The Windup Girl

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2009

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Chapters 25-27Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 25 Summary

Anderson picks up Emiko from the club and brings her to his apartment. The white shirts have been raiding Raleigh’s place, and even though some of them have experimented with Emiko, they do not harm her because Raleigh now pays triple the amount of bribes. As a result, Emiko thinks it is most unlikely he will let her leave. Anderson and Emiko lie naked on the bed together, and she observes scars on his chest that look like they have come from spring-guns. There are also whip-like scars on his back. She despairs that she will never be able to leave. Anderson offers her some hope: he will ask Raleigh if she can stay with him, and not at the club, because of the white shirts, though Anderson knows he can’t afford her outright.

Chapter 26 Summary

Hock Seng finds himself isolated and in danger in the city. Yellow cards are another target for white shirt and Thai anger as conditions worsen. He espies a clipper ship on the water and inquires about it to a vendor. All river access is blocked as the white shirts continue to take their anger out on the business district. Unable to return to the factory to steal the blueprints, Hock abandons that idea and decides to hide out in the jungle, despite the harsh environment he will encounter.

Chapter 27 Summary

Carlyle and Anderson take a small skiff and board a barge where they meet Akkarat, some military personnel, and the dangerous and powerful Somdet Chaopraya, the protector of the Child Queen. Anderson bargains with Akkarat about access to the seedbank; Akkarat defers to the Somdet Chaopraya. The deal falls through, but Anderson tries to stay in the game by offering gifts of money. The Somdet Chaopraya is distrustful of calorie men like Anderson and tells him the best move Somdet could make is to feed Anderson to the fish. Anderson counters by offering him something unique that he has never seen before. The Somdet Chaopraya remains skeptical, but he and his men accompany Anderson and Carlyle to the Ploenchit. Anderson has also promised a valuable rice crop, which will be difficult given the size of it and the calorie company’s reluctance. But, for now, Anderson exploits the Somdet Chaopraya’s well-known debauchery. The Somdet sees Emiko reaching climax on-stage, via Kannika: “The Somdet Chaopraya stops short and stares. ‘I thought only the Japanese had them,’ he murmurs” (236).

Chapters 25-27 Analysis

Hope continues to wax and wane for the characters in these chapters. Much of the action remains static, and the blockade and lockdown effected by the white shirts fuels this moment of stasis in the plot. Anderson, genuinely attracted to Emiko, makes her feel like a real person once again, loved and protected as her former owner did. Her orgasm at the hands of Kannika at the section’s end is both disgusting and discouraging, however. Hok Seng also finds himself at loggerheads with the white shirts, who are ready to bludgeon him as a worthless yellow card. Further, he is isolated from the factory and its valuable blueprints. Mai is no longer with him, and he decides to flee to the jungle and its brutal conditions.

Somdet Chaopraya, who has featured earlier in the novel as a shadowy figure known for his own personal brutality, is a presence that commands respect and bowing among both the white shirts and citizens, as he travels from the barge to Raleigh’s club. He is the real power behind the throne, intimidating and deadly while the Child Queen earns the love and respect of her people. Anderson tries to sweeten the deal about gaining access to the seedbank by offering a genetically modified rice crop to the Somdet. This move is both risky, for if he doesn’t deliver, then he and Carlyle are both dead. His own exploitation of Emiko counterweighs his earlier tenderness for her as he uses her to titillate the Somdet Chaopraya. Even the Somdet can’t believe what he sees, and Anderson knows that introducing him to the Windup Girl will benefit Anderson.