The House of Doors

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The House of Doors is based on true events, and is partly drawn from a Malaysian murder case in 1911. What was it about the story that captivated you, and made you want to base a novel around it? Lesley says: “The vastness, the emptiness of Karoo countryside made me want to weep when we first moved here. Everything was so bleak — the land, the light, the faces of the people.I was a child of the equator, Born under monsoon skies; I pined for the cloying humanity of Penang”. As a novel, however, it was less successful for me. The writing is functional and pared down, with occasional bursts of poetry. These tend to arrive at the end of chapters where the author has the strange habit of pausing scenes to have characters stare impassively at a patch of nature, contemplating eternity. For example: There's much to be said about Eng's ability to craft a scene, especially the vivid settings and descriptions of nature. Though the novel as a whole seems to fall into many of the tropes of historical fiction, he does excel in rendering a location or crafting a rich environment within which his characters reside. The way Tan Twan Eng deftly weaves in some elements of Maugham's style so that it almost sounds like a pastiche and adds some elements from Maugham's books, some of the realia, is just extraordinary. Since I've started The Casuarina Tree, a collection of Maugham's short stories set mostly in Malaysia, which inspired The House of Doors, I appreciate Tan Twan Eng's talent even more. Not just talent. How much work, time and research must have gone into this novel and, at the same time, it seems so effortless, so understated, so smooth, so subtle.

It begins and ends in Doornfontein, South Africa in 1947.... with Lesley Hamlin as our narrator. She and Robert moved into a modest bungalow on the property of Robert’s cousin, Bernard, who was a sheep farmer. It was an adjustment for Lesley and Robert …… The House Of Doors is the 2nd novel I’ve read by Tan Twan Eng in less than a year. It proved to be a disadvantage vis a vis my reaction toward this book since it followed the wonderful The Garden of Evening Mists. As a result, I only gave this novel 4 stars although it might have received more if I had not read his better novel first. Tan Twan Eng provides an extensive bibliography of the books used in his research which he lists in his Afterword. Despite the differences between them Maugham finds himself drawn to Lesley and she finally tells him not only her story but that of a friend whose affair spiralled out of control with devastating consequences.

I launched into The House of Doors enthusiastically because I was in the mood for some historical fiction set in the heyday of the British Empire. Also, Somerset Maugham intrigues me even if he has a penchant for describing female characters variously as frivolous and hysterical/ broad and dumpy or pretty yet oddly unattractive, but that's the 1920s for you. When I finished The House of Doors yesterday, I stayed motionless and silent for half an hour, wondering what had just happened. This novel has an old-fashioned charm; it reads as if it were a classic written in the first half of the 20th century. The sense of time and place is evoked in an amazing way, I mean not only the clothes, interiors, furniture, food, nature, landscapes but also the characters' opinions and beliefs. I like the fact that the author led me astray plotwise on several occasions: for example, in the beginning, I thought this was going to be a sort of remake of Out of Africa in a Malayan setting, even the farm in Africa was mentioned, but it all went in a completely, completely different direction. The characters, unfortunately, feel a bit hollow, or like playthings for the author to dictate his story through; perhaps because Maugham is a real person and thus there's only so much creative liberty Eng can take with him—or maybe because the emphasis on playing intertextually with Maugham's works overshadowed Eng's own themes and explorations. Ironically, the one character who felt the most intriguing, Ethel, is the one we only hear about occasionally and mostly at the end of the novel. Tan Twan Eng writes pleasing evocative novels but sometimes I think they are a little too subdued for my taste. Think languid rather than electrifying.

The doors spun slowly in the air, like leaves spiralling in a gentle wind, forever falling, never to touch the earth. Also, do a Google photo search on each of the particulars to familiarize oneself with what everybody looks like (it enhances one's enjoyment!) - and listen to this (which is a recurring musical motif throughout): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p32vl.... This is, indeed, a novel of many doors – perhaps a couple too many. The title refers to the literal kind: the ancient Chinese doors collected by the revolutionary Chinese lover of Lesley Hamlyn, Somerset Maugham’s fictional English host, and stored in the house in downtown Penang in which the couple meet. It feels just as exciting as the first and second time, because each book is different, and each longlist is different. But there’s more intense social media attention now, compared to when my first novel was nominated.Because I was writing about Maugham writing his stories, I felt I had to follow his lead. But I found that restrictive and it just did not work for me. Eventually I abandoned that idea, and then the writing just opened up. Listen, I just can't with this Booker longlist: Sure, this is a decent historical novel based on real events, but it's far, far removed from any aesthetic decision that would indicate that postmodernism ever happened and from any plot points that are of heightened relevance for the social and political climate we live in today. This wouldn't bother me so much if the whole list wasn't such a mess, I guess, but alas, I'm annoyed. Writing for NPR, Heller McAlpin described the work as "a paean to the art of transforming life experiences into literature". With McAlpin further commending Tan's ambitious creativity in interpreting Maugham's works in a new literary piece. [3] Writing for The Financial Times, Michael Arditti describes the novel as "expertly constructed, tightly plotted and richly atmospheric." [4] Attempting to offer up a more detail book report here….but be clear ….the best thing I can say to others is “just read it!!!”