I liked this story a lot. I found it a really interesting look at the waning days of the British empire. Especially in the ideas held by different people. Also I liked how it was a trilogy although I kind of looked at it more like a book that had three phases. I also liked that as readers we got to see the events from many different perspectives and not just the British. I would recommend this one to anyone who enjoys historical fiction.

i just completed the trilogy, i skipped part one initially as the start of the story did not pull me in. but after enjoying the second and loving the third i dutifully returned to the first. a damned good read, written in the fifties with a depressing and humorous relevance to malaysia today.

Time for a Tiger: Interesting to compare what Burgess does to colonial Malaya with what Orwell did to colonial Burma. Of course, Burgess plays for laughs, with hidden erudition. The political stuff is more latent, with Orwell it is very much the point.

The Enemy in the Blanket: More colonial satire but with an even greater political edge and a nice riff on religion: willful misunderstandings of the religions of others', and the hypocrisies of religious observances.

Beds in the East: A little over-long this one but some nice counter-points between people of different races, religions, ages and sexes: do they rub each other up the wrong way or can they rub along.

I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/12810724

Malaysia

The best thing about this trilogy is that it was written in the time it's set in, the 1950s. Changing and challenging times for Malaya, about to move from British rule to independence, after a prolonged state of war, known by the Brits as the Emergency. The novels have some main characters who are white, but many more active characters of all races - Malay, Chinese, Indian, Ceylonese and those who were called Eurasian. There's an element of riotous humour to the way we see all sides at work- conflict and competition emerges between men and women, the various religions of Islam, Hindu, Sikh, Christian and even jaded English men with no religion at all. Malaya is the strongest element shaping life - culture and environment make or break many characters. I loved these novels for their fantastic writing, humour. and the sense of raw reality underlying them.

Read the first two stories of this trilogy that is also titled 'A Long Day Wanes'. They are reviewed separately as follows:

Time for a Tiger
Found the language a little too colloquial to be enjoyed as a smooth narrative. The characters weren't that interesting as well, a pity given that the setting of 1950s Malaya had so much potential for excitement and adventure given the communist insurgency was still rife. Instead I found the plot to be mundane, as seen through the eyes of an alcoholic English policeman, his insecure Indian subordinate, a staid English school teacher and his complaining wife around which the narrative centres. Nothing memorable happens till the last bit when they go on a road trip to a remote village and encounter some hiccups along the way there and back.
2 out of 5 stars

Enemy in the Blanket
Burgess ups the ante tremendously in this follow up to the first story, as the protagonist moves to the conservative East Coast of Malaya with his feckless wife, to a new job posting. A lot more drama, sex and action thrown in make for more exciting times. There is also a wider and more colourful cast of characters this time round, including a pallid disfigured lawyer and his fat Malay dominatrix of a wife, a French catholic priest, a lascivious local aristocrat playboy and a gluttonous headmaster and his bored bohemian wife. The plot progresses much faster than before, and by the end of this story we find the lead character's life in ruins.
3 out of 5 stars

good book

This could have been five stars without the dragging third book, "The Beds in the East." Otherwise, a well-written, comically-driven series with great insights into an overlooked piece of history that I knew very little about. I think the third novel got too stuck in ideas and was less character-driven than the other two; shame because it is the characters that make the first two books so entertaining and worthwhile.

Le trilogie d'Anthony Burgess est un imposant témoin de la vie en Malaisie au moment où l'Empire britannique s'apprête à passer le pouvoir au peuple Malais. Les personnages de l'auteur semblent très réalistes et le récit est passionnant grâce à la richesse des éléments historiques qu'il contient.

Excellent study of the end of the empire. Lots of well developed charcters and a great mix of history and fiction. Essential to understand the british empire.

3/5 - mildly interesting for parts 1 & 2, but part 3 was a painful slog