If the most common trope in fiction in the past 10 years has been the "9/11 novel," we may now be seeing the beginnings of the next wave: stories of success (or at least the hunt for it) in Asia.

    On the heels of two recent novels we reviewed in the spring, Kevin Kwan's Crazy Rich Asians and Mohsin Hamid's How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, comes Tash Aw's newest book, Five Star Billionaire. As with the bestselling 2011 baseball novel The Art of Fielding, which takes its title from a shortstop's manual that the novel's protagonist cherishes, Aw's book pays homage to a fictional guidebook, Secrets of a Five Star Billionaire: the narrator imparts step-by-step tips on how to get rich.

    If the theme sounds familiar, it may well be because Hamid's book is likewise written as a faux self-improvement guide.

    Aw's novel, though, is more intimate and accessible than Hamid's, who sets his book in a nameless Asian country (likely Pakistan, but it isn't divulged) and whose prose is almost utilitarian in its spareness. The background for Five Star Billionaire, by contrast, is the glimmering, booming city of Shanghai -- a place where Aw makes us feel that anything is possible.

    Hamid's narrator is removed and anonymous, ruthless in his advice to the reader. Aw's narrator is affectingly, if uncomfortably, real: Walter Chao, a real estate mogul whose friendly, instructive tone in the get-rich guides he writes doesn't match his actions. As Walter amasses his fortune, he stomps on everyone who gets in his way -- or at least crosses paths with him. Two of these figures echo some of Walter's ambition: Phoebe, a scrappy girl who has come to Shanghai armed with one of Walter's books, is willing to use another girl's ID card to get a job; Yinghui, a shrewd businesswoman, is self-made and strong-willed, but also too trusting. Two others -- Justin, who finds himself unable to live up to the burdens of his family business, and Gary, a disgraced singer -- are more hapless.

    The perspective switches, though not quite seamlessly, from one character to the next -- another theme that has been in vogue in contemporary fiction (think: Let the Great World Spin and A Visit From the Goon Squad). And while it's a device that has arguably been played out, it's an oddly fitting structure for a book set in China, a country that continues to fascinate and influence the American business sphere.

    The idea of the struggle for wealth there has made its way into popular fiction, from Zhu Wen's I Love Dollars to Wei Hu's Shanghai Baby to pretty much everything written by Mo Yan, who won last year's Nobel Prize in literature and whose incisive, raucous novels about China have since become popular in the States.

    Five Star Billionaire steps confidently into this crowd, and its mordant depiction of China's sprawling economic scene -- this is no Silicon Valley -- is particularly compelling. Aw's characters are a far cry from the lot at Harvard Business School. They are strivers looking to collect what they can from Shanghai, while they can.

    如果说过去10年以来，小说中最常见的隐喻是“911小说”，我们现在或许正在目睹下一波潮流的开始：亚洲的成功故事（或者至少是追逐成功的故事）。

    我们在春天撰文评述了两部近期出版的小说：凯文•关的《疯狂的亚洲富人》( Crazy Rich Asians )与穆赫辛•哈米德的《亚洲崛起之际的暴富之道》(How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia)。没过多久，华裔作家欧大旭的新书《五星级亿万富翁》(Five Star Billionaire)就来到了我们的案头。一如2011年以棒球为主题的畅销书《防守的艺术》(The Art of Fielding)——书名取自小说主人公珍视的一本游击手手册——欧大旭的这部小说也是向一本虚构的指南书《一位五星级亿万富翁的秘密》(Secrets of a Five Star Billionaire)致敬：叙述者循序渐进地传授了发家致富的秘诀。

    如果这个主题听起来很熟悉，那很可能是因为哈米德的书同样是以一部虚假的自我完善指南作为写作架构的。

    但相较于哈米德的那本著作，欧大旭的新书更加详尽，更易理解。哈米德以一个无名的亚洲国家（很可能是巴基斯坦，但书中并未透露）作为故事背景，其散文体缺乏厚度，几乎散发着一股功利主义的气息。相比之下，《五星级亿万富翁》的背景是一座微光闪烁，蓬勃发展的城市：上海，这是一个欧大旭让我们觉得一切皆有可能发生的地方。

