The Far Field: A Novel of Ceylon

by Edie Meidav

In 1936, as the world slides into war, Henry Fyre Gould leaves behind the salons and sheepish spiritualities of New York City for the British colony of Ceylon where he storms into a village of Rajottama seeking to revitalize native culture and restore the lost truths of Buddhism.

Genres: Fiction, India

584 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

About KINGDOM OF THE YOUNG, Kirkus in a starred review calls it a " penetrating collection that glides among an impressive breadth of storytelling modes with warmth and easy brilliance." Called an "American original" by The Daily Beast, Edie Meidav is also the author of LOLA, CALIFORNIA (FSG), CRAWL SPACE (FSG), and THE FAR FIELD: A NOVEL OF CEYLON. Winner of a Lannan Fellowship, a Howard Fellowship, the Kafka Prize for Fiction by an American Woman, the Bard Fiction Prize, her books called editorial picks by multiple newspapers, she teaches in the UMass Amherst MFA.
Find her on Twitter @lolacalifornia and on Instagram @ediemeidav

Reviews

[Lydia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Delightfully filled with imagery. I can almost smell Sri Lanka.

[Amalia Wompa · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is probably the longest and most descriptive book I’ve ever read. Meidav’s writing is very imaginative but also very tedious, however, I didn’t mind because the imagery was so beautiful and nothing like I’ve ever read before. I know this is fiction, but I feel like the messages and scenes Meidav dreams up in this novel are nothing short of the truth for Ceylon in the time period this book is based. This book also made me really understand Nani and Henree completely which is unique as it’s hard for authors to master controlling the opposite sex. All of the relationships in this novel are realistic and rich, and I’m left not knowing how I feel about the main character because I’m reading through his pompous eyes. Overall, this was not one of the best books I’ve read, but one of the most interesting, and I never would’ve thought it would end as it did. I guess not all books have happy endings, especially not stories that take place in third world countries in the 1940’s.

[Texbritreader · Rating 1 out of 5]

Meidav's debut tells the story of a philanthropic American ex-pat in 1936 Ceylon and somewhere in the book there is probably a pretty decent novel but it is buried under numerous overwritten and repetitive chapters that bog the story down with about 250 unnecessary pages. (Where was her editor?)

The central character, Henry Fyre Gould, a minister's son and Buddhist convert is a sort of variation on a holy fool, a well-intentioned but selfish man with little self knowledge and an enormous capacity to misread others. As written, I found him unbelievable for the first half of the book, largely due to the stateside set-up involving the Russian mystic, Madame, with whom he is involved in a spiritual salon and a somewhat ambiguous personal relationship. The author actually does a better job with all her other characters, Johnny in particular comes to mind, and even some of the most minor ones are more real on the page.

From the moment Gould first lands in Ceylon, disembarks at the wrong port and mistakenly assumes a party of dignitaries and revelers are there to meet him you know his utopian plans for a model Buddhist village are doomed. But the real trouble is not realizing that so soon, rather it is the lack of momentum in the story as the author tries to build tension and create dimension.

The worst part of the novel is that even at the natural climactic end, a piece of real melodrama, the author can't stop writing. She continues on with a final chapter, subtitled: postscript, which is a hallucinatory, overwrought, silly fugue, full of heavy handed symbolism that I found largely incomprehensible and redundant.

Despite the fact that the setting and historical background were interesting and the writer clearly had promising and ambitious ideas about religion, politics, personal morality and human nature, she was unable to bring them to any meaningful fruition. It feels like a real missed opportunity. I kept wishing I was re-reading Graham Greene, both "The Heart of the Matter" and "The Quiet American" offer an infinitely superior exploration of similar themes.

[Marvin · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is based on an interesting concept. A middle-aged American in the 1930s, the son of a minister, discovers Eastern religions, then heads off to Ceylon to establish a model community among the natives that will cast off British colonialism & restore their commitment to Buddhism. (He even writes a catechism for them.) But he makes little effort to understand their ways & it all comes crashing down around him. But the writing is elliptical, so self-indulgent (it would have been better at 200 pages rather than 500) that it's drained of most of its life, and even at that length, the characters never come fully alive. A most disappointing book that I finished only because I kept believing in its promise, but not its real delivery.

[Snail in Danger (Sid) Nicolaides]

Free books bin refugee. Insufficiently "grabby."