The Long Day Wanes

The Long Day Wanes: A Malayan Trilogy #1-3

by Anthony Burgess

A sweetly satiric look at the twilight days of colonialism. Set in postwar Malaya at the time when people and governments alike are bemused and dazzled by the turmoil of independence, this three-part novel is rich in hilarious comedy and razor-sharp in observation. The protagonist of the work is Victor Crabbe, a teacher in a multiracial school in a squalid village, who moves upward in position as he and his wife maintain a steady decadent progress backward.

Genres: Fiction, Asia, Literature, Historical Fiction, Classics, Historical, Novels

514 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1964

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

[Stephanie Augustin · Rating 5 out of 5]

How odd is it that a foreigner describes my country more wholly and better than any Malaysian writer I've read? It may boil down to my not having read enough local authors, but I think it is because racial prejudices and connotations still run so deep and is ingrained in the Federal Constitution that fear of censorship, backlash and prison now stop us Malaysians from writing about our not so beloved country as is.



Like Lim Cheng Po, many of us scorn our mother tongues and put on unfamiliar accents, not knowing that this means refusal to understand the (now more than) three main cultures in Malaysia. Even I as a Eurasian will not be able to describe Malaysia so fully and objectively as Burgess, because I too will be self-censoring myself so as not to offend.



A beautiful work that has shown that nothing, NOTHING has changed since we gained independence, except maybe increased cynicism and hate for our nation. Its sad and so true (even the comedic scenes).

[Whitaker · Rating 2 out of 5]

Those measly two stars don't mean that I didn't enjoy reading this. I did, rather. It's just that I find that the novel undermines its own intent.

The novel's dislike of racism is apparent, and Burgess skewers it in all its forms: the colonisers' contempt for the colonised and vice versa, the various inter-ethnic hatreds among the Malayans, the overweening love of certain Malayans for their colonisers... This makes for much hilarity.

Burgess said of Malaya that it was “the most remarkable multi-racial society in the world”. And he certainly covers that vibrant mixing of the different ethnic groups with relish. Here he describes the difficulties of grafting an English house system in multi-ethnic Malayan society:

The difficulties of organising a house-system in a school of this kind had been partly solved through weak compromise. At first it had been proposed to call the houses after major prophets – Nabi Adam, Nabi Idris, Nabi Isa, Nabi Mohammed – but everyone except the Muslims protested… The pupils themselves, through their prefects, pressed the advantages of a racial division. The Chinese feared that the Malays would run amok in the dormitories and use knives; the Malays said that they did not like the smell of the Indians; the various Indian races preferred to conduct vendettas only among themselves. Besides, there was the question of food. The Chinese cried out for pork which, to the Muslims, was haram and disgusting; the Hindus would not eat meat at all, despite the persuasions of the British matron; other Indians demanded burning curries and could not stomach the insipid lauk of the Malays.

So, it was all the more disconcerting to find that all the Malayans are represented only by stock caricatures: We have Ibrahim, Crabbe's house boy, an effeminate Malay pondan (the Malay derogatory term for an effeminate homosexual, roughly akin to saying "faggot"); Alladad Khan, a Punjabi Indian Muslim policeman, choleric, adulterous, and lustful; Che' Normah, the oversexed husband killer; Ah Wing, the rat and cat eating Chinese cook… and so on and so on.

One could argue that the English do not come off in a much better light, and there is something to be said for that. This is Burgess on the Headmaster at Crabbe's school:

Boothby yawned with great vigour. He was fond of yawning. He would yawn at dinner-parties, at staff-meetings, at debates, elocution competitions, sports days. He probably yawned in bed with his wife…. "Look here," said Boothby, "I know the facts and you don't. Their clothes were disarranged. It's obvious what was going to happen. You haven't been here as long as I have. These Wogs are hot-blooded. There was a very bad case in Gill's time. Gill himself was nearly thrown out."

Nevertheless, Burgess imbues a certain tragic dignity to his key English characters, whatever their faults: the ineffectual Victor Crabbe and his wife, Fenella; the grasping English lawyer, Rupert Hardman, who marries Che' Normah for her money and then abandons her; and Anne Talbot, the Englishwoman despairingly married to an older man throwing herself at any Englishman who crosses her path. Indeed, the contrast between Anne and her equally promiscuous Indian counterpart, Rosemary Michael, is telling. Anne is a figure who gains a measure of pathos and sympathy as the novel progresses; Rosemary Michael remains forever a bathetic bimbo.

So that's my problem. An equivalent division of characters is that of the lovers and the mechanicals in A Midsummer's Night Dream, only here, the lovers are the English and the rude mechanicals are the Malayans. Regardless of how the humour skewers them all, the English become rounded characters while the Malayans remain only figures of fun. If such a drama were to be shown now with that type of ethic division there would be outraged cries, not wholly unjustified, of racism.

So, there we have it: as much as the novel decries racism, it seems itself unable to achieve sufficient velocity to escape its pull either, and so ultimately falls flat.

Still, that's only my view. Here's a different one from a fellow South-East Asian who liked it much more.

[Preeta · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've avoided posting a review of this for a few days, because I'm having trouble distancing myself from the fact that it's about Malaya (the old name for most of Malaysia), a Malaya I know and love from my parents' stories, and that to my knowledge hasn't been written about this wisely anywhere else. It's not that this trilogy is perfect; like many of my favourite books, it's messy, rambling, and slightly random at times (the third book is probably the weakest of the three -- repetitive and veering too close to caricature). But to my mind the whole thing more than makes up for it. The language is so very rich and sharp, full of obscure but oddly perfect, precise words. At its best, it's as good as Waugh at his best. For the most part, the satire is less slapstick than Waugh, but there's still a good bit of cruel humour. And what I most admire about this is that it's saying things about race and class in Malaya that even now, 50 years later, are rarely being said. This is not the hazy nostalgia of Maugham or the Orientalist stereotyping of Huxley. Where Burgess indulges in stereotypes, you get the feeling he is doing so quite consciously, with a wink at the audience. He's not saying anything Malaysians don't say about each other, and he knows it (for what it's worth, he spent a lot more time there than either of the others).