    在哈米德的书中，叙述者被删除了，作者以匿名身份向读者提供冷酷的建议。欧大旭的叙述者则真实得令人感动（甚至可能让人不适）：沃尔特•赵，一位房地产大亨。他撰写了一本语气非常友好，颇具启发性的致富指南，但他的行为与之并不匹配。在沃尔特的财富人生中，他践踏了每一位妨碍其发财的人——或者至少与他狭路相逢的人。在小说人物中，有两个人效仿着沃尔特的某些雄心：菲比，一个令人厌恶的女孩。她带着沃尔特的一本书来到上海，愿意使用另一个女孩的身份证获得工作；颖惠，一位精明的女商人。她白手起家，意志坚强，但过于轻信他人。另外两个人物，贾斯汀和加里，更加倒霉：前者发现自己无力承受家族企业的重负，后者则是一位过气的歌手。

    小说的视角不断转换，从一个人物到另一个人物，但有时似乎不太流畅——在当代小说中，这是另一个颇为流行的主题，比如《让伟大的世界旋转》(Let the Great World Spin)和《恶棍来访》( A Visit From the Goon Squad)。虽然这种写作策略据说已经过时，但对于一部以中国（一个持续吸引并影响美国商业领域的国家）为背景的著作而言，它却是一个恰切得诡异的架构。

    从朱文的《我爱美元》( I Love Dollars )，到卫慧的《上海宝贝》( Shanghai Baby)，再到几乎所有的莫言作品，争夺财富已经成为通俗小说的重要主题之一。莫言去年摘得诺贝尔文学奖桂冠。此后，以对中国观察深刻、情节喧哗著称的莫言小说就开始风靡美国。

    《五星级亿万富翁》自信地步入这个群体。这部小说对于中国庞大经济景观的辛辣描述尤其令人信服——这里不是硅谷。欧大旭笔下的人物与哈佛商学院(Harvard Business School)的精英们简直是云泥之别。他们是一群奋斗者，只要还能，他们就会试图从上海攫取一切能够攫取的东西。

    In opening the book, business titan Walter recalls that, as a child, he dreamed of one day owning a whole building. Then he shatters that idea -- not because it was absurd to hope for such a thing as a boy, but because, as he says: "I should never have been so modest in my ambitions, nor waited so long to pursue them." Walter shares anecdotes like the time a newspaper reporter offended him in an interview. (The entrepreneur's response is to buy the paper years later and fire the editor that commissioned the interview.) Walter extracts a lesson like this from every key moment of his life, it seems -- as the book's four other central characters struggle through their own business and life tutorials.

    As the story weaves on, characters bump into one another, but never in a way that sticks. It's a bit of an emotional disconnect -- but then through these encounters we get entertaining tidbits of perspective that are telling of attitudes in China and elsewhere.

    When Justin's family's company, for example, is mentioned in business magazines as "Henry Lim and Family -- Diversified Holdings," he feels the phrase carries "with it an accusation, as if the source of wealth they had amassed was uncertain and, most probably, unsavory." His father scolds him, "You're too sensitive ... What do you care what other people think?" But he doescare, as he obsessively reads the negative comments about himself on a blog: "Justin Lim has been trained by his family to be uncaring and ruthless ... Justin Lim will stop at nothing to fulfill his aims; he will crush you like he crushes insects."

    In another revealing moment, Yinghui experiences the caustic sexism that comes from being a successful businesswoman when she accidentally receives an email in which she is referred to as "Ultrawoman," "Dragon Queen," "Terminatress," and "Rambo." Throughout the novel, Aw manages to paint his characters' business plans and their high-class parties in ways that are both drily funny and eminently plausible.

