The Enemy in the Blanket

The Long Day Wanes: A Malayan Trilogy #2

by Anthony Burgess

The Enemy in the Blanket is the second novel in Anthony Burgess's Malayan Trilogy The Long Day Wanes. The novel charts the continuing adventures of Victor Crabbe, who becomes headmaster of a school in the imaginary sultanate of Dahaga (meaning thirst in Malay and identifiable with Kelantan) in the years and months leading up to Malayan independence.

Genres: Fiction, Novels, British Literature, Ebooks, Historical Fiction, Literature

221 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1957

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

[W.D. Clarke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Burgess's second book (and #2 in the 'Malayan Trilogy'), this novel is certainly more ambitious, and more accomplished, perhaps, than its predecessor, and if I didn't have quite as much fun, I did finish it thinking I had had a richer experience with its unhappy principal characters, The Crabbes, Victor and Fenella, carryovers from Time for a Tiger, as well as its unhappy supporting cast, Lawyer Rupert Hardman and housewife-on-the-make , Ann Talbot, whom Victor and Fenella meet on their first day deeper in the fictional Malay boondocks (having left a teaching post at a British school nearer the capital in the first book), she who

lounged at the bedroom door, her mouth wagging a cigarette. She was slim and seemed to be wearing a sort of ballet practice dress. Her face was that of a boy gang-leader, smooth with the innocence of one who, by the same quirk as blinds a man to the mystery of whistling or riding a bicycle, has never mastered the art of affection or compassion or properly learned the moral dichotomy. Her eyes were small and her lips thin, her black hair parted demurely in Madonna-style. Her voice was faint, as if her vocal cords had been eroded by some acid.

Of course, Victor just has to have an affair with her, but Burgess puts a fairly subtle and ambiguous spin on the proceedings...

We also get a small dose of Burgessian largesse (viz., his learnin'). Here's Vic introducing himself to his new boss, Anne's hubby:

“Crabbe,” said Crabbe. “You may have had a letter about me.”

“Crabbe,” said Talbot. “I thought you were Bishop. You’re very like Bishop. And of course there must be a connection somewhere. Let me see. Yes. Bishop was an eighteenth-century drink. Dr. Johnson was very fond of it. And you use crab-apples for making lamb’s wool. That, you’ll remember, was an Elizabethan drink. ‘When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl.’” He made ‘bowl’ rhyme with ‘owl’. “Or perhaps there was a Bishop Crabbe. There must be somewhere in Anthony Trollope. Are you any relation to the poet?”

Chiefly, Vic & Fenella spend their time avoiding the elephant in the room of their hasty marriage after Vic's much-beloved first wife had died in a watery car-crash, and it is this habitual posture of avoidance which must be addressed here in the hinterland of the heart.

t perhaps in time the past would have no more power over him. After all, no man could give everything. But she wanted him all, wanted every sullen pocket of his memory turned inside out, wanted to fill him with herself, and with herself only. But the past was not part of him; he was part of it. What more could he do? She must accept the Minotaur. The Labyrinth had many rooms, enough for a life together—walls to be covered with shelves and pictures, corridors in which the Beast echoed only once in a score of years.

So we sense a deepening of the sedimentary Burgess Shale here, a yielding of comedy to, if not the tragic, the elegiac, somewhat.

Perhaps there were really two kinds of marriage, both equally valid: the one that was pure inspiration, the poem come unbidden; the one that had to be built, laboriously, with pain and self-abasement, deliberate engineering, sweat and broken nails. He saw his unkindness to Fenella, the demon that urged him on to believe that it was all a mistake, that she, in some way, was the usurper. One could not spend one’s life being loyal to the dead. That was romanticism of the worst sort. In Indonesia the jungle had been cleared and rice planted. It was time he cleared the romantic jungle in which he wanted to lurk, acknowledged that life was striving not dreaming, and planted the seeds of a viable relationship between his wife and himself.

As the poet Giorgio do Cicco once remarked, "relationship" is to love as "brickwork" is to "home" no doubt. "We are all frustrated masons."

