The Long Day Wanes

The three books, Time for a Tiger, The Enemy in the Blanket and Beds in the East, are set in the three years just prior to Malaysia's independence at the end of 1957. The recurring character is a schoolmaster called Victor Crabbe, though he's by no means the only central character in the three books, the setting and central characters changing from novel to novel.
Even now, some 50 years after the books were written as well as over 50 years after they are set, the types of individuals Burgess (he of A Clockwork Orange) introduces are not only expertly crafted and extremely recognizable, they are still extremely relevant, both in the way the author portrays the expat scene and the mix of cultures that was and is Malaya.

Very, very clearly, and with an authority based on his own experiences as an officer in the British Colonial Services, Burgess shows how strong the racial and social prejudices are embedded within the different cultures that make up the national map of what is now Malaysia, which eventually set the stage not just for the Merdeka, but also for the Emergency.
In fact, Burgess himself was a teacher and education officer in Malaya, so it's easy to think that, at least, Crabbe's life is Burgess' own, semi-autobiographical.

Though published individually, the sum of the books is much more than the individual parts combined. The changes in setting, the societal changes, allow for Burgess to describe a nation which is more falling apart than trying to assert itself.
The Malayan Trilogy are also Burgess' first three books.

I found the second of the books the strongest, the third only marred by the rather surprising ending, though the chance encounter being so recognizable for, even now, expats working in the developing world. A tad too surprising, perhaps wrapped up by the author in a bit too much haste.
The first novel, has a few scenes that drag on for just a bit too long and one or two others that are almost painful as something of a comedy of errors. That's not to say that, quite often, both the characters and the scenes are incredibly hilarious in their absurdity.

Die Malayan Trilogy enthält die ersten drei Romane von Anthony Burgess. Sie sind einige Jahre vor seinem Durchbruch mit Clockwork Orange erschienen. Damals, in der Zeit von 1954 bis 1961 lebte Burgess als Lehrer in Malaya. Seine Erlebnisse im Land, kurz vor der Unabhängigkeit bilden den Hintergrund dieser teil-autobiographischen Romane. Burgess ist dabei mit der zentralen Figur Crabbe, einem recht unglücklichen Lehrer zu identifizieren.

Time for a Tiger

Handelt von Cabbes erster Station. Es gelingt dem Lehrer nicht, sich in die Expat Gesellschaft zu integrieren, obgleich seine Frau dies anstrebt. Er hat ein Verhältnis mit einer malayischen Witwe, was langsam zum Stadtgespräch führt und wird zum Outsider in seiner Schule, da er zu viel Verständnis für die einheimischen Schüler zeigt. Langsam zieht sich ein Netz von Terroranschlägen durch das Land. Als Crabbe wegen eines solchen Anschlags, der glimpflich verläuft, das Schulsportfest verpasst, bei dem die Schüler einen sehr harmlosen Protest gegen den Ausschluss eines Mitschülers instigieren, wird er für den Initiator des Protestes gehalten und muss sich versetzen lassen.

The Enemy in the Blanket

In einer wesentlich konservativeren Provinz angekommen findet sich Crabbe zwischen allen Stühlen. Seine Frau beginnt ein Verhältnis mit dem lokalen Sultan, der sie wegen ihrer Blodheit umschwärmt. In der Schule sieht er sich dem Druck seines Stellvertreters ausgesetzt, der bemüht ist, ihn als Kommunisten bloßzustellen, da er seinen Posten haben will. Die ethnischen Spannungen nehmen weiter zu und alle versuchen die Briten loszuwerden. Paradigmatisch ist sein neuer bester Freund, der sich aus Geldnot mit einer einheimischen Witwe verheiratet, die ihre ersten zwei Männer aus dem Weg hat schaffen, als sie zurückkehren wollten. Er musste zum Islam übertreten. Sie bedroht ihn und er versucht zu fliehen. Schlussendlich nimmt er sie auf eine Pilgerreise nach Mekka mit, um in Saudi Arabien einen neuen Posten als Dozent anzunehmen und sie wohl fern ihrer Heimat loszuwerden.

Beds in the East

Spielt in der Zeit unmittelbar vor der Unabhängigkeit. Crabbe spielt nur noch eine Nebenrolle. Er versucht eine chinesischstämmigen Komponisten zu unterstützen, kommt aber nicht sehr weit, da sich die neuen Herrscher nicht für Chinesen interessieren und die amerikanischen Propagandisten, die von den Biten übernehmen etwas ethnisches und nicht klassische Musik suchen. Die Haupthandlung dreht sich um die zunehmenden rassischen Spannungen, bei der keiner weis, wer bald an der Macht sein wird und wie man sich diesem am besten andient. Die Gesellschaft wird immer korupter und die Protagonisten verzweifeln daran.

Ich war vor einigen Jahren eine knappe Woche in Malaysia, diesem merkwürdigen Land mit der vielleicht leckersten Küche der Welt, den USA Südostansiens mit bereiten Straßen und guter Hygiene und dieser absonderlichen rassischen Segregation. Dies alles trifft Burgess hervorragend und entlarvt die rassischen Spannungen und die diesen zu Grunde liegenden Machtinteressen. Die Handlungen und Charaktere selbst sind aber merkwürdig unausgegoren. Abgesehen vom hervorragenden Portraits Malaysias hatte ich oft den Eindruck ganze Passagen bereits in Orwells Burmese Days oder in A Passage ti India gelesen zu haben aber so st das ja oft bei erstlingswerken... Dem Autor gelingt es gut über sich selbst zu schreiben aber die Strukturen müssen noch erlernt werden.

The dregs of the English colonial empire in Malaysia. Funny and terrible.

