[In the following review, Knudsen offers a mixed assessment of Kowloon Tong, which he finds excessively “dreary,” but redeemed in part by Theroux's observational skill.]

Through Paul Theroux's long and varied career as a writer, he has shown himself to be an acute observer of foreign cultures. Whether he is recording his railway experiences everywhere from England to Asia, or exploring, through fiction, the lives of characters who find themselves for personal or professional reasons in cultures not their own, Theroux never shies from strong opinions and often provides his readers with rare insights and local color.

Kowloon Tong, subtitled “A Novel of Hong Kong,” is no exception. Set on the eve of the handover of Hong Kong by the British back to the Chinese, it explores the cultural zeitgeist of British settlers living a life that is more British than the one being lived back home and the Chinese who are ready to reclaim what they believe is rightfully theirs.

While the premise of the novel is intriguing, it is difficult to imagine a more disagreeable cast of characters. Neville “Bunt” Mullard's family has been in Hong Kong for a generation, co-owners with a local Chinese man of a factory that produces stitched insignias. Mullard is a mother-obsessed drudge who fears change but ultimately comes to embrace one of his Chinese workers as his one chance at salvation. His mother, a racist at heart and greedy to boot, is only too happy to sell their family business to the mysterious Mr. Hung, who is also, perhaps, a murderer. The unfolding of the plot does not involve much in the way of suspense. Instead, the reader sees more and more, often repeated, evidence of how the British residents have failed to understand the Chinese (mainly by willfully ignoring them in favor of preserving their own imported culture) and how the Chinese have assimilated the British only to the extent that they could take advantage of them. Regardless of Deng Xiaoping's pledge that life will go on as before, life in China will clearly be different. It is hard to imagine, though, that it will be particularly worse or better, all things considered, than the life portrayed here. As Bunt himself thinks, “Hong Kong was just an anthill with a Union Jack flying over it. The flag was changing but Hong Kong would remain an anthill.”

It is difficult not to read this novel as an allegory of life in Hong Kong under British rule, and not just because of the subtitle. In the end, the “selfish and sneering and greedy and spineless” British come off looking like dull, narrow-minded opportunists, whereas the Chinese, though “always out of focus and the nearer you got to them, the harder they were to see,” seem infinitely more human while not completely trustworthy. As involving as this message may sound in summary, the book itself is often repetitious and almost unrelievedly dreary. In the end, Theroux's eye for exotic detail is Kowloon Tong's central saving grace.