Though I only just read this, I feel I must have been influenced by it. On the one hand, that makes no sense; on the other hand, I mean, look at the title! Recommended especially for anyone who likes my book. This is where it all came from; this explains the national mess.

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 4 out of 5]

Burgess’s autobiographical trilogy is a vastly comic and brutally realistic work that wryly and unflinchingly depicts the “dog days of empire,” as the blurb puts it perfectly. Opening with Time for a Tiger, we are introduced to teacher Victor Crabbe, a philandering rascal and unlikely antihero skirmishing with the school principal over his unorthodox educational techniques and weaving in and out of the disastrous lives of other teachers and colonials—appearing relatively sane in comparison. The most entertaining of the three, The Enemy in the Blanket, has some of the more memorable comic scenes, such as the Englishman who coverts to Islam and takes a Malayan wife and spends his time trying to escape her draconian clutches. Fantastic observational and anecdotal subplots abound throughout the work, with excellent character studies and a finesse for Malayan dialect. The final installment, Beds in the East, has more irritating and unlikely characters and absurd melodrama in place of comedy, but is a readable if disappointing end to what could have been a masterpiece, if it didn’t end so sketchily.

[Noah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Die Malayan Trilogy enthält die ersten drei Romane von Anthony Burgess. Sie sind einige Jahre vor seinem Durchbruch mit Clockwork Orange erschienen. Damals, in der Zeit von 1954 bis 1961 lebte Burgess als Lehrer in Malaya. Seine Erlebnisse im Land, kurz vor der Unabhängigkeit bilden den Hintergrund dieser teil-autobiographischen Romane. Burgess ist dabei mit der zentralen Figur Crabbe, einem recht unglücklichen Lehrer zu identifizieren.

Time for a Tiger

Handelt von Cabbes erster Station. Es gelingt dem Lehrer nicht, sich in die Expat Gesellschaft zu integrieren, obgleich seine Frau dies anstrebt. Er hat ein Verhältnis mit einer malayischen Witwe, was langsam zum Stadtgespräch führt und wird zum Outsider in seiner Schule, da er zu viel Verständnis für die einheimischen Schüler zeigt. Langsam zieht sich ein Netz von Terroranschlägen durch das Land. Als Crabbe wegen eines solchen Anschlags, der glimpflich verläuft, das Schulsportfest verpasst, bei dem die Schüler einen sehr harmlosen Protest gegen den Ausschluss eines Mitschülers instigieren, wird er für den Initiator des Protestes gehalten und muss sich versetzen lassen.

The Enemy in the Blanket

In einer wesentlich konservativeren Provinz angekommen findet sich Crabbe zwischen allen Stühlen. Seine Frau beginnt ein Verhältnis mit dem lokalen Sultan, der sie wegen ihrer Blodheit umschwärmt. In der Schule sieht er sich dem Druck seines Stellvertreters ausgesetzt, der bemüht ist, ihn als Kommunisten bloßzustellen, da er seinen Posten haben will. Die ethnischen Spannungen nehmen weiter zu und alle versuchen die Briten loszuwerden. Paradigmatisch ist sein neuer bester Freund, der sich aus Geldnot mit einer einheimischen Witwe verheiratet, die ihre ersten zwei Männer aus dem Weg hat schaffen, als sie zurückkehren wollten. Er musste zum Islam übertreten. Sie bedroht ihn und er versucht zu fliehen. Schlussendlich nimmt er sie auf eine Pilgerreise nach Mekka mit, um in Saudi Arabien einen neuen Posten als Dozent anzunehmen und sie wohl fern ihrer Heimat loszuwerden.

Beds in the East

Spielt in der Zeit unmittelbar vor der Unabhängigkeit. Crabbe spielt nur noch eine Nebenrolle. Er versucht eine chinesischstämmigen Komponisten zu unterstützen, kommt aber nicht sehr weit, da sich die neuen Herrscher nicht für Chinesen interessieren und die amerikanischen Propagandisten, die von den Biten übernehmen etwas ethnisches und nicht klassische Musik suchen. Die Haupthandlung dreht sich um die zunehmenden rassischen Spannungen, bei der keiner weis, wer bald an der Macht sein wird und wie man sich diesem am besten andient. Die Gesellschaft wird immer korupter und die Protagonisten verzweifeln daran.

Ich war vor einigen Jahren eine knappe Woche in Malaysia, diesem merkwürdigen Land mit der vielleicht leckersten Küche der Welt, den USA Südostansiens mit bereiten Straßen und guter Hygiene und dieser absonderlichen rassischen Segregation. Dies alles trifft Burgess hervorragend und entlarvt die rassischen Spannungen und die diesen zu Grunde liegenden Machtinteressen. Die Handlungen und Charaktere selbst sind aber merkwürdig unausgegoren. Abgesehen vom hervorragenden Portraits Malaysias hatte ich oft den Eindruck ganze Passagen bereits in Orwells Burmese Days oder in A Passage ti India gelesen zu haben aber so st das ja oft bei erstlingswerken... Dem Autor gelingt es gut über sich selbst zu schreiben aber die Strukturen müssen noch erlernt werden.

