Tan Twan Eng

Beautifully written story based on novelist "Willie" Somerset Maugham, who visits an old friend, Robert, and his wife, Lesley, in Malaysia, with his secretary, Gerald. He is bemoaning losing money, and poor book sales. Lesley tells him of her friend, Edith, accused of murdering a man who had sexually attacked her, and the ensuing trial. Lesley also tells of her affair with Arthur.
The story tells of all the secrets that the men were living, not able to openly live as homosexuals, and marrying women to be their beards. Lesley's marriage is also a sham, so she finds solace in Arthur's arms.
Set in the early 20th century, it is based on actual events.
I loved the writing.… (mere)

Just finished 'The Garden of Evening Mists' by Tan Twan Eng. I bought it at a remainder bookstore because I liked the title and vaguely hoped that exploring the ideas that form Japanese gardens might be interesting. Also, it felt refreshing to be reading a book about Malaya and its sense of identity as seen through the eyes of Yun Ling, a Malaysian Chinese woman. There were two obvious and probably superfluous narrative devices. The first, that Yun Ling had some form of dementia, was about to lose her memory and needed to record her story. The second, that she was inevitably telling her story to the Japanese gardener, Aritomo who became her lover and was also a tattoo master who ultimately used her as a canvass that somehow mysteriously explained the garden. However, there really wasn't much information about the working of Japanese gardens apart from a couple of hints about borrowing/mirroring scenery and digging-in rocks. Aritomo was indistinctly drawn as a shadowy character - almost a caricature. Their relationship felt quite cold - almost to the extent that it was hard to understand what drew Aritomo and Yun Ling together as lovers other than to satisfy the needs of the narrative. The book seemed almost burdened with superfluous stories (interesting as they were) about Japanese pilots, hidden gold and South African tea planters. All against a backdrop of attacks by communist terrorists (the CTs). The text was sprinkled with Malay and South African words which I couldn't quite pronounce but that was my failing. Overall, a good but unsatisfactory read that promised far more than it delivered.… (mere)

This is a well paced, intriguing story which takes place on British Penang in the early 20th century some years before and after WWI. W. Somerset Maugham's visit in 1921 elicits the tale of the continuing but failed marriage of his hosts a decade earlier, the wife's involvement with Sun Yat-sen's efforts at revolution and as a character witness in the first trial of a European woman accused of murder. It is a story of people pinched into the constrained social rolls, wives of unloving husbands, men who prefer men but marry to deflect the stigma, expatriates who put their "origin" country above where they live, individuals born and raised in the east but expected to exemplify English values. The truth which is a fundamental casualty of their lives leaks imperfectly into Maugham's stories. For all of its virtues, I was not much moved by the characters and the ending felt a bit tinny after the oboe tones of the preceding realism.… (mere)