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Fan-Tan
Fan-Tan is a hugely entertaining, swashbuckling romp, from one of the greatest actors of our Marlon Brando. The story of an eccentric early-twentieth-century pirate who sets out on the high seas from the Philippines to Shanghai, Fan-Tan follows the exploits of Anatole “Annie” Doultry, a larger-than-life character that Brando could have easily inhabited himself. When Annie saves the life of a Chinese prisoner in a Hong Kong prison, he’s led to the mysterious and seductive Madame Lai Choi San—one of the most notorious gangsters in Asia—and here the true adventures begin.Years in the making with Brando’s longtime collaborator, screenwriter and director Donald Cammell, Fan-Tan is a rollicking, delectable tale—and the last surprise from an ever-surprising legend.
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
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167 people want to read
About the author
Marlon Brando
23 books60 followersMarlon Brando, Jr. was an American movie star and political activist. "Unchallenged as the most important actor in modern American Cinema" according to the St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture, Brando was one of only three professional actors, along with Charlie Chaplin and Marilyn Monroe, named by Time Magazine as one of its 100 Persons of the Century in 1999.
Brando had a significant impact on film acting, and was the foremost example of the "method" acting style. While he became notorious for his "mumbling" diction and exuding a raw animal magnetism, his mercurial performances were nonetheless highly regarded, and he is widely considered as one of the greatest and most influential actors of the 20th century. Director Martin Scorsese said of him, "He is the marker. There's 'before Brando' and 'after Brando'." Actor Jack Nicholson once said, "When Marlon dies, everybody moves up one." He was ranked by the American Film Institute as the fourth greatest screen legend among male movie stars.
Brando had a significant impact on film acting, and was the foremost example of the "method" acting style. While he became notorious for his "mumbling" diction and exuding a raw animal magnetism, his mercurial performances were nonetheless highly regarded, and he is widely considered as one of the greatest and most influential actors of the 20th century. Director Martin Scorsese said of him, "He is the marker. There's 'before Brando' and 'after Brando'." Actor Jack Nicholson once said, "When Marlon dies, everybody moves up one." He was ranked by the American Film Institute as the fourth greatest screen legend among male movie stars.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
November 25, 2010
Weird and wonderful, like Robert Louis Stevenson's 'Treasure Island' crossed with Donald Cammell's own 1970 film 'Performance'. Cammell really put his heart into this book, the detail on piracy and the politics and culture of Hong Kong and South China circa 1927 is a treat, and at every step you can really imagine Marlon Brando inhabiting the role of Cammell's complex hero, Anatole 'Annie' Doultry. What a shame Brando decided to effectively kill both the film and, until both Cammell and Brando had died, the book-- a story told by editor David Thomson (the film critic) in the afterward that is also totally involving (he fills in a lot of details about the obscure figure of Donald Cammell, a filmmaker with the worst luck). Highly recommended!
November 29, 2007
Words fail me. Marlon freaking Brando and Donald Cammell wrote a trashy-ass book together. Stop reading this and go buy the book.
January 10, 2008
I am endlessly intrigued by books written by people who aren’t authors, particularly people who are actors. Perhaps I should find a way to stop. Fan-Tan is, at least in the twenty-something pages I managed to claw my way through, one of the worst things I’ve ever read.
Based on the jacket summary, I was expecting a swashbuckling story of pirates and the high seas. Instead I received merely a preview of piracy as Brando and his co-author discussed the life of the main character in prison. (Again, I didn’t get very far, but there was nothing to urge me further…) This included a lot of time spent talking about cockroaches, how cockroaches like to eat calluses off of people’s hands and feet, ways in which cockroaches can be caught by using cockroach bait, cockroach races, and on and on and on. I found myself zoning out as if reading a horrid textbook at three in the morning. It was as if Brando wrote a really bad story, and then Cammell sat down with a thesaurus and changed all the little words to big ones. Or vice versa. Sorry, guys - you are much better suited for the screen than the page.
