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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An engaging novel which just misses the mark, 23 April 2004
Fragrant Harbour has an ambitious concept - to chronicle Hong Kong fromthe 1930s up to and beyond the 1997 handover of the British-governeconomic miracle to China. Lanchester's literary conceit attempts to dothis through three characters, each with their own distinct voice but withintertwined stories. By far the most engaging section is that devoted toThomas Stewart, who as a young man sets out from his family home inFaversham, Kent to seek his fortune in the East, and the story of theclose and compelling relationship which develops between Tom and the youngChinese nun he meets on the ship on the way out.
A novel told with restraint and a surprisingly consistent tone and pace.Lanchester has broken away from the pretentiousness that marred his twoprevious novels, but there remains a certain emotional detachment from thestruggles and successes of the characters he has created. Through Tom, atypically restrained yet warm and likeable, English, Lanchester shows thathe can develop a character with depth. This makes it all the morefrustrating that other characters remain flatly two dimensional, somehowoddly hollow. Dawn Stone, the London journalist with whom the novel opens,is little more than stereotypical.
There is however real quality here. It is in the exquisite prose portraitof Hong Kong itself, perhaps in reality the central character. Superblydetailed, evocative and atmospheric, Hong Kong emerges as seething port,with layers upon layers of society sitting uncomfortably on the cuspbetween Eastern and Western cultures. It is no surprise to learn thatLanchester was born and brought up in the fragrant harbour of Hong Kong,and his deep affection for the exotic, complex city is inescapable onevery page.
The plot is subtlety and steadily delivered, with just enough pace tomaintain interest, but despite using the voices of the characters torelate it, it is difficult not to be aware of the author's controllinginfluence throughout. The prose is pitch perfect and the ending satisfyingbut the restrained characterisation and overly control plot preventFragrant Harbour from being the novel that it might have been. Lancesteris capable of a masterpiece. This isn't it, quite.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not a masterpiece but a good weekend read for 'Gweilos', 31 Aug 2004
By A Customer
As a Brit who has spent several years in Hong Kong, I was looking for a short story with epic ambitions, a historical portrayal of the place I now call home. Well this book certainly delivered, and I enjoyed it more as the story unfolded. On reflection however, the book was let down by the weakness of the opening chapter. Not only was the portrayal of journalist Dawn Stone unconvincing, it also proved to be neither relevent nor closely connected to all that followed. I presume this section was intended as a means of initiating readers into the unfamiliar world of Hong Kong, but was it really necessary? My advice would be skim through the first 70 pages and focus on the more juicy core of the book; namely the exploits of Tom Stewart and his lasting relationship with Chinese nun Maria, spanning several decades of Hong Kong history. There is certainly enough here to keep you turning the pages, some rich narative, historical and social insights, well-timed twists and turns. I ended the book with a fresh perspective on Hong Kong, its people and its complexities.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A global idea, 25 May 2008
Fragrant Harbour by John Lanchester is a novel that is hard to praise too highly. Set in Hong Kong, it presents the stories of four main characters, each of which is an immigrant to this city. Behind them at all times is a culture that rules their lives, sets the limits of what might be possible, but is always hard for outsiders to penetrate. That the culture affects all aspects of their lives, however, is a given.
Each character pursues self-interest, the different eras they inhabit defining and characterising the different stages of the city's development. Thus we see its pre-war emergence from a dirty nineteenth century right through to its contemporary role as a driving force of free market globalisation.
When Tom Stewart, on his way to Honk Kong in the 1930s, accepts the challenge of a wager, he changes the direction of lives, not just is own. A random, trivial suggestion suggests he might learn Cantonese in the thirty days of a shared voyage to new lives. His tutor is Sister Maria, a Chinese nun who proves to be an enlightened, motivating teacher. Tom Stewart learns the language, wins the bet and begins a relationship with things Chinese that will sustain him through war, peace, economic growth, professional life, clandestine activity and property speculation.
Dawn Stone, previously Doris, hails from Blackpool, but she makes it to Hong Kong. She has a career in the media, having gone through the once well trodden paths of learning her trade on provincial newspapers and then graduating to London. She makes it good and proper in the public relations business that booms out east. She seems to have few scruples and is ruled by pragmatism. She is not alone.
Michael Ho is a young businessman. He has a vision of an air conditioned future that is on a knife edge between success and failure. He is sub-contracted from Germans who operate north of London to avail themselves of the country's more flexible approach to labour. He has a rip-off sub-contracting factory in Ho Chi Minh City. He is Hong Kong based, but from Fujian, and thus also an immigrant. He has recently relocated his family to Sydney. Interests in Guangzhou will determine his fate. Mountains are high and the emperor is far away, his contacts tell him, so practices are mainly local. He must learn. He must raise capital. It is perhaps true everywhere in this global economy, where Hertfordshire taxi drivers remonstrate in Urdu and curse in English.
And it is pragmatism that rules the place. As globalisation becomes an issue, the place is the world, not just Hong Kong. In this new world which appears to be built on the professedly liberal economic ideas that have underpinned the colony's free-for-all, these immigrants to the place make their lives, make their fortunes in their own ways. But still there is a constant in that they can only succeed within the protective umbrella shade of bigger interests than their own. In a city state that grew out of an illicit and illegal trade in opium as British merchants and adventurers became international drug dealers to vulnerable China, people with wealth beyond measure push people around the chessboards of their interests, occasionally enthroning a pawn they might even have previously sacrificed.
As in A Debt To Pleasure, John Lanchester has us enter the world of an anti-hero. The character that drives events in Fragrant Harbour is but a name for most of the book. He is cold, calculating, driven by raw, undiluted self-interest. In this he is perhaps no different from anyone else. It's just that he is more successful at it, and thus less willing to risk that success. And he prevails. The emperor is far away. The mountains are high. In his case, he is the emperor and he owns the mountains. Power lives in pockets and, in a globalised economy, we are all immigrants, even in our homes. What a superb book!
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