“But loss, too, is at least a thing which, in the dark,
We can hold, feeling a sharpness, knowing that a knife
Is a double-edged weapon, for carving as well as killing.
The knife in the abattoir is also the knife on the table,
The corpse becomes meat, the dead stone heart the raw
Stuff of the sculptor’s art. …”

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 4 out of 5]

The second book in the Malayan trilogy is funnier and less corpulent with Malayan terminology than the opener Time for a Tiger. The female characters also flourish in this instalment. Full review for the trilogy itself coming up in a day or so. Patience!

[Paul Cornelius · Rating 4 out of 5]

Much better than Time for a Tiger, the first book in Burgess's Malayan trilogy, The Enemy in the Blanket is quite a mix. Humorous and witty. That's what the first book promised and didn't deliver. But this one does. It's also quite melancholy. The sardonic Anne Talbot, along with the protagonist's, Victor Crabbe's, wife, Fennela, twist and squirm beneath the incinerating Southeast Asian sun and its humid jungle, until they free themselves of the burdens they carry, their husbands. Burgess recreates the sordid world of Britain's colonial administrators during the last days of the empire's rule in Malaya. His picture of wasted lives, frustrated loves, and desperate feelings outdoes even Maugham, who could never be as candid and vivid as Burgess.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Burgess’ prose is so uniquely absorbing. Just as in 'Time for a Tiger', the writing so elegantly transports you, even infuses you, into this world. Maybe it helped that I read parts 1 and 2 of the Malayan trilogy during the summertime, but the heat, humidity and atmosphere felt palpable. Needless to say, the environment, the locations and/or Malaysian settings are themselves a character of the stories.

Reading these novels is like watching great art-house cinema--lack of plot is immaterial. The experience is everything. You become so closely acquainted with such a variety of characters that you feel as though you know them personally. They are really fleshed out and familiar. Oddly, I cannot help but feel homesick of a place I never physically lived in, but where my mind spent time in.

Looking forward to returning to this world in Part 3.

[Betawolf · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first of this series, Time for a Tiger, is saved from its depressing humour and unsympathetic cast by at least communicating something about the state of postwar Malaysia. What, though, does the sequel do to justify there being more than one novel?

Well, not much. The alcoholism is swapped for adultery and the tired noises huffed out by a neglected marriage undergoing final collapse. It is a little gratifying that Crabbe's wife does eventually get to leave the hellhole of a country, as she has been asking for them to do basically throughout this and the previous novel, but she is hardly relatable even with such a horrible husband as counterpoint.

There are a couple of interesting character ideas -- a lawyer converted to Islam for his wife's money, a Catholic priest absorbed by Chinese culture -- and a general theme of colonial withdrawal coming hand-in-hand with a retreat of a tired Western culture. There's also a swelling sense of the lines of ethnic tension that to this day still characterise Malaysia. But it's all quite tired stuff, astute situational dressing for a rather dull plot.

The completionist in me will probably prevail in getting me to take on the last slim novel of the trilogy, but if not entirely checked out I am at least packing my bags ready for the morning.

[Yazlina Saduri · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cerita-cerita yang lucu, mendatangkan pening, ada juga yang menarik tentang kehidupan Crabbe di tempat baru selepas ditransfer menjadi Headmaster di Haji Ali College tapi bagi saya kurang berbanding The Tiger book. Sampai saja di town Kenching, hampir di kencing dek Mohinder Singh Si "Bengali tonchit", kata orang orang berbalut kepala dan bawa kapak? Tak faham saya. The Abang of Istana Kenching dengan Jaganathan, rasa nak ketuk kepala dia. Abdul Kadir juga akhirnya dapat naik jadi Headmaster. Haji Hardman? Ada Jalan Hantu Jahat, Jalan Hang Tuah, Jalan China, Jalan Laksamana... Di negeri mana State of Dahaga ni sebenarnya, siapa tahu?

[Zhi Yi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoy reading Crabbe's adventure in Kelantan, although it's a shame that she left him. Beautifully written.

[Syed Emir Ashman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Burgess’ second novel in this trilogy was just as good as the first. It’s like taking a trip in time to Colonial Malaya.

[Vikas Datta · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little lesser than the first, but still good

[Bivisyani Questibrilia · Rating 4 out of 5]

The second installment to Time for a Tiger, in this book we continue to follow the life of Victor Crabbe after his exit in the last story. This time, I find, there are more sides to him exposed to us than before and, I must say, his image changes considerably in my mind. None of the other white men followed him to this new place and story, though.