If anyone feels the bizarre desire to read - and finish - this book, please let me know. I would be very interested in learning if it gets better; and as always, I am willing to give it a second chance…
Based on the jacket summary, I was expecting a swashbuckling story of pirates and the high seas. Instead I received merely a preview of piracy as Brando and his co-author discussed the life of the main character in prison. (Again, I didn’t get very far, but there was nothing to urge me further…) This included a lot of time spent talking about cockroaches, how cockroaches like to eat calluses off of people’s hands and feet, ways in which cockroaches can be caught by using cockroach bait, cockroach races, and on and on and on. I found myself zoning out as if reading a horrid textbook at three in the morning. It was as if Brando wrote a really bad story, and then Cammell sat down with a thesaurus and changed all the little words to big ones. Or vice versa. Sorry, guys - you are much better suited for the screen than the page.
If anyone feels the bizarre desire to read - and finish - this book, please let me know. I would be very interested in learning if it gets better; and as always, I am willing to give it a second chance…
February 3, 2023
Good fun read!
And interesting afterword.
And interesting afterword.
May 14, 2020
I don't know what caught my eye first--the exotic cover art, or Marlon Brando's name. Yes, Marlon Brando, the Hollywood legend, co-wrote a book with struggling filmmaker Donald Cammell. My curiosity compelled me to read their adventure for myself.
Anatole Annie Doultry is a convict in a Hong Kong prison, who bets everything he has on cockroach races. When he saves the life of another prisoner, he inevitably finds a way out and crosses paths with Madame Lai Choi San--a sultry and mean gangster. When these characters team up, they take to the high seas with a plan to a ship-load of silver and treasure.
What's more interesting than the actual novel may be the history of its inception and writing. As far back as the 70s, Brando and Cammell hit it off well and brainstormed potential movie ideas together. There is likely an alternate universe where Fan-Tan exists as a gritty 70s thriller (they try to sell this as a "swashbuckling adventure," but I get more of a film noir vibe out of this). They decided to try their luck penning the story as a book first, then maybe adapting it to film. A series of disagreements and conflict inevitably caused the project to remain shelved until 2004, just after Brando's passing. What's printed now is a patchwork made from Cammell's and Brando's unfinished drafts, but pieced together by the editor. I have a feeling the actual text is mostly Cammell's work, with Brando supplying the ideas (especially behind the character, for whom Brando could have easily been typecast).
The slapdash quality of the text may not help much, but I have a stronger feeling that Cammell and Brando never invested much time in honing their novel-writing or editing skills. The result is a 230-something page tome that feels like 230,000 pages. Most pages are spent effusing detail and purple prose on the reader--so much that it kills narrative momentum. When action actually happens, it's presented very dryly in long passages of unengaging commentary. Personality exists in bursts, but the book's overall voice is stiff and distant. The book even jumps between points-of-view without breaks (headhopping).
What little story exists is made even less palatable with the characters. Maybe they'd be more likable on a big screen, but on paper they just come off as mean, angst-ridden, manipulative, selfish, and racist. The main character comes off as misogynist, especially given what happens in the end (and yet, it also comes off as wish-fulfillment--I'm not sure if it's disgusting or laughable). There are moments where Annie just starts raging out and cursing people out, and I never really understood where it all came from--it's like, chill out dude. Moments like those, all the sex and womanizing, the gritty tone, and the run-down settings betray the authors' intents to be edgelords, but it all falls flat given that I can't really root for any of these characters, and their overall adventure amounts to little more than a gross punchline.
It's a shame, because there are moments that work. I just don't feel that the book was refined enough to work--the text bored me, and the story it tells is a stale, shallow one populated with unlikable characters. Don't let Brando's name (or ego) fool you, this is a pretty droll affair. It's a shame given the amount of collaborative passion (and research, they really went all out) that was poured into the work. Some things probably need to remain buried for a reason, although less-picky readers might consider this buried treasure.
3/10
Anatole Annie Doultry is a convict in a Hong Kong prison, who bets everything he has on cockroach races. When he saves the life of another prisoner, he inevitably finds a way out and crosses paths with Madame Lai Choi San--a sultry and mean gangster. When these characters team up, they take to the high seas with a plan to a ship-load of silver and treasure.
