The Gift of Rain

This was one of the most fascinating books I’ve read in a long time, because of its unique (to Western readers) WWII venue; its weighing of free will vs. destiny (from an Eastern perspective); its exploration of the compromises we all make, which trigger especially painful consequences in wartime; and its development of highly flawed, complicated characters.

Unfortunately, the story-telling struck me as flawed, too. I find myself obsessing about those flaws more than I should, because they kept this novel from being the transcendent experience it had the potential to be. So let me dispense with the negatives first.

My chief gripe concerns the relationship between Philip and Endo, mainly because I don’t find Endo sufficiently sympathetic to warrant Philip’s loyalty and love. Sure, the initial attraction is understandable, because Philip is a disaffected 16-yo, somewhat adrift partly because of his biracial background and partly because he hasn’t faced many challenges in his privileged life. So I can see this youngster being drawn to the power that Endo radiates as martial arts master and unfailingly polite, self-contained, genteel diplomat. But maintaining that loyalty and love as Philip matures doesn’t make sense to me, especially after learning how Endo has exploited him to pave the way for the brutal Japanese occupation of Penang. Philip’s continuing commitment would make more sense if explained by overpowering physical desire, at a time of surging hormones. The relationship has its share of erotic aspects, but never becomes sexual. I can understand the author’s reluctance to go there. While sexual infatuation might explain Philip’s infatuation, it would only make Endo less sympathetic. It’s bad enough that Endo seduces Philip intellectually and spiritually for an end game that threatens Philip’s whole life. If he also seduced him sexually, Endo would be little more than the stereotypical pedophile: a middle aged teacher molesting his underage student. In addition, a physical relationship might overshadow the metaphysical bond purportedly dating back to an earlier lifetime. Yes, the author tries to make Endo more sympathetic by introducing a backstory, explaining how he was forced into his role as spy. But that wasn’t enough, for me.

Philip, on the other hand, makes a highly credible evolution from somewhat callow youth — all too easily coopted as unwitting spy and later as collaborator — into a profoundly conflicted soul, who ultimately redeems himself by working against his Japanese masters. I cared about Philip. I never cared about Endo.

Some other gripes involve often stilted dialogue (although some of that formalism may be appropriate to the time and culture) and occasionally overblown, sometimes clunky metaphors and similes.

The descriptions that don’t work are happily counterbalanced by some stunning passages, especially when describing the flora, fauna, food, sights and smells of Penang. The author’s home town is a character in and of itself. He made me want to go there. I also admired his ability to describe battle scenes and the chaos of a city under fire. It’s rare for a writer to have the wordsmithing chops to bring to life so vividly both the peaceful glories of nature and the ravages of war.

Despite my earlier negative comments, The Gift of Rain is a novel that will stay with me for quite a while. It totally absorbed me and often kept me reading into the wee hours. I’ll definitely buy Eng’s second novel.

Layer upon layer of story — events during WW II in Malaysia remembered fifty years later, the relationship of a half-Chinese half-English boy with his Japanese sensei martial arts teacher who was also a Japanese spy, the moral ambiguities and difficult choices of life after the Japanese conquest.

I internalized the story as if I were living it, to the extent that halfway through the book I woke up in the morning with a sharp pain in my right shin and an indentation a couple inches long, an inch wide and a quarter inch deep, as if any injury from a kick in a fight. The indentation was in the bone. It wasn’t a muscle spasm. But no cut, no bruise. A few hours later both the pain and the indentation were gone. That was spooky.

I had recently read and greatly enjoyed the author’s second book, The Garden of Rising Mists, which had ben recommended to me by the widow of a close friend of mine who died twice. I had also recently read the Complete Stories of Somerset Maugham, many of which were set in Malaysia and its environs, and Maugham himself merits a brief cameo almost appearance in this novel. I had read Maugham and I read much of this as well sitting on a bench, looking out at the sand and waves of Long Island Sound.

And aside from the story, which at times and especially near the end, had me near tears, the language, the turns for phrase, the metaphors were often magical. I certainly wish that I could write like that.
The magic began with the first sentence, “I was born with the gift of rain, an ancient soothsayer in an even more ancient temple once told me.”

Here are a few other samples:

p. 11 “If one steps out of time what does one have? Why, the past of course, gradually being worn away by the years as a pebble halted on a riverbed is eroded by the passage of water.

p. 23 “The life I had lived was folded, only a blank page exposed to the world, emptiness wrapped around the days of my life; faint traces of it could be discerned, but only if one looked closely very closely. And so, for the first and last time, I gently unfolded my life, exposing what was written, letting the ancient ink be read once again.”

p. 43 “Picture your breath as a long slender string.”

p. 45 “Ad there were the smells, always the smells that remain unchanged even to this day — the scents of spies drying in the sun, sweetmeats roasting on charcoal grills, curries bubbling on fiery stoves, dried salted fish swaying on strings, nutmeg, pickled shrimps — all these swirled and mixed with the scent of the sea, fusing into a pungent concoction that entered us and lodged itself in the memory of our hearts.”

p. 47 “… the islands that collectively formed the nation of Japan made it look like a tilted seahorse swimming
against the currents of the ocean.”

p. 62 “…the storm clouds had come in low, scraping the tops of the range of hills like a dragon’s underbelly moving over rocks… On days like these, when the clouds are thick, heaven seems closer, and I almost feel I can touch it.” He looked at me, hearing the wistful tone of my words. “You can touch heaven any time you wish. Let me show you.”

p. 103 “Endo-san’s lessons had taught me that there is often movement in stillness, and stillness in movement.”