[Czarny Pies · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book merits five stars for its historical content but its sins against literature are great. I giving it four stars.
Anthony Burgess worked as a teacher on for the British Colonial Service in the Malayan Peninsula and in the Malayan archipelago from 1954 to 1959. In this role he witnessed the end of British rule which came in 1957 and the first two years of an independent Malaya (currently known as Malaysia.) His trilogy is highly regarded by English historians specializing in the region. I have seen it most recently praised in "Forgotten Wars" written by Christopher Bayly and Tim Harper of Cambridge and which describes the armed struggle against the Malayan communists conducted by the British during the time period that Burgess taught in the region. Burgess' novels brilliantly satirizes the members of the all the ethnic of all the various groups present: i.e. ethnic Malays, the Chinese, the Tamils, the Sikhs and of course the British colonials.
Burgess' main theory is that British Malaya was an unnatural amalgamation of dissimilar states created by the British for the purpose of guarding the south-eastern flank of India. Once formed, Britain did nothing to foster a feeling of community among the various ethnic groups. Britain's policies and actions served instead to enflame animosity among them. At the end of the British regime, the Tamils and Sikhs were hoping that the British would stay; the Chinese had thrown their lot in with the communist insurgents and the Malays were simply impatient to seize power so that they would gain control of the country's institutions.
The high regard of professional historians for the Trilogy has not translated into success with the general reading public. At the time of my writing this review there were 670,706 recorded ratings of "Clockwork Orange" of the GR Web site compared to 1,405 for the "Malayan Trilogy." The problem is that as literature the work is seriously flawed.
The first problem is that the tone is racist. Burgess does everything short of calling them Wogs to denigrate the people of Malaya. They want to learn the English language but they have no interest in the culture, civic virtues, or democratic institutions of the English people. They are self-serving flatters and backstabbers. They are alcoholics and sexually debauched. They think superficially unable to appreciate either the logic of western philosophy or the sublime spiritually of Christianity. They want to obtain television transmitters but have no interest in becoming civilized Englishmen. There is a basis of truth in what Burgess says but ultimately his Asian characters deteriorate into grotesque caricatures.
The English characters possess many of the same faults as the Asians but never become totally ludicrous Notably they drink heavily and are highly promiscuous. However, while the Asians are presented as being inherently bad, the Englishmen are portrayed as having been corrupted by the environment. Their greatest fear of the English is that they will sink so deeply into the Malayan morass that they never be able to return home.
The sad thing is that with his tasteless satire, Burgess is in fact trying to combat racism. He sees two separate evils. First Burgess believes that the dislike that the various races have for each other will seriously undermine any effort to build a common sense of belonging to the new nation. Second, he perceives that the racism of his characters in fact is a manifestation of self-loathing. In other words, the Malays must cease being racist in order to be have proper self-respect. Burgess' intentions are good but he fails in many places to stay within the bounds of good taste as he satirizes what he feels to be an unhealthy culture.
All three novels have a focus on the protagonist, Victor Crabbe, who appears to be modeled on Anthony Burgess. Crabbe teaches at British Government school, smokes like a chimney and drinks like a fish. He neglects and cheats on his second wife while mourning his much loved first wife who died in an automobile accident. Crabbe's is haunted by a prediction of one of his Malayan enemies that he will die in Malaya.
The first novel, "Time for a Tiger" devotes a great deal of attention to Nabby Adams an alcoholic police lieutenant of mixed Indian and English race. Nabby Adams is one of the few truly likable characters in the trilogy. At the end of "Time for a Tiger" he wins a lottery which allows him to return home to India.
The second novel, "The Enemy in a Blanket" focuses on Rupert Hardman an impoverished lawyer who marries a rich Muslim widow. This proves to be a mistake that traps Hardman in Malaya. At the end of "The Enemy in a Blanket", Hardman is in Mecca on a Haj realizing he will never make it home to England. Crabbe's second wife fares much better. Having had enough of Crabbe's infidelities she leaves him and goes home to England.
In the third novel, "Beds in the East" the mood changes. Burgess no longer simpler satirizes his miserable characters. He begins to mourn the squandered opportunity to make something great of the Malaya. He encourages Robert Loo one of his students who is a talented composer of classical music that combines elements of Bartok, Kodaly and Poulenc with local folk tunes. Loo has in other words managed to combine the high art of the West with indigenous Malayan culture. Unfortunately, Crabbe's term in Malaya has run out. He hands over his responsibilities to his Malayan replacement and then dies accidentally before his able to leave the new country. The Americans who replace the British as the prime Western influencers in Malaya have no interest in the music of Crabbe's protégé which in their opinion is too European and lacking the folk elements of Malayan music.
While the first two novels each have a dominant subplot, the third novel "Beds in the East" has two. The first involves Robert Loo one of Crabbe's students who happens to be a talented composer of classical music that combines elements of Bartok, Kodaly and Poulenc with local folk tunes. In the evyes of Crabbe, the great value of Loo's compositions is that they combine the high art of the West with indigenous Malayan culture. Unfortunately, Crabbe's term in Malaya has run out. He hands over his responsibilities to his Malayan replacement and then dies accidentally before his able to leave the new country. The Americans who replace the British as the prime Western influencers in Malaya have no interest in the music of Crabbe's protégé which in their opinion is too European and lacking the folk elements of Malayan music.
The second subplot of "Beds in the East" concerns Rosemary Michael a Christian Tamil who has a sever problem of self-loathing. She will not accept the idea that she is not of the white race. She eds a series of white men hoping that one of them will marry her and take her to England.
The third novel also resolves Crabbe's story. The reader learns that, free presence, his second wife becomes a highly successful poet in England. To make Crabbe's humiliation even worse, he learns that his first wife had also become fed up with him and had been planning to leave him at the time of her fatal automobile accident. Our protagonist has thus died in a remote South-Eastern jungle having accomplished nothing in life and missed by no one. It is a clever resolution to the tale of a hero that unfortunately never really engages the sympathy of the reader.
Despite its many flaws, "The Malayan Trilogy" is must reading for anyone interested in the history of South-East Asia in the 20th century.