What's more interesting than the actual novel may be the history of its inception and writing. As far back as the 70s, Brando and Cammell hit it off well and brainstormed potential movie ideas together. There is likely an alternate universe where Fan-Tan exists as a gritty 70s thriller (they try to sell this as a "swashbuckling adventure," but I get more of a film noir vibe out of this). They decided to try their luck penning the story as a book first, then maybe adapting it to film. A series of disagreements and conflict inevitably caused the project to remain shelved until 2004, just after Brando's passing. What's printed now is a patchwork made from Cammell's and Brando's unfinished drafts, but pieced together by the editor. I have a feeling the actual text is mostly Cammell's work, with Brando supplying the ideas (especially behind the character, for whom Brando could have easily been typecast).
The slapdash quality of the text may not help much, but I have a stronger feeling that Cammell and Brando never invested much time in honing their novel-writing or editing skills. The result is a 230-something page tome that feels like 230,000 pages. Most pages are spent effusing detail and purple prose on the reader--so much that it kills narrative momentum. When action actually happens, it's presented very dryly in long passages of unengaging commentary. Personality exists in bursts, but the book's overall voice is stiff and distant. The book even jumps between points-of-view without breaks (headhopping).
What little story exists is made even less palatable with the characters. Maybe they'd be more likable on a big screen, but on paper they just come off as mean, angst-ridden, manipulative, selfish, and racist. The main character comes off as misogynist, especially given what happens in the end (and yet, it also comes off as wish-fulfillment--I'm not sure if it's disgusting or laughable). There are moments where Annie just starts raging out and cursing people out, and I never really understood where it all came from--it's like, chill out dude. Moments like those, all the sex and womanizing, the gritty tone, and the run-down settings betray the authors' intents to be edgelords, but it all falls flat given that I can't really root for any of these characters, and their overall adventure amounts to little more than a gross punchline.
It's a shame, because there are moments that work. I just don't feel that the book was refined enough to work--the text bored me, and the story it tells is a stale, shallow one populated with unlikable characters. Don't let Brando's name (or ego) fool you, this is a pretty droll affair. It's a shame given the amount of collaborative passion (and research, they really went all out) that was poured into the work. Some things probably need to remain buried for a reason, although less-picky readers might consider this buried treasure.
3/10
July 19, 2009
Portions of this novel seemed as cinematic as one would expect from a film script novelized for the purpose of advancing the film project. As a film, the pacing might have been better as certain pages of excessive and self-indulgent description would be captured better by the cinematography. Ironically, the scene where the eponymous game was played would have made a terrific few seconds in colorful footage, but the notes at the end of the book indicate that the fan-tan scene wasn't in the actual film script.
I also doubt that the expected sex scene in the final pages would have been less interesting on-screen than in the torrid prose of Brando's co-author. Of course, Cammell had a habit of writing steamy scenes that pushed movies from R to X ratings, only to be recut by unsympathetic studios.
My biggest problem with this book is that the veteran captain and smuggler who serves as protagonist in this novel isn't consistently as paranoid and careful as one's original view of his character. A Scot who grows up in Seattle, marries (and abandons his family), and ends up sailing about the South China Sea, Anatole Doultry is full of contradictions. He doesn't gamble in casinos, but he makes big gambles in life. Yet, just when you think "Annie" (deliberately bisexual in regularly using this nickname?) is going to act prudently, we see him take the long odds with very little reward to balance the risk. I simply couldn't believe him.
Yet, the descriptions of the Opium War, racial prejudice, piracy, and cynical British control of Hong Kong were vivid and resonated with my limited knowledge of the era. Also, the descriptions of old Hong Kong resonated well even with my memories of modern Hong Kong. In many ways, it was like visiting an old friend.
But, if you aren't fascinated by Chinese history or, like me, madly in love with a Chinese beauty, I wouldn't recommend bothering with this one.
I also doubt that the expected sex scene in the final pages would have been less interesting on-screen than in the torrid prose of Brando's co-author. Of course, Cammell had a habit of writing steamy scenes that pushed movies from R to X ratings, only to be recut by unsympathetic studios.
