mines with my terrific guide and driver from Mandalay. Traveling with a guide was required then.


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The Road to Rangoon Lucy Cruickshanks 9781782063452 Books Reviews

Lucy Cruickshanks has written an impeccably researched novel to create a heart-wrenching and haunting story of different people's lives colliding in the worst possible way amid the terror and confusion of a Civil War in 1980s Burma.

The rebels and the government are in an impossible stand-off where there can no longer be any winners as there is little beyond fear, corruption and ultimately death on both sides. One of the people caught in the horrific events playing out is Thuza Win, who was just a child when her parents were beaten in front of her eyes and taken away. The people who took her parents also slashed her tongue and now she is known as Naga-Ma, serpent, among the local people. She tries to not let the locals bother her and instead she focuses all her time and energy on smuggling rubies across the border to help her brother in the rebel camp and save up enough money to go to Rangoon and save her parents from prison.

Than Chit is an officer in the Tatmadaw, the government military organisation fighting the rebels. His biggest dream is to be recognised by General Bo Win and he believes that getting his intelligent son, Min, to join him in the Tatmadaw as soon as possible will put him on the fast-track to the promotion he deserves. And finally there is Michael, the son of the British ambassador in Rangoon. He gets caught up in a bombing in the city and he makes a discovery that leads to his life colliding catastrophically with those of Thuza and Than. They meet under the most terrifying of circumstances and all three of them have their own agenda as they formulate a plan that will help them get what they want; Thuza's parents freed, Than's promotion and Michael's discovery made public.

I don't do graphically depicted scenes of people being tortured and suffering well, and there were plenty of those in The Road to Rangoon. It made me feel uncomfortable at times while reading yet it also added to the authenticity of the story and I realise that without them this book wouldn't have made the impact on me that it did. The choices people were forced to make in 1980s Burma were horrific and a lot of the time there was no clear right or wrong, there was only doing what you had to do to survive.

People such as Thuza and Than would've been the bad guys under any other circumstances, yet they often made the only possible choice in difficult situations, hoping that the end would justify the means. Of course it wouldn't, but their sheer determination got them through the worst of times and that was admirable. I didn't particularly like any of the characters to begin with, except maybe for Michael, yet despite the terrible things they did, Lucy Cruickshanks has done an impressive job of making me understand why the characters had to make these difficult choices, up until the point where I actually started to feel sympathetic towards them.

And she has an incredible way of transporting the reader to a faraway setting that is so alien through our blessed Western view of the world that it almost feels like pure fiction. But of course what makes this novel so disconcerting is that the story is rooted in facts, and that events very similar to what the main characters suffer from have truly happened to a lot of the Burmese people; whether they were on the government's side, the rebel's side or neither, nobody would've come out unscathed. It's insane to realise that all this went on quite recently, and similar practices still are elsewhere in the world. It's very easy to close our eyes to the horrors that are happening beyond our own borders, but books like these are much-needed eye openers.

The Road to Rangoon isn't an easy journey, not for the characters and not for the readers either, instead it is horrific, haunting and heart-wrenching. However, if you can persevere through the disturbing imagery showing the worst side of humanity, you'll be rewarded with an intelligent and incredibly impactful read. This isn't an enjoyable novel in the literal sense of the world, but it is an engrossing and enlightening one, and the powerful story within packs such a punch that it will stay with the reader long after turning the final page.
“When a man is denied the right to live the life he believes in, he has no choice but to become an outlaw.”

----Nelson Mandela

Lucy Cruickshanks, an English author, has penned yet another enticing and poignant tale, The Road to Rangoon that is set across the beautiful yet sad land of Burma which is centered around three characters whose lives are entwined and engulfed in the clutches of the civil war against the Burmese Military Armed Forces, officially known as Tatmadaw.

Synopsis

In 1980s Burma, the British ambassador’s son goes missing.

Discovering himself in the north of the country, Michael Atwood is in imminent danger, trapped between sides fighting a bitter civil war and with no way back to Rangoon. His best hope of salvation is to trust Thuza, a ruby smuggler who offers to help him escape.

Beautiful and deeply scarred, Thuza has spent her entire life in a frontier town between rebel and government forces, never choosing a side but trying to make a living from both. For Thuza, the ambassador’s son is her ticket out of poverty. For Than, an ambitious military officer, exploiting those caught in the war offers an opportunity for promotion and distinction.

But as all three learn to their cost, in this enigmatic and savage country, everyone has a price.

From the heart of Burma’s exotic Rubyland comes an emotional thriller, as three lives are thrown together by the desperate choices they make to survive in a country gripped by civil war a tale of ambition, salvation and hope that confirms Lucy Cruickshanks as a master storyteller.

Michael Atwood, the son of a British Ambassador in Burma goes missing and soon he realizes that he is caught in the war from both the sides and the power they holds on his capture is invaluable, that is when he needs to trust the only person who can help him to rescue from the grips of the rebels.

Thuza, the local Burmese girl, is a ruby smuggler, who knows her job well like the back of her hand, on how to differentiate ruby from the rocks, as it is the only salvation to buy her parents' freedom from the right officials.

Than, works and abides by the strict rules of the Tatmadaw army, is soon tested on his loyalty towards the Army, and he is forever desperate to climb the ladders of success by pleasing the General. Things change when he forces his son, Min, to join the forces and to take strict measures against those who wrong by the Armed Forces.

These three lives in Burma, now known as Myanmar, will break the hearts of the readers as their lives unfold and when their fate plays a major role to bring them together under dire circumstances.

The author has once again delivered a spectacular tale of love, freedom and loyalty towards one own government set against the back of another country from the far east- Burma, which harbors a difficult era in Burmese history, which not only torn apart the lives of the common man, but which made it impossible to survive under the dominance of the Tatmadaw army.

The author has evocatively captured the time frame as well as the location with her eloquent words. The background of Burma is dominated by lush and dense green forests and the tombs of the many Buddhist temples and that the author has vividly captured in her story line. The land where beauty of mother nature and repressive army plays a major role, is well painted into the canvas of the story as the author strikingly captures the culture, the local dialect and the grief of the citizens through her story. The author has done her research quite well with the ways how to find a ruby among the rocks, where to find it, and also the governance of the army and their torture among common people.

The author's writing style is spell-binding that I lost track of time as I devoured the novel in just one sitting. The book is highly addictive as articulate narrative shifts from one character to another. The pacing is really fast, despite the fact that the author has written the scenes descriptively, that made it easier for me to picture the events right in front of my eyes. The story is engrossing and kept me glued till the very end. The author has penned with so much deep, moving emotions and it definitely felt like she has poured all her best emotions into it.

The characters are drawn with realism and simplicity. The challenges thrown on their track made me rooting for them. All the three characters are inspiring and sad laced with grief and their demeanor is something to watch out for when they are caught in the politics and the war with the government and they are bound to leave an impression long after the end of this powerful historical fiction. The story has a complex and nostalgic ending that definitely moved me. The supporting characters are highly well-developed.

Overall the story is enthralling, thought-provoking and thoroughly gripping till the end set against the back drop of Burma in the late 20th century.
I was excited to order this book because of my interest in Burma, especially in "Ruby Land" (as they call Mogok) where I visited about a year ago. There were almost too many descriptive words as if they were added to make the sentences longer. The similarities in names I couldn't pronounce made it difficult to stop reading and then pick up the story thread the next day. I gave up, sorrowfully, and put it aside for another time. The description of the story that appears on the paperback is what I was hoping for. The picture was taken in one of the huge underground ruby mines with my terrific guide and driver from Mandalay. Traveling with a guide was required then.