[Lorraine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent stuff. Skilfully told -- the narrative weaves seamlessly in and out of the consciousness of different characters. A little Woolfsian, that: stream-of-consciousness. Irony can be sharp at times, but it's very approrpriate. Burgess is incredibly well-read and observant. There are tons of sneaky references to the classics and the modernist greats (not-so-subtle nods to Joyce) if one wants to pick them up -- it adds to the richness of the text -- but it reads very well without too. In that sense it's not like Ulysses (which one reviewer said). In Ulysses you have to know more about Ireland, Aristotle, etc -- because Stephen is an overeducated thing. The tone of SE Asia is caught very well. Particularly all that stuff about heat. Yes, gelatinous, drowsing heat, dust, jungle. There's little jungle left, but it's still accurate enough. It can get stifling and confusing. As someone living here in Singapore I have to say it's excellent. It's written with an very sharp eye for detail: perhaps not being local he is a great observer -- and has more capacity to be detached from the chaos that was SE Asia then (it's still rather complicated now)

[Mindy McAdams · Rating 5 out of 5]

U.K. title: "The Malayan Trilogy"
U.S. title: "The Long Day Wanes"

Widely known as the author of A Clockwork Orange (the novel on which Stanley Kubrick's 1971 film was based), Burgess lived in peninsular Malaysia (then Malaya) from 1954 to 1960 while serving as an education officer for the British government. Britain was then preparing to withdraw from the country, which it had considered its colony since (roughly) 1874. (Malaya got its independence in 1957, and the new country of Malaysia emerged in 1963.)

This trilogy was originally published as three separate novels: Time for a Tiger (1956), The Enemy in the Blanket (1958) and Beds in the East (1959). The stories are completely continuous, however, and all feature a British education officer named Victor Crabbe as the central character. Crabbe's circumstances in Malaya parallel those of Burgess, and an unmistakable sense of bright reality colors every scene.

Burgess's dry English humor guarantees a lot of enjoyment in reading this book, but even better is his successful portrayal of diverse public opinion in Malaya at a crucial time in its long history. He respects but does not idolize the Malays, and he skillfully unwraps the many layers of racial complexity that were especially agitated in the years surrounding independence. I very much admired Burgess's ability to capture character with only a few lines of dialogue, and I found the book difficult to put down (even when reading it by headlamp under the mosquito net in my hammock after a long, hot day of jungle walking!). He's pleasantly ambivalent about the role of the British in "helping" the country toward its new position in the world -- through Crabbe's well-meaning ambition to educate young Malays for taking the reins of government, Burgess manages to demonstrate some of the consequences of colonization and hegemony.

[carl theaker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Time for a Tiger

The history book 'Forgotten Armies' got me on the Southeast Asia theme and as Anthony Burgess'
Malayan Triology is mentioned as a mood setter for the post-war era, I continued with it.

Somewhat suspicious from books like 'Clockwork Orange' I was pleasantly surprised,
a great read, the - old couldn't put it down.

A great and hilarious set of characters in book1, particularly British
Nabby Adams the beer-alcoholic Police Lieutenant, huge in stature,
kindly in nature, honest in business, but will do anything to get a drink.

His Malay sidekick Allahad Khan, beleaguered by his ambitious wife, sticks to Nabby's
side as closely as Nabby's scruffy dog Cough, if just to get out of the hellish home,
complete with newborn.

Schoolmaster Victor Crabbe, with wife Fenalla, is the protagonist, but Nabby takes center stage and
guides the story to include the Crabbes. Fenella continually yearns to go back to Mother England to escape the tropical climate and what she sees as strange people. Victor and she are a bit detached, but
she only wants to go where he does.

The story shows the bumbling politics, human nature, and the stuff that
happens in a multi-cultural environment in which everyone is vying
for some type of control or power in the emerging new government
of Malayia that is soon to transition to independence from the British.

The Enemy in the Blanket

Victor gets transferred to a more volatile state where he is now headmaster
at a school that is beset by political problems and a bitter, undermining,
local #2 who thinks he should be running the school. Fenella finally sees
the light, most English women are bored to death by the environment.

A new character, Rupert Hardman, is a very light skinned Englishman who
is trying to start a law practice and because of his finances, is
coerced into marrying a wealthy Malay woman, whose previous husbands
were shot by Communists just before they were to leave the country. They
have a few days of bliss before she drives him crazier and he has to plan
an escape without meeting the fate of the previous hubbies.

Beds in the East

The story concludes with Victor going out into the guerilla infested
boondocks to investigate the murder of a school person by the Commies.
Once there he finds the new estate manager a replacement for the murdered one.
Through their storytelling he discovers that the manager and he had
a connection in their previous lives back in England.

Otherwise this episode is concerned with the promiscuous, egocentric
Rosemary, the beautiful, though black, Malay who is English educated
and will do anything for a marriage to a European. The three Indians
who run throughout the story, are in continual hijinks kind of trouble.

The general attitude of the local gossip is that Islam doesn't comprehend
celibacy and while Victor was having affairs with women before, now he's
reformed and everyone rumors that he's carrying on with a musically gifted
young man who Victor is trying to get recognized, it gets too funny on that angle.

