Khru Liam's Nang Neramid

Abstract

Published for the one and only time in 1916, the little-known Thai novel Nang Neramid [Divine Nymphs] is the recently rediscovered work of Khru Liam (pseudonym Nai Samran). Author of Siam's first example of a full-length novel, Khwam Mai Phayabat [The Non-Vendetta], Khru Liam's fiction bears a close relationship to translated Victorian works popular among Thai readers of the time, such as Marie Corelli's Vendetta and Sir Henry Rider Haggard's She. This article explores the Siamese adoption and adaptation of Western literary sources to produce a Thai novel in close imitation of the Western form. Nang Neramid, penned shortly after the reprinting of Khru Liam's own translation of She (under the title Sao song phan pi), is an adventure story set in Egypt featuring English, Egyptian, Ethiopian, Negro and Arab characters. Masquerading as the translation of a Western novel, Nang Neramid's tale of adventure, intrigue, magic, warfare, romance, occult and the erotic is revealed only in its closing pages to be without English prototype. It follows explorations by a young English scholar, James Billford, of ancient ruins and caves that harbour the well preserved mummies of young women, brought to life by the interventions of a grand wizard. The nymphs become sexually irresistible to any male who touches them, and the novel includes descriptions of the erotic trysts that ensue. Khru Liam combines his portrayal of male sexual drives and female responsiveness in this novel with a study of Buddhist religious concepts and the occult, examining how sexuality can be conditioned by the objective and the subjective self.