Beds in the East

The Long Day Wanes: A Malayan Trilogy #3

by Anthony Burgess

Blue cloth boards bumped to corners, a little discoloured to edges. Spine heavily faded. Library stamp on free front endpaper Name on front pastedown. Lightly tanned pages, edges a little grubby.Firm binding. Good reading copy.

Genres: Fiction, Ebooks, Novels, Literature

237 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1959

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Seriocomic novels of noted British writer and critic Anthony Burgess, pen name of John Burgess Wilson, include the futuristic classic A Clockwork Orange (1962).

He composed also a librettos, poems, plays, screens, and essays and traveled, broadcast, translated, linguist and educationalist. He lived for long periods in southeastern Asia, the United States of America, and Europe along Mediterranean Sea as well as England. His fiction embraces the Malayan trilogy ( The Long Day Wanes ) on the dying days of empire in the east. The Enderby quartet concerns a poet and his muse. Nothing like the Sun re-creates love life of William Shakespeare. He explores the nature of evil with Earthly Powers , a panoramic saga of the 20th century. He published studies of James Joyce, Ernest Miller Hemingway, Shakespeare, and David Herbert Lawrence. He produced the treatises Language Made Plain and A Mouthful of Air . His journalism proliferated in several languages. He translated and adapted Cyrano de Bergerac , Oedipus the King , and Carmen for the stage. He scripted Jesus of Nazareth and Moses the Lawgiver for the screen. He invented the prehistoric language, spoken in Quest for Fire . He composed the Sinfoni Melayu , the Symphony (No. 3) in C , and the opera Blooms of Dublin .

Reviews

[Paul Cornelius · Rating 4 out of 5]

The saga of Victor Crabbe in Malaya during the 1950's Malayan Emergency comes to an end with this, Beds in the East, the third volume of Anthony Burgess's Malayan trilogy. Structured so as to have Victor represent the broader British withdrawal from that distant archipelago, Victor "departs" Malaya just as the country passes into independence. Clear, too, is that Burgess's other characters also followed the story arc leading to the end of British rule. In the first volume, most of the characters around Victor are British. The second book notes Victor's climb to the position of headmaster, only to see his marriage fail and his job as well. "Marriage" of the British to Malaya also begins to come apart. Then, in this final novel, everything is a pastiche of various Malayan characters, ethnicities, and races--Malays, Chinese, Tamils, surviving British, and those who are about to replace the British in Southeast Asia, the Americans (Burgess is writing this, of course, in 1959 with no hint of the American disasters to come in Vietnam and Laos as well as the genocide in Cambodia). Nothing and nobody coheres in this story. The future of Malaya seems to be one of chaos, ethnic infighting, and a continuation of Communist infiltration into jungle villages and among government sympathizers (here, too, Burgess got it wrong; the Malayan Emergency ended in 1960, one year after the publication of this book, with the defeat of Chin Peng and the Communist insurgency). One other character to mention: George Costard, the epitome of the haughty British colonialist. Victor meets Costard towards the end of the novel, only to discover that this man who stands for everything Victor despises, had at one time an affair with Victor's first wife. This, after Victor had spent the past three volumes of the trilogy so devoted to this woman he accidentally killed in a car crash that he destroyed his second marriage. In this, too, Victor becomes disillusioned
as he has about everything else he lived for. Is there anything worth living for?

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 3 out of 5]

The final serving of Burgess’s trilogy is thin and runny and lacking in the substance of its betters. The characters are overly comic and the plot happenings plodding and scattershot, and that climax lets us all down.