This book was bought for me by a Malaysian customer when I was travelling on business. At dinner he noted that I was drinking Tiger beer (he was drinking whiskey) and mentioned that Burgess had written "Time for a Tiger" and this was the first of the Malayan Trilogy. A discussion of Burgess ensued (my only real knowledge of him was through A Clockwork Orange). The next day my new friend disappeared during dinner to a bookshop and presented me with a copy of the Malayan Trilogy - quite the best present I have ever received from a customer.

The books describe the complex situation in Malaysia leading up to independence. It's difficult to describe the books - for some reason they remind my of Lucky Jim - same sort of humour and Victor Crabbe, although older, has something of Jim's personality - but despite the humorous wrapper they do say a lot about the state of Malaysia pre-independence. Overall an interesting read although I did occasionally tire, perhaps reading the three books together was not the best idea. Interesting rather than stunning - but still the best gift I have ever had from a customer.

The title of this series of novels, at least in its trilogy form comes from the Tennyson poem “Ulysses,” which is famously about the Greek hero looking back on his legacy and seeing how it has stripped him of her personal identity and value.

I primarily know Anthony Burgess the same way that most of you (the Americans specifically) as the author of A Clockwork Orange, and if we’re being very honest from having watched the Stanley Kubrick film way too many time. But I have also read his follow-up novel The Wanting Seed, and in one of those moments that I can squarely recall of wanting to know more about someone and devoting time and resources into doing so, finding out about the rest of his literary career. At the time, I would have been primarily interested in any of his books that are themselves or, say, rhyme with dystopian/post-apocalyptic writing. As every good morbid 20th century boy, those with very interesting to me.

But this novel series is more interesting to me now that I am older and more educated, and specifically I think is more important. It’s easier to like dystopian literature for a lot of reasons. If you’re a white man, you have every reason to believe you’ll be one of the ones cast as the hero or a survivor. You might very face experience violence, but never trauma or loss of dignity. You’re going to be the Bernard Marxes, the Alex DeLarges, the Winston Smiths, the, hell, Mad Maxes (no I don’t feel like looking up how to spell his last name), and not the regular people who just suffer or die or both.

So reading a series of lapsing colonial novels speaks to something else. Your options are still plentiful, but they’re less heroic (again, unless you’re an American). So you can be the cruel colonial magistrate, the drunk colonial slowly becoming an ex-pat, the intelligence man, the bartender, the missionary, the teacher, or some version of the above. You don’t really get to be the hero, because one of the clarifying factors of colonial writing written from a colonizer’s perspective is how you’re being left behind and will be specifically (if rightfully) excluded from the next phase. A lot of this kind of writing, like the Ulysses quote above, is about how that triggers a sense of “loss of manhood” and loss of masculinity of these various figures. And so in some novels, like The Jewel in the Crown, this experience means applying cruelty in the face of Indian dignity (and sexuality) or in something like George Orwell’s Burmese Days it means applying gin in the face of what you might consider Third World backwardness.

In these novels, we get more of that left behind feeling. The novels themselves are explicitly anti-racism (though they definitely fail at times) in their thesis, and so the colonial figure of Crabbe is mostly trying to do good things, but it’s becoming clearer and clearer that his living in and exploiting/glomming off of a culture that’s not his leaves him without a strong sense of identity or purpose. There should be a sense that he’s building for a future he won’t experience, a noble feeling sure, but since he’s also on the wrong side of that future culturally and racially as well, his sense of alienation is overwhelming at times.

Like the Paul Scott books, and any good novel, there’s more going on than just this. These books also deal with plenty of other shortcomings of colonial cum post-colonial political situations, the gaps that open up for corruption, the loss of capital that would otherwise be invested in the country itself, the various forms of petty tyranny that crop up and other ideas. These novels are very funny and remind me a lot of the Orwell colonial writings (novels and nonfiction), and are a particular take on a trope or sub-sub-genre of writing. At times I found myself a little lost to some tedium in them, but over all they are quite good. I am more interested in these being Anthony Burgess’s first novels (he is praiseworthy in their skill) and more interested in the rest of his output. I am either off this kind of colonial writing for a while, or I will really dive into more in the coming weeks. Who knows.

These three books are okay, but not as good as I hoped. They started out strong, giving a real sense of life in Malaya/Malaysia as the long day of the British Empire waned, and former colonies became independent nations. However, the books lagged in the middle, and then became a chore to complete. If you are interested in this period of history, Burgess does give a good sense of life at the time. However, I cannot recommend these to a casual reader.

These three books cover the fate of a married Englishman who goes to teach in South East Asia and loses everything. Set just before Malaysian independence there are many similarities with present day Cambodia. It is very funny and is well observed.

Excellent stuff. Skilfully told -- the narrative weaves seamlessly in and out of the consciousness of different characters. A little Woolfsian, that: stream-of-consciousness. Irony can be sharp at times, but it's very approrpriate. Burgess is incredibly well-read and observant. There are tons of sneaky references to the classics and the modernist greats (not-so-subtle nods to Joyce) if one wants to pick them up -- it adds to the richness of the text -- but it reads very well without too. In that sense it's not like Ulysses (which one reviewer said). In Ulysses you have to know more about Ireland, Aristotle, etc -- because Stephen is an overeducated thing. The tone of SE Asia is caught very well. Particularly all that stuff about heat. Yes, gelatinous, drowsing heat, dust, jungle. There's little jungle left, but it's still accurate enough. It can get stifling and confusing. As someone living here in Singapore I have to say it's excellent. It's written with an very sharp eye for detail: perhaps not being local he is a great observer -- and has more capacity to be detached from the chaos that was SE Asia then (it's still rather complicated now)