Tan Twan Eng

The story unfolds as a memoir of a young man caught by circumstances he cannot control. Set in Penang before the outbreak of WW2 a young Philip is accepted as a student of Endo-san. All is not as it appears though and Philip is placed in an impossible position as the Japanese invade.

The story itself is beautiful but the prose is magnificent. The book flows like water. Works of fiction, while they can move, very rarely change your perspective or open you up to greater thoughts and ideas. This is one of the exceptions. It is hard to describe how but I am not quite the same person who started the novel.… (plus d'informations)

Tan Twan Eng writes beautiful historical novels that are puzzle boxes of nested memories. I found [b:The House of Doors|65215270|The House of Doors|Tan Twan Eng|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1698331937l/65215270._SY75_.jpg|98727713] as atmospheric and lyrical as his others. Unlike his two previous novels, however, it is told entirely from the white colonist point of view. Although this provides an inevitably limited perspective on the times being recalled (1910 and 1921/22), the characters' opinions on political upheaval in China, gender roles, and marriage are very interesting. I probably missed nuances to the narrative due to my unfamiliarity with the work of W. Somerset Maugham, who is a major character. This novel did convince me to investigate his work, though.

A large portion of the narrative consists of Somerset Maugham listening to his hostess Lesley recounting a story from a decade before that she's never told anyone else. There's a pleasing metatextuality to this situation, given the expectation that he will turn her rather scandalous secrets into fiction. He asks her about this and she replies archly wondering why he thinks she used the real name of a particular person. While the writer tries to be a detached observer of his hosts and their milieu, his own marital problems closely parallel theirs. Beneath the genteel manners of white colonial life lurk sordid secrets and deep unhappiness, just as they do back in the London society Somerset Maugham fled from.

While Tan Twan Eng's first novel is still my favourite of his so far, I very much look forward to his future works. He is an excellent historical novelist who vividly brings early 20th century Penang to life. I find his writing consistently beguiling and evocative.… (plus d'informations)

I was blown away by Tan Twan Eng's first novel [b:The Gift of Rain|1219949|The Gift of Rain|Tan Twan Eng|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1328494577l/1219949._SY75_.jpg|1208426]. Although I found that more powerful than [b:The Garden of Evening Mists|12031532|The Garden of Evening Mists|Tan Twan Eng|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1333033941l/12031532._SX50_.jpg|16997854], this second novel is also beautifully written, atmospheric, and insightful. Both novels are set in Malaysia during and after the Second World War, but each approaches the Japanese occupation differently. The protagonist of [b:The Garden of Evening Mists|12031532|The Garden of Evening Mists|Tan Twan Eng|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1333033941l/12031532._SX50_.jpg|16997854], Teoh Yun Ling, is sent to a Japanese slave labour camp with her sister and is the only survivor. The novel contemplates the legacy of this trauma in her life. She becomes a judge and prosecutes war criminals, trying over the years to find where her sister died. I found her a fascinating protagonist.

The narrative includes extensive flashbacks, as Yun Ling has retired due to ill-health and is writing down her recollections. Via her postwar experiences, the reader observes her complex emotions regarding nationality and ethnicity in the wake of horrific war crimes. Initially she blames all Japanese people for the death of her sister and her own suffering, then forms a bond with the Japanese emperor's former gardener. I found the details she learns about traditional Japanese gardening, woodblock printing, archery, and tattooing beguiling. The mystery around what happened to her unfolds gradually and at the end there is still inevitable ambiguity about who was responsible. This is a novel that considers atrocities with considerable delicacy, without downplaying how terrible they were. Despite being a much longer book, [b:The Gift of Rain|1219949|The Gift of Rain|Tan Twan Eng|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1328494577l/1219949._SY75_.jpg|1208426] had a faster and steadier pace. The more contemplative pace of [b:The Garden of Evening Mists|12031532|The Garden of Evening Mists|Tan Twan Eng|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1333033941l/12031532._SX50_.jpg|16997854] is nonetheless compelling and the writing strikingly evocative.… (plus d'informations)

When a friend lent 'The Gift of Rain' to me I hadn't heard of it, so had no idea what to expect. It turned out to be one of the most addictively compelling novels I've come across recently, so much so that I read all 500 pages in a day. The setting is Penang, an island just off the mainland of Malaysia, shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War. Or rather the narrative is an extended flashback to the Second World War period, as recounted by the narrator Phillip many decades later. He has an English father and Chinese mother, so in his youth feels out of place in both the English and Chinese communities of Penang. At the age of 16, he meets a Japanese diplomat named Endo-san. The two immediately form a strong bond and Endo-san teaches him aikido. In the framing mechanism of the flashback, Phillip is explaining what happened to the two of them during the war to a woman who loved Endo-san and once hoped to marry him. From the start it is clear that Phillip is lonely and haunted by tragedy connected with the Japanese occupation of Penang.

The novel is unusually riveting for a number of reasons. Firstly, the setting is vividly evoked and full of details that immerse the reader in a very specific time and place. Secondly, the events of the Second World War are central to the plot, forcing characters to make extremely difficult decisions and face terrible risks. Thirdly, the book is very well paced, building tension delicately but adeptly. Fourthly, there is a careful balance between the use of prosaic and mystical elements that enriches the narrative. Fifthly, and probably most importantly, the characters and their relationships are fascinating. The intensity of the bond between Phillip and Endo-san is the gravity that propels the plot. I read it as romantic and barely-subtextually sexual, but the narrative is not interested in definitions of that kind. Rather the two are depicted as soulmates, who love each other not only in their current life but did so in past lives as well. When the war reaches Penang, Phillip is torn between the different parts of his life.

Tan Twan Eng depicts this impossibly difficult situation very powerfully. Phillip's collaboration with the Japanese is shown without condemning or absolving him. He is trying to remain loyal to Endo-san, save his family, and protect Penang's people where possible. Yet working for the Japanese occupying force makes him fully complicit in mass murder and he is unable to save his own brother from death in a prison camp. He had the opportunity to take a different path, which his friend Kon chose, and become a guerrilla resistance fighter. The scenes in the jungle with Kon and Tanaka-san are particularly brutal and shocking, although everything about the war is shown to be arbitrary and horrific. A major theme is what duty means and who we owe a duty to, which I think the novel explores extremely well.

Although I knew only Phillip would survive to tell his tale, and thus the conclusion of the flashback would be tragic, this could not slow the pace of my reading. I found the ending very moving. In a past life, Endo-san executed Phillip. In 1945, Phillip executes Endo-san on his sensei's order. Despite all this suffering, betrayal, and death, the Buddhist idea of reincarnation provides hope for the future. Phillip and Endo-san have each betrayed and killed the other yet their love has endured, so maybe in their next life they can be happy together. The seemingly predetermined nature of events offers Phillip both pain and comfort, while ambiguity also remains as to how much his choices could ever change things. 'The Gift of Rain' is a historical novel to devour, to get swept away in, and to finish reading at 3am. I found it an unexpectedly wonderful experience and all the more impressive for being a debut novel.… (plus d'informations)