An Indian veterinarian is thought dead. His Indian friend consoles
his mother with this passage:

It is sad, but life has to go on. And, for us Hindus, death is not an
end but a fresh beginning. I do not need to remind you of that, Mrs Smith.
Your son is already reincarnated. We do not know, of course in what form.
It would be pleasant to think that he was now one of the little
animals being treated at this moment in his own dispensary,
though, of course, his assistant will not be treating it very well.

Finally the British leave Malaya, and the Americans start to move in.
Victor loved Malaya and did his best for it, but does anyone there really care or acknowledge his efforts ?

[Lu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Per quanto mi riguarda, riassumere il contenuto di questo libro è impossibile. E’ composto da tre romanzi scritti da Burgess tra il 1955 e il 1957 (se non confondo le date) ispirandosi alla sua esperienza di funzionario del governo britannico in Malaysia, al tramonto del colonialismo inglese. Il filo conduttore dei tre libri è Victor Crabbe, un inglese giunto in Malaysia come insegnante e successivamente diventato funzionario del ministero dell’istruzione nel periodo di transizione tra il governo britannico e quello malese.
Crabbe non è il solito inglese borioso del periodo coloniale: non si sente superiore alla popolazione autoctona, anzi ama quella terra ed è intenzionato a farsene assorbire, inconsciamente sperando di cancellare la sua storia passata che al contrario pare aspettarlo in oriente. In cuor suo egli vuole essere utile alla popolazione locale, vuole che nasca l’armonia tra le razze, vuole che la Malaysia possa diventare un vero stato indipendente e multiculturale.
Il melting pot di razze che abitano quei territori rappresenta, secondo me, il vero protagonista del libro. Crabbe è immerso in questa società caotica, rumorosa, contraddittoria e spesso assurda agli occhi degli occidentali. Una società in cui si professano tanti culti, ma in cui vige la legge islamica della quale i malesi stessi non hanno un’immagine chiara… La professano senza sapere chiaramente perché e soprattutto in un modo un po’ frivolo, barcamenandosi e spesso abbandonandosi ai vizi, per loro “esotici”, degli occidentali.
Una società in cui si parlano lingue diverse a seconda della “razza” di appartenenza e in cui spesso la gente non è in grado di comunicare con il prossimo: cinesi che parlano solo cinese, malesi che parlano malese, arabi che parlano arabo, tamil, sikh, indiani, inglesi, olandesi, francesi, australiani…
Una società permeata di pregiudizi razziali: non solo da parte degli inglesi conquistatori, ma ciascuna razza si sente in qualche modo superiore, migliore e legittima rispetto a un’altra.
E ancora una società ricca di culti, costumi, rituali in cui a comandare sono i sultani o i raja che fanno collezione di automobili straniere.
Il libro è pieno zeppo di nomi, personaggi, storie che si intrecciano inconsapevolmente tra di loro dando l’idea di un mondo caotico e, paradossalmente, limitato.

E’ un libro fantastico. Burgess ti da la sensazione di essere davvero in mezzo a quelle strade polverose, con la camicia impregnata di sudore, con le orecchie piene del frastuono delle voci… Lui c’è stato realmente e descrive tutto con una tal dovizia di particolari, con una precisione e una cura certosina, senza mai, però, annoiare, senza mai diventare un “documentario”. E’ fantastico.
L’unica pecca, secondo me, è un errore di traduzione nel titolo del primo romanzo. In inglese è Time for Tiger, tradotto L’ora della Tigre… Peccato che tutto il romanzo sia incentrato sulla birra e in particolar modo sulla Tiger (una birra)…

http://booksandsofa.blogspot.it/2007/...

[Babak Fakhamzadeh · Rating 4 out of 5]

The three books, Time for a Tiger, The Enemy in the Blanket and Beds in the East, are set in the three years just prior to Malaysia's independence at the end of 1957. The recurring character is a schoolmaster called Victor Crabbe, though he's by no means the only central character in the three books, the setting and central characters changing from novel to novel.
Even now, some 50 years after the books were written as well as over 50 years after they are set, the types of individuals Burgess (he of A Clockwork Orange) introduces are not only expertly crafted and extremely recognizable, they are still extremely relevant, both in the way the author portrays the expat scene and the mix of cultures that was and is Malaya.

Very, very clearly, and with an authority based on his own experiences as an officer in the British Colonial Services, Burgess shows how strong the racial and social prejudices are embedded within the different cultures that make up the national map of what is now Malaysia, which eventually set the stage not just for the Merdeka, but also for the Emergency.
In fact, Burgess himself was a teacher and education officer in Malaya, so it's easy to think that, at least, Crabbe's life is Burgess' own, semi-autobiographical.

Though published individually, the sum of the books is much more than the individual parts combined. The changes in setting, the societal changes, allow for Burgess to describe a nation which is more falling apart than trying to assert itself.
The Malayan Trilogy are also Burgess' first three books.

I found the second of the books the strongest, the third only marred by the rather surprising ending, though the chance encounter being so recognizable for, even now, expats working in the developing world. A tad too surprising, perhaps wrapped up by the author in a bit too much haste.
The first novel, has a few scenes that drag on for just a bit too long and one or two others that are almost painful as something of a comedy of errors. That's not to say that, quite often, both the characters and the scenes are incredibly hilarious in their absurdity.

[Simon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliant telling of the last days of British rule in Malaya.
Lots of humour and evident fondness from Burgess for the mix of races - Moslem Tamil Chinese British Malays Eurasians - who find themselves at last stage of foreign rule. Slowly decaying , infighting , ridiculous prejudices but all told with fondness and humour.

