????如果說過去10年以來，小說中最常見的隱喻是“911小說”，我們現在或許正在目睹下一波潮流的開始：亞洲的成功故事（或者至少是追逐成功的故事）。

????我們在春天撰文評述了兩部近期出版的小說：凱文?關的《瘋狂的亞洲富人》( Crazy Rich Asians )與穆赫辛?哈米德的《亞洲崛起之際的暴富之道》(How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia)。沒過多久，華裔作家歐大旭的新書《五星級億萬富翁》(Five Star Billionaire)就來到了我們的案頭。一如2011年以棒球為主題的暢銷書《防守的藝術》(The Art of Fielding)——書名取自小說主人公珍視的一本游擊手手冊——歐大旭的這部小說也是向一本虛構的指南書《一位五星級億萬富翁的秘密》(Secrets of a Five Star Billionaire)致敬：敘述者循序漸進地傳授了發家致富的秘訣。

????如果這個主題聽起來很熟悉，那很可能是因為哈米德的書同樣是以一部虛假的自我完善指南作為寫作架構的。

????但相較于哈米德的那本著作，歐大旭的新書更加詳盡，更易理解。哈米德以一個無名的亞洲國家（很可能是巴基斯坦，但書中并未透露）作為故事背景，其散文體缺乏厚度，幾乎散發著一股功利主義的氣息。相比之下，《五星級億萬富翁》的背景是一座微光閃爍，蓬勃發展的城市：上海，這是一個歐大旭讓我們覺得一切皆有可能發生的地方。

????在哈米德的書中，敘述者被刪除了，作者以匿名身份向讀者提供冷酷的建議。歐大旭的敘述者則真實得令人感動（甚至可能讓人不適）：沃爾特?趙，一位房地產大亨。他撰寫了一本語氣非常友好，頗具啟發性的致富指南，但他的行為與之并不匹配。在沃爾特的財富人生中，他踐踏了每一位妨礙其發財的人——或者至少與他狹路相逢的人。在小說人物中，有兩個人效仿著沃爾特的某些雄心：菲比，一個令人厭惡的女孩。她帶著沃爾特的一本書來到上海，愿意使用另一個女孩的身份證獲得工作；穎惠，一位精明的女商人。她白手起家，意志堅強，但過于輕信他人。另外兩個人物，賈斯汀和加里，更加倒霉：前者發現自己無力承受家族企業的重負，后者則是一位過氣的歌手。

????小說的視角不斷轉換，從一個人物到另一個人物，但有時似乎不太流暢——在當代小說中，這是另一個頗為流行的主題，比如《讓偉大的世界旋轉》(Let the Great World Spin)和《惡棍來訪》( A Visit From the Goon Squad)。雖然這種寫作策略據說已經過時，但對于一部以中國（一個持續吸引并影響美國商業領域的國家）為背景的著作而言，它卻是一個恰切得詭異的架構。

????從朱文的《我愛美元》( I Love Dollars )，到衛慧的《上海寶貝》( Shanghai Baby)，再到幾乎所有的莫言作品，爭奪財富已經成為通俗小說的重要主題之一。莫言去年摘得諾貝爾文學獎桂冠。此后，以對中國觀察深刻、情節喧嘩著稱的莫言小說就開始風靡美國。

????《五星級億萬富翁》自信地步入這個群體。這部小說對于中國龐大經濟景觀的辛辣描述尤其令人信服——這里不是硅谷。歐大旭筆下的人物與哈佛商學院(Harvard Business School)的精英們簡直是云泥之別。他們是一群奮斗者，只要還能，他們就會試圖從上海攫取一切能夠攫取的東西。

????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.