Blue Poppies [Paperback]

Jonathan Falla (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 4, 2003

Jonathan Falla weaves a powerful tale of love and war, exile and homecoming...and of one man’s desire to lose himself in a foreign land, only to find himself caught in a time of chaos and change.

Blue Poppies

The year is 1950 and, as the world recovers from the ravages of World War II, the Chinese army is perched on the border of a fragile land awaiting its destiny. Jamie Wilson, a young Scottish wireless operator and veteran of the war, has just arrived in the remote Tibetan village of Jyeko. He has come on business--to establish a radio outpost--but his journey will resonate much more deeply.

Like those who have traveled to this place before him, Jamie, the Ying-gi-li, is mesmerized by the majestic mountain ranges and enigmatic people, but he will also find an uncommon refuge in its unyielding beauty and in the arms of the willful Puton, a young widow cast out by the people of Jyeko. Inexorably drawn together by a shared loneliness, Jamie and Puton discover a rare passion and the promise of reconnection and belonging--until the voice of Radio Peking crackles over the airwaves, announcing the imminent advance of the Chinese army. Amid the ensuing violence and tumult, Jamie and Puton must embrace their fate and that of the remarkable land that has brought them together. What lies before them and the people of Jyeko is a harrowing journey across a breathtaking landscape...and an extraordinary tale of pride and loyalty, survival and awakening.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The American debut novel of Scottish playwright Falla is an intense tale of exile on a number of levels, involving bittersweet love, war, bravery, sacrifice and betrayal. In Jyeko, a town in a remote eastern province of Tibet in 1950, young Scottish adventurer Jamie Wilson, a WWII veteran, is hired to establish a radio outpost for Lhasa. Jamie is mesmerized by the stark beauty of Tibet and puzzled by its enigmatic people, who one moment are peace loving and religious, the next violent and barbarous. The cheery machinations of Buddhist monk Khenpo Nima link Jamie's fate with that of a young woman, Puton, and her daughter. Puton is considered unlucky both because of who she is, the widow of a hated tax collector, and because she is handicapped and walks with the aid of a stick. Hired by Khenpo Nima to be Jamie's housekeeper, Puton soon becomes his lover as well. After the Communist Chinese invade Tibet and establish a garrison in Jyeko, the uneasy truce between villagers and soldiers is upset by a brutal outbreak of violence, and the whole town must flee or face certain death. The townspeople refuse to allow Puton and her child to accompany them, and Jamie abandons her to her fate, but remains hopeful that he can somehow rescue her. The journey, which changes course a number of times, is harrowing, as the vagabond Tibetans time and again outwit the Chinese. Falla risks much in making Jamie a fallible, often selfish protagonist, and the detached coolness of his prose can be off-putting. At its best, however, the novel is as bracing as mountain air, and the heart-wrenching conclusion comes to seem inevitable.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

In the mid-twentieth century, a youthful Scottish veteran named Jamie Wilson is dispatched to the Tibetan village of Jyeko. There he meets the young widow Puton, who is physically and emotionally scarred after being injured in the avalanche that killed her husband. The love story that follows is set against a landscape of astonishing geographical beauty. The author is adept at describing the nuances of human emotion as well as the intrigue of a mysterious part of the world: "The interminable complexity of the Himalayan ranges was heaped, peak after ridge after gorge, with snowfields shining in a palette of pale blues according to their angle in the sun." Wilson, though, has not been sent to Jyeko to meet his soul mate. His job is to set up a radio outpost. It is the radio transmitter that will bring dire news: the enemy, in the form of the Chinese army, is approaching. The tale then takes a picaresque turn before heading toward home in this satisfying and artful novel. Kevin Canfield
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Delta (February 4, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385336802
• ISBN-13: 978-0385336802
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 0.5 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,164,180 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I'm an English writer based in Scotland, UK. I was born in Jamaica and have worked in a number of tropical countries - Java, Uganda, Burma, Sudan and Nepal - with various aid agencies at difficult times, so much of what I write now reflects those experiences.
I took a degree in English and Art History at Cambridge, but then trained as a tropical and paediatric nurse. I've been writing professionally for some thirty years, beginning with a stage comedy about famine in Africa; this rather unusual subject needed a fresh approach! It has been produced five or six times, including BBC radio, and theatres in New York and L.A. Since then I've had several novels published in the UK, with Finnish, Greek and US editions also. I've recently branched out into Kindle e-books too.
I worked for a while in cinema and TV, and won a fellowship to the University of Southern California film school. These days I teach Creative Writing for two British universities, and I am teaching director of the St Andrews Summer School which particularly welcomes US-based students.
Lastly, I'm a musician: I play with a professional early music quartet here in Scotland, performing Renaissance and early Baroque programmes.
You can find out more on my website: www.jonathanfalla.co.uk.
Thanks for your interest.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Borrowing, May 5, 2004