Nabby Adams and Rosemary are my favourite characters . One of the best lines of the novel “ she just literally didn’t know if she was lying or telling the truth “
is a preamble to the story of Rosemary , so beautiful, so idealistic , so snobbish , so self deluding. .

The final novel slightly petered out for me hence 4 stars

Final note : I have not read a book in 5 years where I had to look up so many English words. Burgess is a brilliant prose writer , not because he uses unknown words but because he blends them seamlessly with a very colloquial style , there is nothing stiff or stuffy .

[Subashini · Rating 3 out of 5]

As other people have pointed out, it reenacts the racism and stereotypes it purports to skewer. The #orientalistgaze is one hell of thing to break free from, though, so I give him stars for trying his damndest and for a vibrant, almost loving depiction of Malayan society at a specific point in history. #lovingorientalistgaze

[Darya Kirienko · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for every expat in Malaysia. If the author lived today and wrote a blog, he could have used most of his observations for it.

[S.A. Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Immensely readable.
Having lived for a while in that part of the world, I recognise many of the attitudes against which this story is based as still existing.

[Karl Kilbo Edlund · Rating 4 out of 5]

Burgess is a fascinating author. I, like most I guess, knew him only through A Clockwork Orange, which I read many years ago in school. I did not even know that Burgess had spent a large portion of his life in Malaysia. Indeed, I discovered the book and picked it up on a whim while browsing the big Kinokinuya bookstore in central Kuala Lumpur, as a tourist exploring different ways of understanding the country I was visiting.

Apparently, the Malayan Trilogy was written just before A Clockwork Orange and is based on Burgess's own experiences while working for the British Colonial Service in Malaya. While mostly a dark comedic writer, Burgess is famous among his generation of authors for his versatility between styles and forms; and in the beginning I thought the two books could not be more different. But along the way I began to see the many similarities: the rich (and multilingual) vocabulary revealing a genuine interest in languages, the tounge-in-cheek witticisms which Burgess sometimes allow to spiral into almost slapstick-like comedy, and the harsh ridicule of his contemporary society hidden behind the comedic façade.

The Malayan Trilogy treats a number of themes surrounding the decolonisation of Malaysia. The three quite different books grow increasingly polyphonic as it progresses, but all follow in one way or the other the life of the semi-autobiographical Victor Crabbe through his deceit, divorce, and demotion. While Burgess definitely criticises the systemic racism of his time, the trilogy is still written from a distinctly British, eurocentric perspective, to a degree that I am uncertain Burgess himself realised. (Also, I don't think it would pass the Bechdel test.) It is obviously a product of its times, using a racialised vocabulary we've now left behind, teeming with blatant tropes and stereotypes, and continuously exoticising the peoples and customs of what it calls 'the East'. But beyond these unsettling aspects for a modern reader, I found it a remarkably incisive portrait of how the British perceived their exit from what they called the Straits Settlements and the emotions some of the colonial administrators may have harboured while leaving a country and a system they had grown to see as their home.

It was very enlightening to read Burgess's book in parallel with Franz Fanon's very different depiction of the struggle for freedom and decolonisation, in his classic The Wretched of the Earth, depicting the Algerians' fight for independence from France. But I also found some interesting parallels with Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities, about the rise of nationhood and nationalism in South East Asia. At times, the exoticising language of Burgess's trilogy can become somewhat exhausting, and I think reading some other perspectives alongside Burgess's account makes for a more well-rounded reading experience.

[Pol · Rating 4 out of 5]

Provisional thoughts
Always a good comic read, but against a rather bleak landscape in a way. It certainly doesn’t end on a comic note about the project of Empire, that’s what.

The edition
This Vintage paperback has rather shoddy construction and the typography is pretty terrible. The Penguin edition lacked the introduction, but at least the text looked a lot cleaner.

[Richard Marney · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderous journey!!

[Emmett · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collects in a single volume a 'triptych' of Time for a Tiger, The Enemy in the Blanket and Beds in the East, plus a glossary of 'Malayan' (mainly Malay and Chinese) words and phrases for readers unfamiliar with the language(s).

For the Malaysian/Singaporean reader, this has all the delights of the familiar re-viewed, the Malaya recognised through history lessons - its hot jungles, the wonderful chaotic smattering of languages that may be so confusing and yet so well known, its racial demarcations that theoretically categorise and isolate. (And yet, its inhabitants, defying and reinforcing stereotypes and planning committees, inevitably and closely mingle: the towkays's shops more often than not acting as everyone's meeting place.) This is more real and funnier than anything I have ever read about colonial Malaya, or even generally that hapless sometime-resisting melting pot of cultures that characterise this place. Ironic, that a 'Westerner' (albeit one who has inhabited this soil for about half a decade) could write what could count for a quintessential, insightful, novel of the times.

Throughout the novel, Burgess presents and unmasks racial and cultural stereotypes, fulfilling and subverting them often on the same page. The critical facet, however, is largely conveyed discreetly through very effective humour, at the expense of the large cast of characters. They undo themselves by behaving as walking contradictions. Yet much of it is underneath; critical laughs sit abreast with a hard-won perceptible affection over some sort of a heroic mess that Malaya was and was soon to become via decolonisation. (I would be very interested in Burgess' thoughts on how independence worked out, if something like this exists.) Derision mixed with hope mixed with a shrewd, incisive, understanding which makes for a kind of disrespectful, unconscious realism that simultaneously conveys a love for the colony's splendour and variety. Much of it may be comedy and caricature but arguably there is some truth in the presentation.

