Customer Reviews

Fan-Tan

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

 

 

You're supposed to be willing to give every book 50 pages or so before giving up on it, right? I seldom give up on novels and usually read the whole thing... usually there is some enjoyment to be had even in a below average book, ya know?

Well, Fan-Tan threw me on the mat and made me say uncle. I can't believe anyone published it. It's like the product of a hundred drunk monkeys with typewriters.

Let me treat you with a portion that really blew my mind.

"His memory was a mess, as full of giant holes as an old sock. Scotland was an accent he loved. On the other hand, he thought a lot about the future. "That is one of my characteristics, Lorenzo," he said firmly to the bum of a Portuguee who occupied the bunk above, all aswamp in his noisome reflections."

You may believe I have taken that passage out of context and this is a great book. You may think I am a simple minded fool who can't handle stream of consiousness writing.

However, I think it is a crime againist humanity that those sentences happened IN A ROW. Also, "on the other hand" needs to have what was in the first hand in the general proximity of the phrase.

I couldn't get very far in this book.

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)

It looks like the sort of thing you might stumble across in a remainder bin in a used book store. Fan Tan. Ah hah I thought another obscure masterpiece cobbled together by some old alcoholic expat. Judging by the cover (never do that) it looks like a Harlequin romance set in the mysterious East. There's the exotic Asian woman in some sort of silk kimono thing and the besotted Western sailor on the ground wondering what he's got himself into. So imagine my surprise when on closer inspection the authors turn out to be Marlon Brando and Donald Cammell! Brando of course is the well known actor who spent his later years on an island near Tahiti. But what was Cammell's name doing there? Cammell was a film maker who directed `Performance' starring Mick Jagger...a destructive little expletive according to Keith Richards in his autobiography `Life'. Intrigued I picked the book up....bought it and took it home. This could be good.

Well not exactly. It isn't a cliché ridden load of rubbish but it comes perilously close. The year is 1927. Anatole `Annie" Doultry is a middle aged adventurer serving six months in Hong Kong prison where he befriends a well-connected Chinese pirate. Once out he meets and falls in love with Madame Lai Choi San the pirate's beautiful boss. Together they sail around the China Seas on her sampan looking for treasure. They plan to attack a freighter full of silver, the biggest act of piracy the world has ever seen no less. One would think this might provide for some interesting character development. But Doultry is too much like Brando. He's a man of action but his mind wanders all over the place like Kurtz in `Apocalypse Now' and his philosophical musing isn't coherent. He has an aversion to authority of course, intellectual swashbuckling, that's his game but he can't stick to the plot. Here's Annie on his bunk meditating...

"However though he was once a Scot, it was not the future of the city that bore on Annie Doultry's brain, not the world's either; his own future it was, or would be. The reality to be expected, the facts of it. But was there such a thing as future fact? There was one for Mr. Wittgenstein, indeed."

Huh? There's a kind of surreal madness about the book that kept me turning the pages but a lot of the writing is pretty bad. Fortunately there are steamy sex scenes to make up for it. There's plenty of action including a typhoon, oriental intrigue and hand-to hand-combat. There's even a reference to the butter scene in `Last Tango' which should amuse movie buffs. It's a strange book, full of perverse little asides, and it all takes place against a background of the revolution in China when the Nationalists and the Communists and others were forming temporary alliances.

To be fair it should probably be described as a treatment rather than a novel. And it turns out that putting Brando's name on the cover is a publishing trick. Cammell wrote it. In fact the best part of the book comes at the end where film writer David Thomson explains how the book came to be written. Cammell had tried to get Brando for `Performance'. Brando was in hospital at the time after scalding his private parts with hot coffee. Anyway he turned the offer down. Later, with Brando weighing about 300lbs due to ice-cream addiction Cammell tried again. They had a complex, almost self-destructive, kind of relationship. The book did get written but getting it published was another matter. Brando baulked again. Maybe he was ashamed of it or maybe he just enjoyed tormenting Cammell. Anyway Cammell shot himself and Brando died. The twists and turns of the publishing process would make a good book in themselves I thought.

I should add that the author(s) owe a lot to "I Sailed with Chinese Pirates" by Aleko E. Lilius (The Mellifont Press - 1930 and Oxford University Press - 1991)

When I was ill, i could not stand to read a book, now that I am better I finally found a book that I could not stand to read even when I was well! So much looks positive about this book, an adventure tale by Marlon Brando, and yeah even though we cannot judge a book by it's cover...the cover looks great. Then I made the mistake of opening it and reading the words. There were a lot of words, and they were strung together, but they hardly made a thought or point. Whatever story there is herein is lost to me, and trying to read five pages was like trying to get through a difficult textbook reading. No point, no plot, no direction, no good character development...no sense going forward. I usually finish all my books, good or bad, I plodded through this for days...no joke - days...and hardly made it past 30 before giving up. Horrible.