[FP · Rating 4 out of 5]

Malasia está ad portas de la independencia. Ha dejado atrás al hombre blanco, que debe empacar e irse y dejar que los diversos grupos étnicos (malayos, chinos, tamiles) se las arreglen por su cuenta. Victor Crabbe se siente deprimido por ello, pero quiere hacer un último buen gesto por el país antes de que todo termine; gesto que nadie entiende bien y que en definitiva nadie se lo ha pedido. Vemos cómo los diversos grupos étnicos se llevan pésimo, viendo lo peor en todos los demás, y Crabbe trata en vano de hacerles llevarse mejor, mientras que la generación más joven se las arregla bien por su cuenta. Vemos a una mujer viviendo con alguna especie de disonancia cognitiva y desesperándose entre romanticismo exultante y depresión abismal, que cambian con la facilidad con la que alguien activa un interruptor. Vemos a un joven compositor chino al que Crabbe quiere elevar al nivel de artista nacional, a pesar de la falta de interés de él y de las dudas de éste con respecto a su rol con la música y la sociedad. Vemos cómo nuevos personajes, aún más raros, americanos (por supuesto) llegan a tomar el lugar de los viejos blancos británicos aunque nunca al mismo nivel (algo ya de por sí imposible). Finalmente, vemos cómo Crabbe se da cuenta de lo inútil que es toda su lucha y con un final que puede parecer algo cruel, pero calza en todo el tema del fin del Imperio Británico.

[Betawolf · Rating 3 out of 5]

Marginally more entertaining than the previous two, with less of the tiring focus on vice and slightly more on the comparatively uplifting topic of hope for Malaysia's future. The characters seem a little more alive, a little more relatable -- or, as in the case of Rosemary, more amusing in their delusions -- and there is a languid tropical movement to the narrative.

Crabbe's tragicomic death ends the sequence that linked the three novels together. His story is all oriented around his dead first wife, and there is as little to this story as you might suspect -- Crabbe does and does not move on from her memory, and then at the end discovers that the memory was false, that she wasn't who he thought she was. Yawn.

The series is perhaps a good read if you are interested in Malaysia in the sense that novelists think they can capture something: impressions of character types, a sense of the atmosphere in a place. Burgess obviously had first-hand experience to draw upon, and can communicate it effectively. My issue was I'm not particularly concerned with the setting that is meant to be the hook, and the plot within that setting is generally underwhelming.

[Derek Collett · Rating 3 out of 5]

NB. This review refers to all three parts of the Malayan Trilogy.

Here is Burgess a long way below his brilliant best in this very early outing. However, being Burgess, all three books certainly have their moments. Book 1 is the best, followed by Book 3, with the middle volume bringing up the rear.

All three books follow the fortunes of British teacher Victor Crabbe as he makes his way around Malaya teaching the natives. The story unfolds episodically, in fits and starts, with lots of different characters having their say. There are some memorable set-pieces, but not enough to hold the interest of this reader. Time for a Tiger is the best of these three books principally because it features Nabby Adams, a lazy, feckless, immoral, dipsomaniacal British soldier hilariously on the make and always on the lookout for the main chance. Sadly, he is absent from the other two volumes.

Burgess spends lots of time discussing political, social and cultural matters. Although interesting in parts, this material drains much of the pace out of the narrative. Also, by permitting us to hear so many different voices, the author unwittingly makes his books rather stodgy and formless. There are flashes of Burgess's characteristic wit and wordplay here but not enough to make up for the book's other deficiencies. There are some deliciously bonkers minor characters and plenty of enjoyable incidents but, taken as a whole, the trilogy is notable for how exhausting and frustrating it is to read.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Possibly the best of the trilogy, but most certainly this served as a strong finale to the series. More or less, life and things ended up right where they began, with perhaps a few changes here and there. In vain, those who set out to make a difference to which they hope will ultimately influence change on a grand scale inevitably discover their powerlessness in doing so. And others, who yearn to change or influence others to bend at their will, only learn that the nature of individuals is set and cannot be overtaken. What you then have are people, just as ourselves, caught in a situation where we can only account for our actions and ultimately be totally responsible for our own destinies.