The Malayan Trilogy is entertaining simply because it refuses to back down from the offensive and pulls out all the stops. (Where other instances picturing local culture may suffer from the excesses of self-consciousness, nostalgia for the 'good old days', a yearning for simplicity that overlooks the fact of complexity.) Burgess dwells lovingly (and also self-critically) on linguistic peculiarities and uncanny habits, sights and sounds seen nowhere else except in this place where the foreign white man can be sympathised, a place filled with strange noises, uneasy and jarring yet affable. Music and language, trademarks of his writing, are naturally not far away. Certain sections dragged along more than others, but ultimately the entire trilogy is an impressive achievement. He pulls it all together in a work that is full, rich, lively, observant and unapologetic.

[Lucas · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The Long Day Wanes: A Malayan Trilogy" by Anthony Burgess is a masterful piece of literature that effortlessly blends comedy, tragedy, history, and culture into a riveting narrative that is as enlightening as it is entertaining. It's a novel—or rather, a trilogy of novels—that truly deserves the five-star rating I'm giving it.

Burgess, best known for his dystopian novel "A Clockwork Orange", showcases a different facet of his literary genius in this work. Set in post-World War II Malaya during the last days of British colonial rule, "The Long Day Wanes" follows the experiences of Victor Crabbe, an English school headmaster, navigating the tumultuous socio-political landscape of the time.

The trilogy, composed of "Time for a Tiger", "The Enemy in the Blanket", and "Beds in the East", offers readers an unflinching look at the colonial legacy, the clash of cultures, and the struggle for identity in a rapidly changing world. Yet, even as it grapples with weighty themes, Burgess's writing maintains a light touch, infusing the narrative with a sense of humor that is often as sharp as it is amusing.

Burgess's prose is rich and evocative, capturing the lushness of the Malayan landscape and the distinct rhythms of its languages and dialects. His characters are deftly drawn and deeply human, from the idealistic, somewhat naive Crabbe, to the diverse cast of locals and expatriates each grappling with their own dilemmas and desires.

But perhaps what makes "The Long Day Wanes" truly exceptional is its insight into a period and place that is often overlooked in English literature. Burgess, who spent several years in Malaya as a teacher, brings a level of authenticity and understanding to the narrative that makes the trilogy not just a work of fiction, but also a valuable historical document.

In conclusion, "The Long Day Wanes: A Malayan Trilogy" is a testament to Burgess's versatility and talent as a writer. It's a compelling, thought-provoking, and thoroughly enjoyable read that offers a unique glimpse into a fascinating chapter of history. For these reasons, it has earned a well-deserved place in my list of five-star books.

[D. Krauss · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anthony Burgess is the classic postmodern writer because, well, he wrote in postmodern times. A Clockwork Orange is probably his best known work, and, really, I’ll bet you are hard pressed to name any others. Maybe the Enderby series, The Complete Enderby : Inside Mr. Enderby, Enderby Outside, the Clockwork Testament, Enderby's Dark Lady, which I have not read. Indeed, I cannot remember reading any other Burgess novels but, when I saw this trilogy, snapped it up mainly because of his literary reputation. Gotta say, this is pretty good.

The Malayan trilogy consists of three novels: Time for a Tiger, The Enemy in the Blanket, Beds in the East. They all have a continuing character, the rather befuddled Victor Crabbe, a history teacher in the British Service posted to Malaysia. Crabbe is a bit of a tragic figure. He had an accident in which his beloved first wife drowned and, ever since, he cannot drive nor can he swim. The sainted passed wife is his one true love; definitely not his second wife, Fenella, who Crabbe married “to quieten my nerves,” which I suppose is as good a reason as any. Except Crabbe is not invested in this marriage. Not at all and has affairs across the peninsula. Fenella was not thrilled with the Malaysian posting but went along because she is the dutiful British overseas wife. Until she’s not.

Each novel has another character as the central one, with Crabbe somehow appearing and taking over the story. The first novel opens with the rather delightful British police lieutenant Nabby Adams, who will do anything for a drink. And I mean anything. He is so profoundly an alcoholic that he cannot sit up from bed without a beer or something else to get him started, not to mention how much alcohol he needs to function throughout the day. Adams owes hundred, if not thousands, of dollars to the several Chinese, Tamil, and Malaysian shops where he runs tabs, and is on the verge of getting cut off from his various Elixirs of Life when he comes up with a scheme involving a dubious car purchase in which he and Crabbe split the proceeds, thereby reducing one of Adams' bills and allowing him to continue drinking. But Crabbe doesn’t drive, so what are we to do?

Enter Alladad Khan, Nabby’s sidekick, who has a crush on Fenella and is more than willing to serve as the Crabbe’s driver when not on police duty so he can be closer to Fenella. What ensues is a Keystone Cops series of adventures, not all of them comic, culminating in a Communist ambush of the car. And Adams’ fortuitous salvation.

In the second novel, The Enemy in the Bed, Crabbe is now the headmaster of a school in another province and Fenella has traded up for a Malaysian prince while Crabbe is chasing Anne Talbot, the wife of a colleague. Or she’s pursuing him, you decide. Everyone involved is rather civilized about the whole thing. Rupert Hardman, an English lawyer who abandoned a very lucrative position in a Hong Kong office because of ethics issues … lawyer with ethics, better take a photo and post it alongside the Yeti sightings … is running out of money and hits on a scheme to marry the formidable Malay beauty, Normeh; she has previously experienced “… Communist bullets that had rendered her twice a widow..." and which "...had merely anticipated, in a single violent instant, what attrition would more subtly have achieved,” which is Burgess’ deadpan way of describing Normeh’s extreme behavior. Rumors had been flying that both husbands were about to go to Europe and forget Normeh because a Malay Muslim marriage wasn’t recognized there and, well, the Commies happened to show up.