By 

Bardo Monitor (Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Blue Poppies (Paperback)

It is highly rated but not so great. As soon as I saw that
it was about an radio operator in Tibet at the time of the
Chinese invasion, I knew where he got the story.
I have an old paperback called "Captured in Tibet" by Robert
Ford. He was an Englishman who ran a radio set on the
Tibetan frontier, and against his better judgement was
convinced to stay longer than he wanted and the Chinese
grabbed him on the way in. They kept him locked up for 5
years and did a hideous brainwashing number on him (You
don't hear that term much any more).
Anyway, Ford is given no mention at all in a preface or
anything which is poor form in my estimation, even though the story is only loosely based on the real thing.
I did a web search on the author and Ford and came up with
an interview in which he says:
"1991 I was approached by a producer who wanted a feature
film about Tibet. It was for me to find the story, and I
came upon a memoir by Robert Ford who had been a radio

operator in Tibet."
(...)
He should have given some kind of acknowledgement. Ford's experience was so exceptional that he deserves recognition.
The author says he also borrowed from other sources to add a romance into the mix.
The book displays a superficial relationship to the Buddhist continuum.
By the way, when I was reading "Captured In Tibet" I asked my lama friend
at the time whether he had known Ford, because it took place
in the his home province, Kham. He said, "Oh Yes. We know
him. We call him Fodo"

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Story, May 3, 2003

By 

Paul Steele (Knoxville, TN) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Blue Poppies (Paperback)

This book is great. It gives a great story about a Tibetan village named Jyeko, and the trials that come to pass with the Communist invasion of Tibet in the 1950's. It also follows the lives of Scottish radio operator Jamie Wilson and a Tibetan outcast named Puton. It tells of love and trials. Of anger turning into unification in the face of neccesity. It is simply a great book.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Jonathan Falla replies:, December 2, 2004

By 

Absorbed & Distracted (UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Blue Poppies (Paperback)

Jonathan Falla writes: Bardo Monitor (above) takes me to task for not crediting Robert Ford in a preface to Blue Poppies. In Britain, it has not generally been the custom for novelists to acknowledge sources in this way, although some now do (perhaps on the American model). Many authors, myself included, feel that this is out of place in fiction, introducing a false air of authenticity and fact, when it is the job of fiction to tell stories. However, no disrespect to Robert Ford is intended. I have always made a scrupulous point of crediting Ford's book, both when I am invited to speak in public, and also in print - for example in the interview that BM cites. Ford is actually mentioned in the novel as living elsewhere - thereby making the point that it is not his story, specifically, that I retelling. Ford's situation in Tibet was the most obvious model for Blue Poppies, but by no means the only one. Much of the story, the character motivation, many points of detail and even certain scenes derive from Geoffrey Chaucer's 'Troilus & Criseyde'. Other major sources include Regis Evariste Huc (1851), Sven Hedin (1909) and Jamyang Norbu (1979).
BM considers that Blue Poppies bears only a superficial relationship to the Buddhist Continuum. I don't know what the latter is. The novel is not about Buddhism, but concerns a young man learning the difference between selfish love and generous loyalty. JF.