    The book takes its time in grabbing you, and at the beginning too often introduces its characters with a factual, Wikipedia-like summary of the things they've done. But once you come to know each character and their individual ambitions, it speeds along nicely -- though some characters shine more than others. Justin's embarrassment and self-doubt are real and raw, as is Yinghui's desire to be taken seriously by her more successful peers, but it is difficult to muster much sympathy for fallen-idol Gary.

    In otherwise positive reviews, some critics have dinged the book for its less-than-thrilling resolution. The New York Times called it "a long book that simmers without ever coming to a boil," and The Guardian wrote that "the pace is too unvarying." Such criticism is fair. But that said, the overall reading experience doesn't suffer for the book's unresolved storylines. Aw's novel is about the journey, not the arrival. Getting there is all, not half, the fun. For those who want a taste of Shanghai's entrepreneurial obsession, Five Star Billionaire is a banquet unto itself.

    在小说开篇，商业巨头沃尔特回忆说，小时候，他梦想着有朝一日能够拥有一整栋楼。随后，他就粉碎了这个想法，不是因为对于一个小男孩来说，幻想这些事情过于荒谬，而是因为，“我本不该为自己设定一个如此渺小的志向，也不应该等待这么久才去追寻这些梦想，”他说。沃尔特讲述了一些轶事，比如一位报社记者如何在一次采访中冒犯了他（这位企业家的反应是，若干年后收购了这家报社，炒掉了那位策划这次采访的编辑）。沃尔特从其人生的每一个关键时刻汲取了类似这样的教训，这本书的其他四位主人公似乎也在经受其自身事业和生活教程的考验。

    随着故事的迂回发展，这几位人物逐渐遭遇，但从未粘连在一起。这种处理手法会让读者的情绪有点中断，但通过这些偶遇，我们得以领略一些有趣的思维花絮，从中可看出中国和其他国家的不同处事态度。

    比如，当商业杂志在题为“亨利•林及其家族——多元化控股”的文章中提到贾斯汀家族的公司时，贾斯汀觉得这个短语“带有一种谴责意味，似乎他们积累财富的源泉是不确定的，并且很有可能是令人讨厌的。”他的父亲骂了他一顿：“你太敏感了。你为什么那么在意别人的看法？”但他的确在意，正如他痴迷地浏览一个博客上关于他自己的负面评价：“在家人的栽培下，贾斯汀•林变得毫无爱心，冷漠无情。为了达到自己的目的，贾斯汀•林将不惜一切代价；他将像踩死昆虫一样踩死你。”

    在另一个颇具启迪意义的时刻，颖慧意外地收到了一封将她称为“女强人”、“龙后”、“女终结者”和“兰博”的电子邮件，她随之经历了一种源自其成功女商人身份的刻薄的性别歧视。在整部小说中，欧大旭始终以一种带有冷幽默和一定可信性的方式，用心刻画这些人物的事业计划和他们的高级聚会。

    这本书不急不躁地抓住了读者的心魄。一开始，在介绍小说人物时，它过于频繁采用了类似于维基百科的手法，总结陈列他们做过的事情。但一旦你认识了每位人物及其个人野心，故事情节就令人愉悦地飞驰起来，尽管一些人物比其他人更加光彩夺目。贾斯汀的尴尬和自我怀疑真实且直露的，一如颖慧的愿望——这位女富豪希望比她更成功的同僚能够认真对待她。但对于风光不再的加里，我们很难产生足够的同情心。

    除了正面评价外，这本书也受到了一些指摘。对于不那么惊心动魄的冲突终局，一些评论家多有诟病。《纽约时报》(The New York Times )称它是“一本不断酝酿，但从来没有沸腾起来的大部头。”《卫报》( The Guardian )写道：“全书的节奏几乎没有变化。”这些批评是公允的。但尽管如此，整体的阅读体验并没有因悬而未决的故事情节而受到破坏。欧大旭为我们讲述的是一段旅程，“抵达”并非这部小说的重心。抵达那里，是所有（而不是一半）的乐趣所在。对于那些有意领略上海的创业热情的读者来说，《五星级亿万富翁》本身就是一场盛宴。（财富中文网）

    译者：任文科