There is a whole lot more to be gleaned from the novel, but at the moment I'm walking away with a few strong impressions. I reckon an essay would be necessary to explore the themes and meanings presented within 'Beds in the East' and ''The Malayan Trilogy'' as a whole. You could read 'Beds in the East' and come away with a lot, but the experience would be further enriched by having previously read 'Time for a Tiger' followed by 'The Enemy in the Blanket'.

Perhaps why 'Beds in the East' is impactful to me is because the characters are so recognizable despite being from a different place and a different time. Perhaps that is indicative of the timelessness of human character, or archetypes, and/or human nature.

[Bivisyani Questibrilia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow, the final installment in the Malaya Trilogy, finally!

By this point, it has been quite a fun ride following Victor Crabbe on his journey in Malaya—and I would say this is better than the second book. This time around though, as Malaya is finally gaining independence from the Brits, Crabbe's role seems to have diminished greatly. The story focuses more on interracial conflicts by taking the point-of-view of characters from various ethnicities—including Malay, Chinese and Tamil. Here we have around 6 main figures: Syed Omar, Syed Hassan, Maniam, Vythilingam, Rosemary and Robert Loo—each has their own interests, life goals and problems.

While the story is full of colours—and can feel rather cartoonish—it makes me somewhat uneasy to find a Brit (or a Westerner of any kind, really) telling the story of a national rift between races, as if they would ever fully understand the extend of such conflicts. Especially with the main character (Crabbe) having delusions of grandeur in his mission to unite all the races under one nation. I mean, come on, who do you think came here out of the blue and forced these races to live with each other?

If we take the British aspect of the author out of the equation, however, I would say the story is rather enjoyable. The stupidity fuelled by sheer willpower of each of the characters is just too funny to miss. (Although I suppose it could also look as if the British author is making fun of the Orient once more.) Crabbe's lack of role and influence in a lot that happened around him makes this book feel the most Asian in the trilogy—which, I suppose, is also a symbolism of the fading British rule in lieu of Malaya's independence. Its ending, I must say, sums up the story beautifully perfectly.

Now that this is the last book from the trilogy, I can honestly say that you can actually enjoy each book on its own. By now, none of the stories seem to truly connect with one another—each can be enjoyed as a lone entity. However, of course, reading the previous books will give you more nuance to the happenings in the second and third book—especially this third book, if I'm honest.

Well, I guess that's all I've got to say. It has been a fun ride and I would recommend this for a light read for everyone—especially those living in Malaysia or Southeast Asia in general.

[Fellini · Rating 3 out of 5]

Печальная история о наступлении "цивилизации" в Малайзии. Британское и американское смешивается с малайским, тамильским, китайским - и появляются химеры. Люди, не очень понимающие, чем заниматься, ускоряют дни алкоголем, теряют себя. Надежды на лучшее будущее завязают в повседневности, обращаются в ничто.

[Zhi Yi · Rating 5 out of 5]

It started off with a rather strange style, quite different from the other two that he had written. Took me a while to get used to it. After that, it was beautifully written. Using words, Burgess managed to bring me back in space and time, to the peri-independence Malaya. Thoroughly enjoyed this Malayan Trilogy.

[Chris Passingham · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very intelligently and humorously written novel about the end of british colonial rule in Malaya. The only reason this for four stars instead of five was the anticlimactic ending

[Yazlina Saduri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tye soul-tan and new Cadillac using money left for the community? Damned. Victor Crabbe gone just like that? What?

[Ruth · Rating 2 out of 5]

c1959: FWFTB: Tamils, veterinary, communists, music, This end book of the trilogy does try to tie everything up using the symbolism of death - much dies in this book. Consequently, I was left a little deflated and unfulfilled to a certain extent. And now the jungle, after its short doze, was ready to march coastward again.'

[Trinity · Rating 1 out of 5]

Disappointing ending. After three books, I ended up not liking any of the characters and didn't care much what happened to them.

[Benjamin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think I didn't feel the characters as much in this finale, as much as I wanted to, especially at the climax. Still a solid ending to a great trilogy!