First and foremost, let me start by comparing this sequel to its predecessor. I feel like this story is much shorter than the prequel, with much less main characters to speak of. There is, of course, Victor Crabbe, whose ambition to do right by the locals have waned significantly due to his own scandal with a Malay girl. He now cares less about the Malayans than about the security of his own position in Malaya. His wife Fenella is redeemed in this sequel as she battles with the hurt of being betrayed and the desire to remain faithful to her husband. Other than them, there is a second main character named Rupert Hardman—a down-in-the-dumps lawyer who turns out to be university mates with Crabbe and marries an honourable Muslim woman to survive. Lastly—I suppose, we can somewhat calls him a main character as narration through his perspective is often used—is Mohinder Singh who travels to the city of Kenching with the Crabbes to run a business that isn't going well. Let's just say right now: the locals have very little role to play in this sequel.

Overall, the formula of the story is actually still pretty much the same: Crabbe is still the white man who sympathises with the locals, Hardman is the white man who (one way or another) despises the local ways, Father Lafourge is the white man who wishes he was in a different part of Asia and, finally, Fenella is the lust-after white woman.

What's different, however, is how much less comical this sequel is to the prequel.

Now, as the Malays are starting to gain momentum to claim their own independence and drive every other race out of the country, there is very little sympathy and goodwill between the races—not just the whites and the Malays, but also the Chinese, the Sikhs, the Punjabs, etc. It's every race for themselves now. And, because there is very little reason to play nice between races, there's very little reason to keep an image of harmony in the town too.

That being said, I did enjoy the story very much. It was easy to read, the language has developed to be a lot more modern and the plot is simple enough to understand. There are a few loose ends here and there, I find, but nothing that will keep me up at night. The plot may be very predictable, but at least we get entertainment from it along the way.

Okay, let's go onto book three!

[FP · Rating 4 out of 5]

Burgess consideraba que este libro era el scherzo de la trilogía. En lo personal, lo encuentro bastante deprimente en comparación con el anterior, pero eso es de esperarse en la trama de un individuo perteneciente al Imperio Británico en decline queriendo hacer la diferencia. La única razón por la que dan risa las situaciones del libro es porque los personajes son demasiado patéticos en ocasiones.
En este libro Victor Crabbe trabaja como director de una escuela mientras que un colega suyo busca socavarle y arruinarle por nada más que un odio al amo colonial, justo cuando Crabbe descubre que su mayordomo está patrocinando a comunistas en la selva con víveres de su casa y a su nombre. Al mismo tiempo el sultán local quiere levantarle a su esposa, tanto como un símbolo de su poder omnímodo como un modo metafórico de humillar al hombre occidental. Su esposa, a pesar de que no se muestra inclinada a caer en el truco del sultán, aún así está teniendo problemas en su relación con Crabbe. En otro ángulo, un amigo de Crabbe, necesitado de dinero, se casa con una musulmana rica para aprovecharse de su plata, pero descubre que se metió en algo más grande de lo que podía manejar, en un bonito paralelo del occidental tratando de aprovecharse de oriente sólo para darse cuenta de que ahora las cosas son distintas.
A modo de relajo cómico aparecen unos sijs que se meten en más líos y situaciones de las que deberían, así como una especie de chiste recurrente en el que algunos malayos gruñen por lo bajo sobre el pronto baño de sangre que harán con todos los "extranjeros", como blancos, sijs, tamiles y chinos (algo que nunca se dio, pero que más de un político local allá sugirió en su momento).

[Chris Passingham · Rating 4 out of 5]

This series is improving.

[Derek Collett · Rating 2 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.

[Ruth · Rating 2 out of 5]

c1958: FWFTB: headmaster, sultanate, Malayan, independence. Much like the first in the trilogy - pretty much true to life as far as ex-pats go. Somehow, quite sad though. ' But duty was duty. Where the British were sent, there they would go. That was how they had built their Empire, an Empire now crashing about their ears.' Much like Victor Crabbe's marriage then!

[Benjamin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really like the way each of these books has introduced and then dismissed a separate cast of characters, yet retains continuity as well as progresses in an overall arc that foreshadows what (I assume) will come in book 3.