p. 186 “Far away the surf raced along the sand, hissing as it melted into the beach.”

p. 187 “Thoughts floated by like intoxicated butterflies…”

p. 218 “In an instant I saw that I had unconsciously replicated Musashi’s drawing, the drawing that had been copied by Endo–san and for the briefest moment I saw how everything and everyone and every time was connected in some manner.”

p. 223 “The sea was so bright it was almost without color, just a shifting sheet of light.”

p. 275 “Blood was curdling on the tarmac, thick as engine oil.”

p. 349 “…we waited there on the bench, shielded from the world by the palace of the rain…”

p. 355 “Michiko and I sat on a bench along Gurney Drive, which had once been the North coastal road, facing the
narrow sea, doing what most people do along here, makan angin — eating the breeze.”

p. 398 “That is what growing old consists of, mostly. One starts giving away items and belonging until on the memories are left. In the end, what else do we really require?”

p. 420 “The monsoon returned like a family guest, to be tolerated by some, hated by others, loved by one or two, and the brilliant sunshine of our days became a clouded memory again a fleets of storm clouds sailed in and anchored themselves in the sky.”

p. 424 “… the sand gleamed brightly, white as angel bones… Endo-san was right. In the end, we fellow travelers across the continent of time, across the landscape of memory, we did not need words.”

What better book to read on a trip to Malaysia, but Tan Twan Engs award-winning The Gift of Rain, set in George Town, Penang, a city I hadnt visited in more than twenty years? This sinuous novel is the tale of a half-English and half-Chinese son of the powerful Hutton trading family during the Japanese occupation of Penang. Its a big, ambitious novel that often veers towards the mystical. The star of the book for me was the Eastern and Oriental Hotel, where I was booked to stay, and I finished it the day I checked in. Delicious.

If you are searching for another world in which to immerse yourself, then this novel will fit the requirement. The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng will suit anyone interested in the Malay Peninsula and its history in World War Two. It is at times tender, brutal, harsh and uplifting. It is a story of love, family, war, of defeat and acceptance.
The story opens as Philip Hutton, an elderly man living in a stately house on Penang, an island off the west coast of Malaysia. To his door comes an elderly, frail Japanese woman. They have never met before, but know one person who made an impact on their lives. Endo-san, a Japanese man, once lived on a tiny island near Istana, the Hutton family home. The Gift of Rain is the story of the relationship between Endo-san, a master, sensei, of aikijutsu, and his teenage pupil Philip immediately preceding the Japanese invasion of Malaya in 1941 and the following years of occupation.
There are many subtle layers to this tale which left me moved and thirsty for more facts about this period of history. It poses many difficult questions. Like the best novels dealing with war, it challenges you to be honest: what would I have done? It is easy to over-simplify war into them and us, right and wrong. At the heart of the story is the island of Penang and the transition of Georgetown, its major town, from a pre-war bustling multi-cultural port to an occupied territory at the mercy of torture and abuse by the Japanese. Some of it is difficult reading, all the more as the place seems alive. The traditions, the cultures, the nature are described vividly. The mix of nationalities on the island is at once its strength but, when war arrives, provide the cracks exploited by the occupiers. Philip is the youngest son of his father with his second wife, a Chinese woman. His two half-brothers and half-sister are English. Philips full name is Philip Arminius Choo-Hutton. This mix of races causes tensions, suspicion and betrayal throughout his life.
The Gift of Rain was longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2007. The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng, about the period in Penang shortly after the end of World War Two, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2012.

An old man in Penang, the half-English/half-Chinese Philip Hutton, is visited by a woman who once loved Endo-san, Huttons one-time friend, martial arts teacher and platonic lover. At her request, Hutton tells the woman the story of his friendship with Endo-san, back in the 1930s.

She must have regretted asking. I started this utterly tedious bore-fest on 25th May and by 9th June had made it through just 33%, with every word a penance clearly I committed some horrible sin in a past life and am being forced to pay for it in this one by reading overlong plotless contemporary fiction. Perhaps a plot develops later I understood the book was going to be about the Japanese invasion of Malaya during WW2 but there was still very little sign of this at the point I abandoned it, except for some clumsy foreshadowing usually based on fortune-tellers hints and warnings.

The younger version of Hutton has all the ingredients to be interesting, and yet isnt. Mixed race in a society where this was rare and frowned upon, he is something of an outsider even in his own family. But then he meets, as if by accident, a middle-aged man who offers, out of the blue, to become his sensei a teacher in martial arts and a kind of spiritual guru. Not thinking this in any way odd, Hutton within a few weeks is pretty much an expert both at fighting and at all the mental discipline that comes with it. Who knew it was all so easy? I always thought it took years to master these skills. I think I might spend the rest of July becoming a master of aikido myself. Im sure itll come in handy.

Along the way we are treated to endless descriptions of fights all stylised, of course, not real ones. This comes amidst the even more endless descriptions of every physical object or bit of landscape we come across, not to mention the historical factlets which are presented as just that like extracts from a guide book to Penang.

What can I say? This book was longlisted for the Booker in 2007 and has thousands of 5-star reviews on Goodreads, with only 123 1-stars. Make that 124. Clearly it must be me, but Ive suffered enough. I regret that Im so old-fashioned as to expect stories to contain an actual story, but so it goes. One day I too may be enlightened enough to be able to appreciate hundreds of pages of nothingness once Ive mastered Zen in August perhaps. I believe one of the skills of Zen is being able to empty ones mind completely. This book has given me a head start…

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