Itemize Out Of Books The Gift of Rain
Title | : | The Gift of Rain |
Author | : | Tan Twan Eng |
Book Format | : | Paperback |
Book Edition | : | First Edition |
Pages | : | Pages: 447 pages |
Published | : | by Myrmidon (first published 2007) |
Categories | : | Historical. Historical Fiction. Fiction. Cultural. Asia. War. World War II. Literature. Asian Literature |
Tan Twan Eng
Paperback | Pages: 447 pages Rating: 4.24 | 11111 Users | 1528 Reviews
Chronicle In Pursuance Of Books The Gift of Rain
Set in Penang, 1939, this book presents a story of betrayal, barbaric cruelty, steadfast courage and enduring love. The recipient of extraordinary acclaim from critics and the bookselling community, Tan Twan Eng's debut novel casts a powerful spell. Set during the tumult of World War II, on the lush Malayan island of Penang, The Gift of Rain tells a riveting and poignant tale about a young man caught in the tangle of wartime loyalties and deceits.Present Books Concering The Gift of Rain
Original Title: | The Gift of Rain |
ISBN: | 1905802056 (ISBN13: 9781905802050) |
Edition Language: | English |
Setting: | Malaysia |
Literary Awards: | Booker Prize Nominee for Longlist (2007), POPULAR-The Star Readers’ Choice Awards for Fiction (2009) |
Rating Out Of Books The Gift of Rain
Ratings: 4.24 From 11111 Users | 1528 ReviewsJudgment Out Of Books The Gift of Rain
Philip Hutton is remembering the tumultuous years in Malaysia around the time of World War II when he was a young man with divided loyalties. As a sixteen-year-old in 1939, he was the son of a prosperous English father and a deceased Chinese mother who felt like he did not fit into either community. He met Hatato Endo, a Japanese diplomat who was renting an island from Philip's father. Endo taught Philip the martial arts skills and mental discipline of aikido, as well as the Japanese language1939, Isle of Penang, Malay. Philip Hutton is a rare bird with inimitable plumage, a bird that only sings with the sound of rain. The workings of history have provided him with so many juxtaposed layers of identity that he cant unravel his true self or where his loyalties relay. Born to a Chinese mother, the second wife of a British magnate of a large trading company, rejected by his Chinese Grandfather and an outcast among his English pure breed half-siblings, Philip considers himself a mongrel
I know this book got some rave reviews, but about halfway thru I almost abandoned it. Which is odd because when I started it, I was fully engrossed and had that happy feeling of finding a book that I looked forward to nestling with and entering. I found the writing to be too flowery, and I also got bored. I did skim the rest of the book, which says alot since once I decide I'm bored I usually completely abandon it. I wanted to know what happened, and historically it's fascinating. But the heart
I wish I could give this book more than five stars. It is the kind of book that reaches into your soul and leaves a scar there that will never disappear. A poignant and moving saga of choices, fates, destinies, struggles and regrets. Which of us has cannot look back and see moments that have separated us forever from others we love, times that our decisions cannot be understood and are too complicated to explain, choices that seem thrust upon us as if fate had all control and we had none. Tan
This is my new favorite book! I was taken in by the first sentence; by the second chapter, I knew I had a winner on my hands. This is a beautiful, sad story told in the most exquisite language. Each sentence is a jewel. It is a book I'll read over and over again. It is a book to recommend to my best friends. In 1939 sixteen-year-old Philip Hatton, who is half Chinese and half British, doesn't feel that he fits in anywhere. He becomes friends with another outsider Hayato Endo, who is a Japanese
The Gift of Rain is a memoir, the journal of a young boy's coming of age amid the turmoil of WWII in Malaya, a lest-we-forget memorial to the victims of war crimes, a melancholy blues sung to a disappearing world : the exotic cauldron of races and cultures in colonial Penang that is being swallowed up by modern, impersonal highrise developments. I was ready to be enchanted right from the opening stanza, a quote from The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby : I am fading away.
In a glib mood, I would summarize this as "The Karate Kid meets The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles," but that doesn't really do justice to the emotional power of this story about a half-British, half-Chinese teen in 1940s Malaya who befriends a newly arrived Japanese diplomat and begins to study aikido from him, then gradually learns that he's being used as a pawn in the buildup to a military invasion. It's a drama about family, about friendship, about war, about karmic cycles, and about coming to
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