The Gift of Rain [Paperback]

The Gift of Rain starts slowly but builds into a gripping, emotionally-disturbing book. The reader is taken through the emotional-growth of the main character, Philip Hutton, as he grapples with his guilt and pain and the choices he had to make when the Japanese attacks Malaya and his home of Penang. At the novel's heart is one of the most unusual stories I have come across. I was drained when I came to the last page, but I felt compelled to read it all over again immediately, this time to savour the lyricism of the writing and descriptions - it was like viewing a Chinese painting come to life.

One of the most readable literary titles on this year's unpredictably eclectic Man Booker Longlist. Highly enjoyable and intricate but without being preachy and tedious. The story of a mixed-blood English young man in pre-war Malaya who befriends a Japanese diplomat.

The writing sometimes rises to poetry without being incomprehensible, and the author never forsakes a strong narrative and a taut and gripping plot, which so many Booker-type novels do. There were one or two points in the book which made me a bit impatient, but coming to the end of the book I understood why those parts were necessary.

My wife and I loved it (she cried at some parts of the book) and will recommend it to our reading-circle. Somehow, life looks subtly different after closing the book...

Hope it'll go onto the short list.

Once I started reading The Gift of Rain I could not put down. For two days I was lost in the amazing world of the people of Malaya in a sad and terrible time in their history on the island of Penang off the west coast of what is now peninsular Malaysia. After putting the book down, the story haunted me so much that I read it a second time.

Let me say first of all that the Gift of Rain is a great, easy and thoroughly entertaining read from its very beginning when deep in the night an elderly Japanese lady brings a sword to the front door of an elderly man who has been trying for 50 years to come to terms with his terrible past.

Like so many great novels this book refuses to be categorized; it has elements of a historical novel, a coming of age story, a war novel, a treatise on martial arts. Martial arts go to the root of Asian philosophy: Daoism, Confucianism and Buddhism are all in the book. Predestination versus free will is one of the book's most important themes. The protagonist Philip Hutton's character is shaped by his struggles at a time of war to balance his duty and his loyalty to his father, his family, his country and the enemy in the form of his beloved martial arts teacher, his sensei, Hayato Endo.

The narrative begins as a reflective and beautifully written coming of age story when the sixteen year old, half Chinese boy, Philip Hutton meets the enigmatic Japanese diplomat Endo-san, who becomes his martial arts master and starts him off on an incredibly exciting but unbearably sad voyage of conflict and self discovery.

When the Japanese invade Malaya the tone and style of the book change. The book turns into a fast moving war story. But war destroys and the war has devastating effects on the lives of all the complex main characters.

Tan Twan Eng has an uncanny ability to create atmosphere. He does this partly through an appeal to the reader's senses. And how he succeeds! All the senses are there. Touch, taste and sight. Sound: from the voice of Sutherland to the "mournful wails" of the erhu. Smell; from the smells of food, rooms, clothes, streets, rain, the sea to the fragrance of a lonely tree. For Tan Twan Eng fragrance fuses into a "pungent concoction that (enters) us and (lodges) itself in the memory of the heart".

It has become fashionable for reviewers (and academics) to require of modern works of literature that they move boundaries. Too often this results in writers resorting to all sorts of gimmicks to give the patina of a literary work to their writing. Tan Twan Eng uses no gimmicks. His is simply an exceptionally well written book. But he does move boundaries: he moves the boundaries of our hearts.

A marvelously good book that I thoroughly recommend.