Look to the East
The
first remarkable thing about Tan Twan Eng’s The Gift
of Rain is that although it’s published by a small
press, it doesn’t look terrible. The hardback I read is
a handsomely produced volume, every bit the equal of the better
sort of mainstream publisher. The second remarkable thing is that
this debut novel has been longlisted for the Booker Prize: which
must be some sort of record. In fact, as it’s a very good
book indeed, that’s not remarkable at all.
If I say “a gripping tale of betrayal and
duty in life during wartime,” you will probably think of
some dreary black and white film on BBC2 on Saturday afternoon.
But this is precisely what The Gift of Rain is, and to
be put off by the description would be to miss out on a very great
treat. It is an epic, operatic story of a young man’s long
and winding road to determine to whom he owes the greater duty:
those he was born to know and love, or those he has grown to know
and respect.
Philip Hutton is a sixteen-year-old boy, half English
and half Chinese - “a child born between two worlds, belonging
to neither” - who lives in Malaya (as the peninsular part
of Malaysia was then called under British rule) in the 1930s.
His father runs a successful business, and when the rest of his
family are away in 1939, he meets Hayato Endo, a Japanese diplomat
to whom his father has rented land.
Endo teaches Philip aikijutsu, “the
art of harmonising forces,” and it’s to Eng’s
credit that these sections don’t come across too wax-on-wax-off,
though there is a full complement of deceptively powerful elderly
gentlemen. Philip becomes devoted to Endo, his sensei:
“I opened myself up to him as clouds open up to the sun.”
Through his teaching Philip achieves a sense of self never before
experienced - “spirit expanded, mind unfurling open, heart
in flight” - and all within settings of
the briny scent of the sea at low tide, mixed
with the smell of the mudflats steaming in the sun … Chinese
and Tamil dock coolies … shouting and pushing carts of
smoked rubber sheets, tin ingots and bags of cloves and peppercorns.
Rickshaws clattered past, their wheels bouncing on uneven roads.
But this blissful existence is not to last for long,
because when the Japanese invade Malaya, Philip must make a decision
as to where his loyalties lie. His choice will mark him and his
people for generations: “Like the rain, I had brought tragedy
into many people’s lives, but, more often than not, rain
also brings relief, clarity and renewal.”
The Gift of Rain, with its leisurely time-scale
and Shakespearean body count, is one of those immersive novels
which creates its own world and drags you willingly in. Be warned
though that it is a biggie: while it is never obscure, it does
demand attention, and if like me you find your interest flagging
at one or more of the historical and life stories recounted in
detail in the second quarter of the book, be assured that it will
all be worth it in the end.
Tan too, like Ishiguro or Peter Ho Davies - perhaps
it is a trait - has the ability to despatch great emotional turmoil
in calm and measured prose, a sort of flipside of “the stillness
within movement that all living things possess” …
as we aikijutsu students say.
John Self
To read more of John Self's book reviews, check
out his blog at
The Asylum.