My biggest problem with this book is that the veteran captain and smuggler who serves as protagonist in this novel isn't consistently as paranoid and careful as one's original view of his character. A Scot who grows up in Seattle, marries (and abandons his family), and ends up sailing about the South China Sea, Anatole Doultry is full of contradictions. He doesn't gamble in casinos, but he makes big gambles in life. Yet, just when you think "Annie" (deliberately bisexual in regularly using this nickname?) is going to act prudently, we see him take the long odds with very little reward to balance the risk. I simply couldn't believe him.
Yet, the descriptions of the Opium War, racial prejudice, piracy, and cynical British control of Hong Kong were vivid and resonated with my limited knowledge of the era. Also, the descriptions of old Hong Kong resonated well even with my memories of modern Hong Kong. In many ways, it was like visiting an old friend.
But, if you aren't fascinated by Chinese history or, like me, madly in love with a Chinese beauty, I wouldn't recommend bothering with this one.
July 31, 2010
Touted as “a rollicking high-seas saga” set in 1927 Hong Kong, I picked up FAN-TAN with expectations. Written as a somewhat weird collaboration between Marlon Brando and his sometimes-friend Donald Cammell and ultimately shelved by Brando more than two decades ago, I figured, “Hey, at least there will be pirates (check), booty (both kinds) and maybe a little fun.”
But I never expected the main character to piss all over a guy’s face for fun (page 54), the ridiculous pidgin English spoken by minorities (“Wondrous Bird fly fast by velly, velly small foot,” on page 18, or “Tly this drink, velly fine Chinese vino,” on page 79) or a totally gratuitous Cleveland Steamer (page 226). FAN-TAN is a craptacular carnival of ego, elitism and celebrity gone insane, and, strangely, that’s a bad thing.
More: http://www.bookgasm.com/reviews/adven...
But I never expected the main character to piss all over a guy’s face for fun (page 54), the ridiculous pidgin English spoken by minorities (“Wondrous Bird fly fast by velly, velly small foot,” on page 18, or “Tly this drink, velly fine Chinese vino,” on page 79) or a totally gratuitous Cleveland Steamer (page 226). FAN-TAN is a craptacular carnival of ego, elitism and celebrity gone insane, and, strangely, that’s a bad thing.
More: http://www.bookgasm.com/reviews/adven...
October 8, 2019
So much better than I'd been led to believe. However, the story behind Fan-Tan is still more fascinating than the one Brando and Cammell tell.
May 17, 2024
Exquisite trash.
August 31, 2025
Anatole ‘Annie' Doultry, the rogueish main character, would have been the kind of character Brando would have tackled after MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY (1962) when he famously became so enamored with French Polynesia he had to buy his own island. This is an adventure on china's high seas with pirates and all that taps into the exoticism of Western fantasies of the time, especially with the love story with Madame Lai Choi San that would be seen as chauvinism at best and misyogynistic at worst these days. The noir film THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI has similar pleasures which are of the escapist dime0store novel variety-exploitation of ROMANCE with a capital R. As a historical novel, it is fun trash and it knows it's greatest virtue is unpredictability just without the depth of a swashbuckler like Sabatini's CAPTAIN BLOOD or a Dumas story.
June 9, 2025
was interesting :)
August 23, 2025
qué putas leí (me gustó pero idk)
October 6, 2015
First thing's first, Marlon Brando no more wrote this novel than most politicians write their conference speeches. Portrait painter, sometime scriptwriter and director Donald Cammell did all the writing, based on an idea, a loose story outline for a potential movie, which Brando had thought up whilst indulging his appetites on his Pacific island retreat.
It's abundantly clear that the novels protagonist, black marketeer sailor Anatole "Annie" Doultry, is a Brando surrogate. An outsider, following his own code regardless of the consequences, swashbuckling and whoring his way across the South China Seas in the years between the wars.
Doultry is far from perfect, but Brando fancies him for a man's man, equally handy with wits and fists. He has Brando's nose, is over six feet tall (well, this is fiction) and has an "enormous" penis.
There are more than a few references to this, and I neither know nor care whether or not that also represents wish-fulfillment on Brando's part, but it's an unnecessary feature that typifies the coarse, childish indulgences of the book in general.
Essentially a two-fister, a game of master and servant between Doultry and the fearsome Chinese pirate mistress, Lai Choi San, there is a certain vibrancy to the tale at times, but any enjoyment is ruined by constant crudity of the cheapest kind.
