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hbdee 's review for:
The House of Doors
by Tan Twan Eng
Photo: A 1920s Villa in Anglo George Town (noted in this novel), Penang, Malaysia
Acclaimed as one of the best books of the year, this novel is partly based on true events concerning a Penang murder trial in 1911, when the first Anglo woman was convicted of murder there. It revolves around a 1921 visit by Somerset Maugham, a famous British author who was both married and gay, who later wrote about that time in HIS novel, The Casuarina Tree, which was also based on true events. Two things horrified me about Maugham that were revealed here: one, that his friends called him Willie (which is never explained) and two, that he apparently wrote true stories, including real names, often twisting the end to make it more shocking. The first is a picayune pettiness but nagged me throughout the book--how was this titan of literature called something so silly? (The Brits do that, they're renown for it, and who knew how titanic he'd be considered in future, anyway? Mea culpa) The second was, to my mind, an atrocious violation of privacy he always demanded for himself, since he kept his gay lovers a secret throughout his life. (His lifestyle didn't bother me at all, although it drove our protagonist here absolutely batty.
But before we get to its characters, let's have a glimpse of Penang through lovely descriptions:
"The earth had tilted the sea away from the shore"
"The rain, which had started after dinner, had weakened, but frog-song continued to bloat out into the cool, dripping night."
"The susurrations of the sea filled the night. A nightjar called out, like a stranger knocking at the door. Along time passed before the waters of sleep closed over me."
I've don't think I've ever read quite such a haunting image, or one that flows so seamlessly from one chapter to the next, as in two separate bedrooms in the the same house, on the same night, the thoughts of two separate characters bookend each other. First, one chapter ends, with Lesley:
"The wind banged an unlatched window shutter somewhere again and again. I tore up the note and went over to the balustrade to drop the bamboo chicks. Lightning stabbed the clouds on the horizon. The mountains, the sea and then the beach disappeared behind the thicket of rain as the storm came charging in. Like watercolour on paper, the sky, the trees, the shrubs, the garden itself, were all washed away. For a long time I continued to stand there, staring into the emptiness, only dimly aware of the wind driving the rain onto my arms, onto my face."
And here's the beginning of the next chapter, which opens with Willie:
"A window shutter kept knocking against the wall. The sound seemed to have been travelling to him from far back in time. He sat up on the edge of his bed, knuckling the sleep from his eyes. Geoff’s book had fallen onto the floorboards. He picked it up and placed it next to his mother’s photograph, then went to secure the loose shutter. Clouds were pulling across the sea, trailing long tassels of rain."
Time travels back and forth between 1910 and 1921, finally ending in 1947. Lesley is Anglo aristocracy, although she was born in Penang and is actually illegitimate and part Malay, not a big part of the story. Instead, the focus is on her rich lifetsyle and how easily she assumes her title role. Nor is she merely the retiring woman behind her man, although she will prove that, too. Instead, or additionally, she is brazenly outspoken about inequality between men and women. And she despises "catamites," as she calls homosexual men. Her use of the word makes her brother wonder where she got it. It's brother Geoff who suggests her husband Robert is having an affair with a woman, and she waits to hear the inevitable gossip. Instead, much later, she finds a note between Robert and his Chinese assistant. Robert, too, is gay.
"How ironic that Robert and I each had our own Chinese lovers. We had this unusual thing in common, but we could never discuss it. Between us lay this great, heavy silence, accreting over the years, layer upon layer, hardening like a coral reef, except a coral reef was a living thing, wasn’t it?"
Even her secret lover, Arthur, one of the Chinese community who essentially live as Anglos but are working toward a revolution to establish China as a republic, thinks some things she hates are set in stone:
"‘You’re just bloody selfish,’ I said. ‘Just like every man I’ve ever known: Robert, Sun Wen, my father. Even Geoff. Always thinking about your own needs, your own pleasures.’ ‘We’re this close to succeeding.’ He pinched a sliver of empty air in front of our faces. ‘This close, Lesley. Sacrifices have to be made. Sun Wen accepted it long ago. So must I.’ ‘Why is it that when you men make sacrifices it’s always we women who must suffer the most?’"
I learned some history I was never taught. For example, in the early 1920s there was a movement called the Taiping Rebellion, of which I'd heard the name but knew nothing. Lesley supported it actively, translating their publications twice a week from Chinese to English--which is how she came to fall in love.
There's an appalling surprise twist behind the story of Ethel Proudlock's conviction for murder. Although it's never quite clear whether it's true, it certainly fits.
Although Lesley knows her Robert is homosexual, and although she'd vowed never to leave her beloved Penang, after Arthur leaves for China she does follow Robert to the African desert that drains his Malay-soddened lungs and gifts him many more years of life. So she's faithful to him in the end, not merely from a sense of duty but also from knowing that, after all, they are FAMILY.
But above all, this is a love story. And THAT, you'll simply have to read for yourself. I couldn't possibly deprive you of that.
*******
"Media vita in morte sumus." --"Media vita in morte sumus (Latin for "In the midst of life we are in death") is a Gregorian chant, known by its incipit, written in the form of a response, and known as "Antiphona pro Peccatis" or "de Morte" The most accepted source is a New Year's Eve religious service in the 1300s. Reference has been made to a source originating in a battle song of the year 912 by Notker the Stammerer, a monk of the Abbey of Saint Gall." --Wikipedia
Next up, hopefully or very soon, Prophet Song, the novel that WON the Booker Prize last year--a 2023 dystopian novel by Irish author Paul Lynch. The novel depicts the struggles of the Stack family, in particular Eilish Stack, a mother of four who is trying to save her family as the Republic of Ireland slips into totalitarianism. A timely story, for sure.