I am not really much of a fiction reader, but I had to read "Fan-Tan" since the story came from the mind of Marlon Brando, himself.

It is sad that both men who originally participated in bringing this story to fruition, Marlon Brando and Donald Cammell, are no longer with us. But, how grateful I am for such works that are part of the legacy of wonderful artists such as they both obviously were. And, how grateful I am that David Thomson did such a wonderful job in completing this novel so that it could be made available to us.

Although fiction is not my favorite kind of reading, I enjoyed "Fan-Tan" so much with its intriguing plot and its twists and turns. I found myself looking forward, page by page, to what would come next.

The book is well-paced and full of intrigue. I enjoyed its unique and eccentric characters, including that of Annie Doultry - a character Brando might have played. The book's content is imaginative and downright spicy in some parts. I found the sexual "escapades" interesting, edgy, daring, and surprising. I also enjoyed the descriptive writing and the vivid settings - I was able to picture each scene in my mind's eye.

I think Marlon Brando fans will enjoy reading this book, if for no other reason, to further savor the genius of Marlon Brando.

In 1927, fifty-one years old Captain Anatole "Annie" Doultry serves six-months in Victoria Gaol in Hong Kong for violating the Arms and Ammunition Ordinance of 1900. Honk King enjoys being the market place of the Pacific where items such as the gun shipment Annie legally brought with him was bona fide cargo heading to Shantung, Republic of China, but he got an offer in the city that he could not refuse. Thus he is doing "soft" time for selling without a license.

While in prison he saves the life of Hai Sheng, accused of piracy, by claiming the Chinaman is his cook. Once Annie completes his sentence that whimsical good deed he performed for Hai brings him to the attention of the criminal's mob boss Madame Lai Choi San, better known as Mountain of Wealth. She offers Annie a deal to join her in hi-jacking the British ship SS Chow Fa, carrying a fortune in silver. Of course Annie cannot resist the lure of the booty or the siren call of Lai. The adventure and danger on the high seas has just begun.

This is a terrific "throwback" action-packed pirate saga filled with atmosphere of 1920s Hong Kong and China while starring a larger than life roguish anti-hero mindful of Captain Blood but in the Pacific. The support cast especially the mysterious and enticing Madame Lai augments the feeling that the audience is visiting the early twentieth century Asiatic Pacific rim while also allowing the readers to better understand the Scotsman. FAN-TAN is a fabulous adventure tale.

Harriet Klausner

Fun read. A pearl of a wild ride. A must for Brando fans.

This book really didn't do anything for me - parts of it were okay, parts of it I could have done without. Overall the book is a little odd and while probably the whole story seems unreal. This is exactly what a Marlon Brando book would be like if you were to think of - which stands to reason as he co-authored it. Brando's use of profanity seems out of place at times and almost as if he is using profanity just to use and takes away from the novel. If you are a fan of Brando then you will probably like this book, otherwise if you get a chance to read this book read it (the story is 230 pgs) but I would not go insearch of this book otherwise.

The main question I had before beginning this book was 'could the story live up to the jacket design?', the answer is yes.

Maybe it was the knowledge that Marlon Brando wrote (some of) this book that I immediately saw his likeness in the main character of Annie. Regardless, his presence is the main selling point and the main entertaining point of this fine novel.

I wonder whether we could read about the further adventures of Anatole Doultry through the eyes of the editor (David Thomson) who made a (fairly) seamless transition to authorship in the final chapter.

I'll begin by saying I couldn't even finish this disaster of a novel. Brando must have been one heckuva gas bag; this thing wanders all over the place, and seems to often forget that it's supposed to be telling a story in there somewhere. The main character pontificates minutiae until I found myself bored out of my mind, wondering when some event was going to occur that could conceivably be considered a story advancement. Further, the anachronisms abound: for example, this story takes place in 1927, but the character uses an M-1 Garand rifle, which wasn't even invented until a decade later. Just goes to show how much license a celebrity author gets, I guess. The publishers must have been banking on the gimmick of Brando's notoriety to get the sales numbers on this "novel". I don't know whether or not it worked, but if he were an unknown author, I can't imagine this thing would ever have been published.

As you may have gathered, I can't in any way recommend this book. And judging by the paucity of other reader reviews, I gather not too many people are bothering with it. And neither should you.