The final confrontation between the two characters in particular is too awful to relate, truly the most risible sex scene I have ever read.
In the parlance of the Hollywood pitch, think of a cross between Mutiny on the Bounty, Last Tango in Paris and South Park.
It's abundantly clear that the novels protagonist, black marketeer sailor Anatole "Annie" Doultry, is a Brando surrogate. An outsider, following his own code regardless of the consequences, swashbuckling and whoring his way across the South China Seas in the years between the wars.
Doultry is far from perfect, but Brando fancies him for a man's man, equally handy with wits and fists. He has Brando's nose, is over six feet tall (well, this is fiction) and has an "enormous" penis.
There are more than a few references to this, and I neither know nor care whether or not that also represents wish-fulfillment on Brando's part, but it's an unnecessary feature that typifies the coarse, childish indulgences of the book in general.
Essentially a two-fister, a game of master and servant between Doultry and the fearsome Chinese pirate mistress, Lai Choi San, there is a certain vibrancy to the tale at times, but any enjoyment is ruined by constant crudity of the cheapest kind.
The final confrontation between the two characters in particular is too awful to relate, truly the most risible sex scene I have ever read.
In the parlance of the Hollywood pitch, think of a cross between Mutiny on the Bounty, Last Tango in Paris and South Park.
December 6, 2008
Marlon Brando and Donald Cammell, Fan-Tan (Vintage, 2005)
There are times that much-speculated, much-discussed books should go to the grave with their late writers. I must say that never, in years of reading and thousands of books, have I ever felt this way about a piece of writing more than I did about Fan-Tan, Marlon Brando's novel that was published posthumously only because Brando would likely have died of shame had it been published while he was still alive. That said, it's one of those books that I just had to keep going with, to find out how much worse it could possibly get, and in this regard, the book never once failed me. In fact, in its final pages, it exceeded my expectations in a way no writer has since the first time I encountered Matthew Stokoe (and for much the same reason, for those few of you who've read Stokoe's wonderfully disgusting first novel, Cows). Politically incorrect purple prose, a ham-handed sense of plotting, silly characters, and a taste for the perverse all permeate this book; if that's your thing, than by all means, have fun with it. (half)
There are times that much-speculated, much-discussed books should go to the grave with their late writers. I must say that never, in years of reading and thousands of books, have I ever felt this way about a piece of writing more than I did about Fan-Tan, Marlon Brando's novel that was published posthumously only because Brando would likely have died of shame had it been published while he was still alive. That said, it's one of those books that I just had to keep going with, to find out how much worse it could possibly get, and in this regard, the book never once failed me. In fact, in its final pages, it exceeded my expectations in a way no writer has since the first time I encountered Matthew Stokoe (and for much the same reason, for those few of you who've read Stokoe's wonderfully disgusting first novel, Cows). Politically incorrect purple prose, a ham-handed sense of plotting, silly characters, and a taste for the perverse all permeate this book; if that's your thing, than by all means, have fun with it. (half)
July 15, 2008
Essentially an extended joke, the main conceit of this book is that Annie Doultry, a man who "never gambled, except once on a dog (but that's a long story)," gambles with his life again and again. He gets into one predicament after another, living a life of daring-do among the pirates of colonial Hong Kong. Of course, there's plenty of wine (schnapps, actually), women, and song, not to mention copious amounts of blood.
Fan Tan was a fun read, in the genre of paperback swashbucklers, and I'm not sorry I spent the time it took to read it. However, in the end, it really didn't have much substance.
Note: I read this book in audiobook format from Audible.com.
Fan Tan was a fun read, in the genre of paperback swashbucklers, and I'm not sorry I spent the time it took to read it. However, in the end, it really didn't have much substance.
Note: I read this book in audiobook format from Audible.com.
August 24, 2010
Good Book! It took me a while to finish it due to the reviews I have done on other books, but I really enjoyed it. At times it did seem a bit dry, the action was intense towards the end. I am still very glad I took the time to read this one.
July 17, 2018
A very tepid pirate adventure / romance provides thin cover for a sex scene involving scat. Not worth your time.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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