The Gift of Rain (Book Review)

Clashing cultures and shifting allegiances

The Gift of Rain

Tan Twan Eng

Weinstein Books, 448 pp., $23.95

Reviewed for the Star-Ledger 6/8/08

518 words

Tan Twan Eng’s haunting debut novel is a complex tale of identity and betrayal, steeped in the culture of colonial Malaya. Or, more specifically, the culture clash. “The Gift of Rain” pivots on the fulcrum of the Second World War, unfolding its mystery both forward and backward through time. This lushly multi-layered novel, a finalist for the Man Booker Prize, is sure to become a book club favorite.

When readers first meet Philip Hutton, he is an old man, a former aikido champion and master teacher, left alone with his memories. There are oblique, mysterious hints of some dark loss.

An unexpected visitor with close ties to his past forces him to confront the regrets and betrayals that haunt him. Most of the novel works backward, probing the choices Hutton made as he came of age in Penang in the years before World War II. At the center of his story is the memory of Endo-san, the Japanese diplomat who taught Hutton aikido. Endo-san was more than a sensei of martial arts, and Philip’s bond to him was one of duty, obedience, love and treachery in this life — and perhaps previous lives.

Rich in a sense of history and place, the novel unfolds its secrets gradually. Readers who loved the lyrical prose of “The Kite Runner” or “The God of Small Things” will immerse themselves in Tan Twan Eng’s poetic descriptions of Penang and its nearby jungles during the years surrounding the war.

The son of a wealthy British trader and a Chinese woman, Hutton is uncertain of his place in his English family and with the larger expatriate culture of Penang. Endo-san gives Philip a sense of grounding, of purpose and place. Through Endo-san, he can begin to reconcile his Chinese heritage with his English one.

However, during the brutal Japanese occupation, Hutton’s reliance on his sensei and allegiance to the Japanese become complicated. Torn between his bond to his sensei and his need to keep his family safe, all the choices available to him will end in betrayal. He will either betray the fragile peace he has made with his mixed heritage, or he will betray the deep bond between sensei and student, even as Endo-san’s allegiances become questionable.

“The Gift of Rain” rises and falls with the slow grace of aikido, one of the “softer” styles of martial arts. Rather than attack using force, aikido focuses on learning to fall correctly, and to use the attacker’s momentum to counter and neutralize the attack. With this in mind, the slow pace of the story becomes a philosophical choice, revealing the pattern of actions and complex loyalties with a meditative clarity. The image of the ukemi, the special grace a student of aikido uses to absorb the force of a fall and to rise unharmed, recurs throughout the book.

Because Hutton tells most of the story to expunge the memories that haunt him, the rhythms of the narrative become haunting in their own right. Readers with the patience to await the story’s slow unfolding will be rewarded with a dark and beautiful tale of shifting allegiances.