Well.

Hardman is, unfortunately, thinking the same thing: that he can marry Normeh, obtain the funds he needs to finance the lifestyle he wants to be accustomed to, and then hie off to England and a de facto divorce. But he has no idea who he’s dealing with. No idea at all.

In Beds in the East, Crabbe is winding down his position as Chief Education Officer of the fictional Malay state where he resides as looming Malayan independence displaces him. Fenella has returned to England where she starts a rather celebrated poetic career, one of her poems implying that Crabbe had suppressed her budding talent, and now she is free, free! While upriver, Crabbe runs into an old school colleague who tells him things about his first wife that shatters the torch he’s been carrying. Then something happens to Crabbe. You can decide what.

There are two other characters in this one: Rosemary, the beautiful Tamil party girl who is desperate to marry an Englishman and live in London, and Robert Loo, a high-functioning autistic who can compose music to rival Beethoven. Rosemary’s plans go awry, as one would expect. Crabbe tries to help Loo but runs smack into the middle of the Americans who are taking over as the English leave, and who have other ideas about grand music.

Throughout all three novels are bucketloads of side characters who range from the hilarious to the terrifying, all of them Burgess' construction of the various ethnic groups trying to mesh as a nation. Is it stereotyped? You betcha, but the characters are well drawn and you can’t help liking most of them. My personal favorites are the two Malayan construction workers who have nothing good to say about any of the other races and who daily plot murder. They pop up in the most unusual places, providing color commentary and never quite fulfilling their intents. There’s also an air of white-man’s-burden throughout the trilogy, some of it intentional as Burgess attempts to show how silly it is, but, sometimes, he falls right into it.

It’s a good trilogy for those of you who are interested in the time period and the events, as described by someone who was there. It’s fairly funny, too, so there’s that aspect. But it does feel rather dated.

[Anne Fenn · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best thing about this trilogy is that it was written in the time it's set in, the 1950s. Changing and challenging times for Malaya, about to move from British rule to independence, after a prolonged state of war, known by the Brits as the Emergency. The novels have some main characters who are white, but many more active characters of all races - Malay, Chinese, Indian, Ceylonese and those who were called Eurasian. There's an element of riotous humour to the way we see all sides at work- conflict and competition emerges between men and women, the various religions of Islam, Hindu, Sikh, Christian and even jaded English men with no religion at all. Malaya is the strongest element shaping life - culture and environment make or break many characters. I loved these novels for their fantastic writing, humour. and the sense of raw reality underlying them.

[Ffiamma · Rating 4 out of 5]

tre romanzi con un personaggio ricorrente- victor crabbe, prima insegnante e poi funzionario ministeriale- ambientati in una malesia umida e sensuale, sospesa tra colonialismo e indipendenza. quel che si ritrova è la sgradevolezza dei personaggi, tutti in preda a passioni disturbanti e il senso di torrida decadenza e immobilità tropicale- nelle tre storie disturbanti in cui sono impossibili lieto fine e redenzione. molto interessanti i passaggi sulla vita matrimoniale tra victor e fenella- in cui il paese diventa metafora dell'incomunicabilità- e quelli sulla difficile convivenza tra le etnie e i tentativi di integrazione tra culture diverse. fascinoso, soprattutto perché letto proprio durante un viaggio in malesia.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

As an expat in Malaysia, these books are spot on in their commentary and characters. While really nailing the Malaysian experience, these books are about so much more underneath the surface: post colonialism, idealism and its inevitable decline, aging, dashed hopes and dreams, politics, the relationships between foreigners and ethnicities. The books really function all together, and not within their separate parts. Yes, they are not perfect — there is a lot of ebb and flow in the narration. But even that captures the state of being in Malaysia.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

The trilogy contains the first published works of Anthony Burgess; "Time for a Tiger", "The Enemy in the Blanket" and "Beds in the East".
Inspired by his service as an education officer at Kuala Kangsar and Kota Bharu in the 1950's, the books are set in Malaya at the time of the Communist insurgency and the run up to Independence.
In a comical, politically incorrect manner, he pokes equal fun at the, soon to be gone, Colonialists, the Malays, the Chinese and the Indians.
Burgess also displays a prophetic understanding of a post independence Malayasia.
Highly recommended.

[Candace · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was one of the most influential books of my adult life.
It was with inital reluctance that I allowed myself to feel compassion for Nabby Adams, the protagonist (of sorts), but in no time I was completely sucked in and engaged in his world. This book is not only good fiction, it really appealed to the armchair traveler in me.

[Jared Zehm · Rating 5 out of 5]

Three shorter volumes rolled into one book ~ a friend and I initially bought it before our trip to Borneo and fell in love with it ~ as always Burgess lends a keen eye to his subject. This time it's post-colonial Malaysia. Wonderful cast of characters. Burgess is able to really sum up a time and place through intricate and beautiful stories ~

[Ray Ong · Rating 5 out of 5]

the definitive colonial novel(s). Burgess has an emphatic understanding of the madhouse that is (was) British Malaya, and humorously employs the various tropes that highlight the absurdity of the colourful mosaic of the land of immigrants. brilliant.

[Andrew Tattersall · Rating 3 out of 5]

These three books cover the fate of a married Englishman who goes to teach in South East Asia and loses everything. Set just before Malaysian independence there are many similarities with present day Cambodia. It is very funny and is well observed.

[Eric Stone · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yet another of my all-time favorite books. Probably the very best evocation of British colonialism in Asia and a very exciting, affecting read. Magnificent prose.