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Mr. On Loong
326 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 1947
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About the author
Robert Standish
88 books5 followersPen name of Digby George Gerahty
Digby George Gerahty (June 1898 – 6 November 1981), who wrote under the pen-names of Robert Standish, Stephen Lister, George Digby, and George Echlin, was the prolific English writer of short stories and some 80 novels. He was most productive during the 1940s and 1950s. He was also a featured contributor to the Saturday Evening Post. His novels include Elephant Walk, which was later made into a film starring Elizabeth Taylor. In the semi-autobiographical Marise (1950), Gerahty (writing as "Stephen Lister") claimed that he and two publicist colleagues had covertly "invented" the Loch Ness Monster in 1933 as part of a contract to improve business for local hotels; he repeated his claim to Henry Bauer, a researcher, in 1980.
Gerahty was the elder brother of Leslie March Gerahty (1902-1981), a prolific character actor known to audiences as Garry Marsh.
Gerahty died at his home in Valbonne, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, in the South of France, aged 83.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digby_G...
Digby George Gerahty (June 1898 – 6 November 1981), who wrote under the pen-names of Robert Standish, Stephen Lister, George Digby, and George Echlin, was the prolific English writer of short stories and some 80 novels. He was most productive during the 1940s and 1950s. He was also a featured contributor to the Saturday Evening Post. His novels include Elephant Walk, which was later made into a film starring Elizabeth Taylor. In the semi-autobiographical Marise (1950), Gerahty (writing as "Stephen Lister") claimed that he and two publicist colleagues had covertly "invented" the Loch Ness Monster in 1933 as part of a contract to improve business for local hotels; he repeated his claim to Henry Bauer, a researcher, in 1980.
Gerahty was the elder brother of Leslie March Gerahty (1902-1981), a prolific character actor known to audiences as Garry Marsh.
Gerahty died at his home in Valbonne, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, in the South of France, aged 83.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digby_G...
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
February 4, 2025
Only because of the film, Elephant Walk, did I come to discover Robert Standish's writing. I first saw the Elizabeth Taylor adventure movie set in Ceylon back in the 1960s. Through the decades, every time it aired on television and I had the chance, I enjoyed viewing it over and over. I now have the film on hard disk, and I think I last watched about some six or seven months ago.
At any rate, somewhere along the line, I saw that the story was adapted from Standish's novel, and then immediately put it out of my mind. That is until about five or six years ago, when working on an adventure film article, I felt the need to finally get a copy of the book. That took a couple of years before I could find a source that would ship to Thailand. But I finally got it back in 2023. Since then, I've been chasing down Standish's novels whenever one became available for a reasonable price. None of his work is on Kindle or epub. As of today, I'm four novels in, and now have just completed this one, Mr. On Loong.
On Loong fits well within Standish's sympathy for China. He qualifies as a Sinophile, I'd say, producing novels and stories that expressed an attitude similar to Pearl Buck. Only he is not quite so condescending as Buck often is. Instead, he finds remote niches and out of the way places to situate his heroes and heroines. In the case of On Loong, it is the orphaned son of a Chinese laundryman who builds a commercial empire on a remote Caribbean island. The only Chinese there, it's John On Loong's intriguing story of merit overcoming racial discrimination that powers the narrative. It takes place from the turn of the century until the end of World War II--the book itself was originally published in 1946. And it's full of the starry eyed idealism for a better world that many felt as Japan and Germany were defeated as well as before the Soviet Union became a source of hostility and threat.
In China, of course, the government in charge was still that of the republic governed by Chiang and his wife. It is this China that Standish both sympathizes with as well devotes himself for betterment. How crushing 1949 and the triumph of Mao was to Standish, I don't know. But he seemed to have confidence that the overseas Chinese would come together to rescue China from a century or more neglect and abuse from foreign powers. His was a vision that was about to die. And On Loong probably soon lost its resonance with Standish's readership because of the turn of political events. Nevertheless, it's revealing in how it shows the degree of goodwill Standish and many in America and the UK had for a new China in the decades between the two World Wars. That perspective is unimaginable today. It's also why On Loong is not only a well written drama about Chinese abroad but also a historical literary document of a time now firmly in the past.
At any rate, somewhere along the line, I saw that the story was adapted from Standish's novel, and then immediately put it out of my mind. That is until about five or six years ago, when working on an adventure film article, I felt the need to finally get a copy of the book. That took a couple of years before I could find a source that would ship to Thailand. But I finally got it back in 2023. Since then, I've been chasing down Standish's novels whenever one became available for a reasonable price. None of his work is on Kindle or epub. As of today, I'm four novels in, and now have just completed this one, Mr. On Loong.
On Loong fits well within Standish's sympathy for China. He qualifies as a Sinophile, I'd say, producing novels and stories that expressed an attitude similar to Pearl Buck. Only he is not quite so condescending as Buck often is. Instead, he finds remote niches and out of the way places to situate his heroes and heroines. In the case of On Loong, it is the orphaned son of a Chinese laundryman who builds a commercial empire on a remote Caribbean island. The only Chinese there, it's John On Loong's intriguing story of merit overcoming racial discrimination that powers the narrative. It takes place from the turn of the century until the end of World War II--the book itself was originally published in 1946. And it's full of the starry eyed idealism for a better world that many felt as Japan and Germany were defeated as well as before the Soviet Union became a source of hostility and threat.
In China, of course, the government in charge was still that of the republic governed by Chiang and his wife. It is this China that Standish both sympathizes with as well devotes himself for betterment. How crushing 1949 and the triumph of Mao was to Standish, I don't know. But he seemed to have confidence that the overseas Chinese would come together to rescue China from a century or more neglect and abuse from foreign powers. His was a vision that was about to die. And On Loong probably soon lost its resonance with Standish's readership because of the turn of political events. Nevertheless, it's revealing in how it shows the degree of goodwill Standish and many in America and the UK had for a new China in the decades between the two World Wars. That perspective is unimaginable today. It's also why On Loong is not only a well written drama about Chinese abroad but also a historical literary document of a time now firmly in the past.
Displaying 1 of 1 review