From the Bookshelf of The Obscure Reading Group…

The Gift of Rain

Tan Twan Eng

Discussion: The Gift of Rain

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The Gift of Rain

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* Reading Schedule for The Gift of Rain (OCT. '22 Selection)
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last updated Sep 19, 2022 09:52AM

Week #2 The Gift of Rain
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last updated Nov 07, 2022 07:10AM

What Members Thought

Oct 09, 2022 Kathleen rated it really liked it

Shelves: historical-fiction, setting-south-east-asia

“… one cannot escape one’s path on the continent of time …”

Love and memory. This book--dripping with culture and color and meaning and humanity--is primarily about how these two concepts are connected and how they play out in our lives and destinies.

I was enthralled with the story. Philip Hutton is a melancholy mixed-race man in his 70’s living on the Malaysian island of Penang. He is visited by Michiko, the former love of his mentor and beloved friend, the Japanese aikido master and spy Hayato “… one cannot escape one’s path on the continent of time …”

Love and memory. This book--dripping with culture and color and meaning and humanity--is primarily about how these two concepts are connected and how they play out in our lives and destinies.

I was enthralled with the story. Philip Hutton is a melancholy mixed-race man in his 70’s living on the Malaysian island of Penang. He is visited by Michiko, the former love of his mentor and beloved friend, the Japanese aikido master and spy Hayato Endo. Philip recounts the story of his life to Michiko, from the time he met his sensei Endo in 1939 through World War II and the Japanese invasion of his island, as events challenged his ideas about family and loyalty, discipline and faith.

The world of Penang comes alive to the reader, with beautiful descriptions of the architecture, traditions, food and habits of its diverse inhabitants.

“It was only just starting to occur to me what a strange place I had grown up in--a Malayan country ruled by the British, with strong Chinese, Indian, and Siamese influences. Within the island I could move from world to world merely by crossing a street … One could easily lose one’s identity and acquire another just by going for a stroll.”

It’s a big story, and Tan Twan Eng is a wonderful storyteller, with a flair for analogies and lyrical prose. Some parts stepped a toe into fantasy for me, with the feel of a classic romance where the forces of good and evil battle it out, and the hero takes on almost supernatural powers. But while some aspects of the hero felt romanticized, this balanced the horrific tragedies that are described in realistic detail. And the deep feelings unearthed in the tale aren’t romantic at all, but rather pared down to their truest essence.

A beautiful book, full of life, that leaves me with much food for thought.

“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.” ...more

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Oct 11, 2022 Cherisa B rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction, asia, 2022

Fictional memoir of an upper-crust English-Malayan senior citizen who as a young man collaborated with the Japanese in their brutal WW2 invasion and occupation of British Malaya after the Brits ignominiously bugged out. Philip, the protagonist, tries to persuade us he did what he did all for his family, while also telling us how talented, intelligent, knowledgeable, and athletic he is, as well being an incredible martial arts master from a very young age. You can believe him if you want. Along w ...more

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Oct 11, 2022 Sue rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: read-2022, asia, library-book, historical-fiction, wwii, malaya

A novel of another world, Malaya in the late 1930s, the island of Penang to be specific. With beautifully descriptive prose, Tan Twan Eng introduces us to this rainforest setting with its varied population of British colonialists of long standing, local Malayans, many Chinese, and a new—and not welcome—slow influx of Japanese. The political atmosphere is becoming tense as the news from China is full of the horrors Japanese soldiers are inflicting on the people there.

Now in Georgetown, Philip Hut ...more

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Oct 07, 2022 Lydia rated it it was amazing

I read this with the "Obscure Reading Group" on Goodreads. Although I enjoyed it as much as "The Garden of Evening Mists" by Eng, I feel the story started more slowly, somehow drawing me into the plot. In the beginning, I wondered how Philip, a young rich 16-year old in Penang as narrator, could really carry this story. However, now at the end, I am in awe of Tan Twan Eng's ability to provide such beautiful descriptions, making Penang and all of Malaysia come alive during the early 1940s when Ja ...more

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