Talk:The Great Reclamation

The Great Reclamation is currently a Language and literature good article nominee. Nominated by Phibeatrice (talk) at 21:48, 9 November 2024 (UTC) An editor has indicated a willingness to review the article in accordance with the good article criteria and will decide whether or not to list it as a good article. Comments are welcome from any editor who has not nominated or contributed significantly to this article. This review will be closed by the first reviewer. To add comments to this review, click discuss review and edit the page. Short description: 2023 novel by Rachel Heng

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This review is transcluded from Talk:The Great Reclamation/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Phibeatrice (talk · contribs) 21:48, 9 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Reviewer: Chiswick Chap (talk · contribs) 18:28, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• mentioned in several anticipated releases lists - why is that lead material? It's quite hard to argue that it's even a noteworthy fact really.

• The plot synopsis is that unusual thing, actually rather too short. The second paragraph in particular reads more like a cliffhanger back-cover summary than an encyclopedia entry; a little more detail of what the novel actually says (rather than listing or analysing themes, something that would be more suitable for a Reception or Analysis section, suitably cited) might be an improvement. Do not be afraid of spoilers: this is an encyclopedia, not a newspaper review.

• The book's name refers to - not ideal. Why not say "The Great Reclamation of the title is the physical expansion project ......".

• to fully complete - drop "fully".

• is now home to developed areas like - perhaps "is now occupied by developments such as".

• stated in BOMB Magazine as being described reductively: - what does that mean? Maybe rephrase.

• archives like the National Archives of Singapore. - can there have been any other relevant archives? Maybe reword.

• In addition to being longlisted for ..., the book was longlisted for ... - How about "The book was longlisted for A, B, and C."

• a starred review - that'd be one star out of five, then?

• 'Critical reception' actually says very little about how critics actually received the book, which might have been thought to be rather central to a section with this particular title. We hear one sentence about what the mysteriously unnamed NYT reviewer thought (is that really all that Jenny Zhang said in those august pages?); Jeremy Tiang is similarly limited to one sentence, albeit one containing rather a long quotation. Nobody else gets much of a look in. There is rather a large difference between critical analysis (which can be favourable, neutral, or hostile) and mere star-counting; this section hovers dangerously close to the latter.

• For example, what do the critics actually think of the book? Do they find it well-expressed? staccato in style? easy to relate to? What do they think of the use of language? Why are Malay words mixed in? Does the use of translated Malay idiom make the book distinctively Singaporean or does it just shut out non-Singaporean readers (does it come across as honest, or as naive, perhaps)? And so on. In other words, how has the book actually been analysed by the critics: in a word, criticised?

• I'd say that being put on a list (paragraphs 1, 4, and 5) isn't 'Critical reception' at all; in particular, being on a list of anticipated reads (twice) is not even reception, just premature excitement?

• The only image is the book's cover. It has a valid NFUR.

• Why not include a photo of the 'Great Reclamation' area? It's obviously relevant. For instance here's one image that might suit. There seem to be plenty of alternatives on Commons.

• The other sort of image you might want to include is a lithograph of Singapore before the reclamation. Here's a nice one from 1865, showing exactly the sort of village environment that has been destroyed. There's another nice lithograph (by Edwin Porcher, c. 1850) in your BibioAsia source, 'Land from Sand'. Since that's now out of copyright, you could freely upload it to Commons.

• 
  Singapore's Marine Parade and East Coast Park are on 'The Great Reclamation' land.
• 
  Singapore in 1865: the environment of a village or kampong, now lost, as the book laments.

• The article has plenty of sources. Rather than verging on the risky, making claims that aren't supported, the article is excessively cautious, presenting a mass of excellent sources and making almost no use of them. In particular, the article currently fails to bring out "the main points" made by the critics cited. A GA is not required to perform an exhaustive analysis of critical thought, but it is required to give an idea of the main points made by the major newspapers at least.

• For example, Olivia Ho's review in The Straits Times both gives a rather better summary of the book than the article does, and then comments on it clearly and perspicaciously. She states that "local slang terms" are given an important place, something that could appear glib in the hands of a less able author, but Heng grounds the story in Singapore's landscape with a rich sense of place. This is surely a key point: Heng's choice of language is daring, as it could easily have gone completely wrong: but the critics say it works. I'd have thought we ought to hear much more of that sort of thing in the article.

• Ho goes on: The Great Reclamation takes readers back to a point in Singapore’s history when a compromise was made, the consequences of which have shaped the lives of later generations so irrevocably that they have never known anything different.
  Heng, a millennial born in 1988, succeeds here in making those of her generation feel a profound sorrow for something they did not know they had lost.
  It performs a powerful reclamation of its own, reconstructing in fiction that which has long vanished in reality. - I'm not sure we should quote quite so much in one mouthful (maybe split it up a bit), but the sentiments here are surely central to the impact that the novel makes. The article might note that Ho is a Singaporean, so is giving an 'inside' view of the book. You might want to contrast this with an 'outside' view, say from one or two of the American newspapers that you cite.

• To be neutral, you might want to have a subsection of 'Critical reception' actually titled 'In Singapore' and another 'In America' or 'Outside Singapore' (say). The reader might then start to appreciate how well the book works in either context.

• I suspect this will require a fair amount of new writing. That may make it necessary for me to review the article again once that is complete. I look forward to hearing your responses. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:19, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]