Read Online The Gift of Rain A Novel Tan Twan Eng 9781602860742 Books

Product details Paperback 450 pages Publisher Weinstein Books; 34208th edition (May 5, 2009) Language English ISBN-10 1602860742

The Gift of Rain A Novel Tan Twan Eng 9781602860742 Books Reviews

• What better book to read on a trip to Malaysia, but Tan Twan Eng’s award-winning The Gift of Rain, set in George Town, Penang, a city I hadn’t 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. It’s 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.
• The three most interesting books I have read recently concerned occupation forces during WWII, two about the German occupation of France and this one about the Japanese occupation of Malaya. This particular novel pushes two of my buttons, an interest in southeast Asia since reading Somerset Maughan stories decades ago and a longing to know more about the world into which I was born (1940) and which killed my father in the Pacific Theater of war. The basic theme of this novel also hits another of my reading interests, the intersection or clash of cultures.
  That intersection is first expressed in the chief character, born into a wealthy and powerful English family in Malaya of a Chinese mother and English father. In essence this book thus becomes a tale of the many conflicts between Western and Eastern values and philosophies, exemplified in part by his English father and Chinese grandfather. Western values are derived from the Old Testament order that man (not woman or other species) should control the Earth and resulted in European colonization and exploitation of much of the rest of the world. The Asian value system in this novel is expressed in the character of Endo, the Japanese sensei, who becomes the mentor and friend of this confused English-Chinese teenager, teaching him the martial arts, discipline and philosophy which will allow him to become a strong man. This value system honors both duty and compassion, a duality of sometimes conflicting elements.
  At this time in history Japanese forces have overrun much of coastal China and are pushing toward southeast Asia. The sensei is actually in Malaya as an agent to prepare the way for their forces to invade. The Japanese have developed a European model of conquest to their bushido code of duty to become the masters of their part of the world. The question for the conflicted teenager is how he can save his family from the rapacity of the Japanese war machine without completely dishonoring his own cultures. This conflict plays out throughout the novel. It is a Hobson’s choice, with no good answer, but it provides a fine vehicle for examining the questions and cultures involved, much as The Nightengale did for German-occupied France.
• I was about 10% into reading this book when I started recommending it to others. I was hoping as I got further into it that I wouldn't be dissapointed because I'd already started telling others it was a "must read" and it just kept getting better and better. My previous best book of the year was "Cutting for Stone" by Verghese but this has now been displaced by "Gift of Rain" as the most entertaining, literary, emotional, enjoyable, novel I've read this year. It is hugely entertaining and explores deep emotions, family ties, the nature of loyalties, fate and destiny in a way that is compelling and profound without every becoming sappy or cliched. Please....someone tell me where I can find another book like this to read next!
• the pace of this book is deceiving; there are no huge dramatic incidents; instead it flows like a river towards the sea, sometimes calm with hidden currents underneath and sometimes a series of rapids. Once I saerted to read I don't want to put it down, but never feel that I will be deprived if I do. Its a story of FAMILY, past and present, of lives lived past and present.
  from the first chapter when the aged hero is asked "where is your family" and he says "they are all dead"; you know this is a book of a tragedy. and one by one it the deaths unfold. But first you get to know them as they were and remain in the heros mind. So this is a book of Memories, and it even says at one point, memories are all we have, once we are old.
  This is also a book of Love. This is the first time I've read a book about the love of two men, Not sexual but spiritual. Young readers won't catch that. There are no sex scenes unless " he breathed my air" or "he lived in my body" are taken so. the most physical contact is the martial arts they practice. The lesson of their practice and of thier lives is to know how to defend yourself, but use it as last resort and to never kill. and so the hero doesn't, though as the reader I would have loved to see a few of the characters in the book killed by him.
  this book is also a story of questions, such as "are our lives fated?"; "do we live again?",
  Many readers know how the book ends before the end of the first chapter, yet we are drawn into it; not as watching a train wreak, but as watching the lives of the characters play out; like watching life, period. so , another question is life only saddness and pain? answered by the descriptions of the food, the beauty of the land, the rain, and the love of those that lived within the book.
  Its a book that stays with you after you read it.
  (which is the sign of a great author) but I can't read another of his books just yet. I need a break from life. which is why I read, as I deal with Life every day at work; I need to check out some fantasy for a bit.
  enjoy this book, its worth the read.