Customer Reviews

The Asiatics: A Novel

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Frederic Prokosch wrote this imaginary journey from Lebanon across Asia to Hanoi in 1931 before he ever set foot in Asia. In the novel, the narrator, a young American, travels in catch-as-catch-can manner across the exotic continent. The landscape descriptions are extraordinary. Everywhere he meets with adventure and exotic characters who lament the end of Asia as they know it (this in 1931!). The novel was a bestseller in 1934. I nominate it as the greatest forgotten novel of the 20th Century.

The negative (one star) review is far off the mark, and is as accurate as the incorrect title, "The Asians". I read this book while I was living IN Iran in 1962, after a lengthy stay in Beirut, driving a used VW across through Syria and Turkey, and working back, a year later, through Iraq, Jordan, and Syria, always utilizing the most basic of accomodations, including the dirt floors of rodent- and gecko-infested hovels. I felt that "The Asiatics" caught the atmosphere of the Middle East and its peoples wonderfully well, as did another superb book by Prokosch, "Nine Days to Mukalla." This is very hard to do if one has not spent time there and lived with the people, and I don't mean in a hotel, consulate, or embassy. I have read many books about the Middle East, and this is one of the few that ring true. For example, Michener's "Caravans"--perhaps the only book many will have read on the Middle East--has not one scintilla of authenticity. In my opinion travel writers like Bruce Chatwin and Paul Theroux fade into insignificance when compared with Prokosch. The negative reviewer has some axe to grind. Maybe he feels that Prokosch insulted his Asian (I'd guess Iranian) ancestors. My old paperback copy of "The Asiatics" (1960 Signet edition) is falling apart, and I have been hoping for a reissue of this work, so rightly praised by people infinitely more distinguished than that dispeptic reviewer. In my home "The Asiatics" is on a shelf between "Madam Bovary" and "Lord Jim"--right there with the classics.

I read this book in the early 60's and it has stayed with me ever since. That alone should serve as a recommendation. I'm thinking this book might end up as a Xmas gift for my daughter.

I had to go to Asia after reading this novel about a young European's journey overland to Asia in the 1930s. It's all the more remarkable considering the author himself never travelled outside Europe and America. I haven't read the new edition with Pico Ayer's foreword but Pico's no slouch as a writer himself, should be worth reading.

A book praised by the likes of Thomas Mann and Albert Camus, it must be good, if not great, right? Wrong. The only way I can think of it, was that this was an unusual book for the literature present at that time.

The protagonist is an unnamed American male, with an unknown past. We learn as much about him through his journey from Syria to China, and he does about the "natives," that is to say, little to none. Most of the time he refers to the natives with derogatory adjectives such as "lazy" or "ugly" or "stupid." With his colonial eye, he views them as an inditinguishable and pathetic mass, yet at the same time he tries to uncover the essence of Asia. Perhaps some of these things could be overlooked if some other basic elements were in place (plot, character development), but there are a host of other problems. Too many times, the first word out of a new character's mouth is about "happiness" or "death," or the meanings of such things. The coincidences found here put Dickens to shame. Too many times the narrator happens to find that one villager, say in remote Baluchistan, or the jungles of China, that not only knows English or French, but whose impeccable speech includes words such as "happiness" or "ephemeral" that enable them to discuss the meaning of life. I could go on....

I give the author credit for being able to give colorful descriptions, and the section, early in the book, about the Turkish prison, is probably the highlight of the book. From the sometimes detailed description of the geography, I actually thought he had travelled through the lands, but nonetheless he did a good job of doing his homework with a map and other travellers' accounts(some minor problems here and there, for example, when he mentions Hamdullah, an Indian Muslim as part of the caste system).

I came away confused not about what the book was about (there is nothing there) but that it should have been held in such high esteem at one time. If you want a travel novel, stick to Kerouac. If you want a travel diary on Asia, you might want to read Robert Byron's "The Road to Oxiana," though that book has some problems as well. I recommend reading this book only if you are writing a dissertation on Orientalism or Colonialism as it relates to literature.