The Far Field: A Novel of Ceylon [Paperback]

Edie Meidav (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 10, 2002

In her debut novel, Edie Meidav tells the tale of Henry Fyre Gould, a self-described anti-missionary who travels to Ceylon from the spiritualist salons of 1930s New York City. Driven by an arrogant faith in his ideals, Henry settles in the village of Rajottama, intent on establishing a model society built on the lost truths of Buddhism. Instead of a utopian village, he slowly finds a tinderbox of caste struggle, political rebellion, espionage, and erotic intrigue. In the tradition of Michael Ondaatje, Barbara Kingsolver, and Joseph Conrad, Meidav grapples with the consequences of the West's fascination with the East and explores the nature of faith and love.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Before civil war-torn Sri Lanka became Sri Lanka, it was the British colony of Ceylon, and on this island off the coast of India Meidav focuses the ferocious, prodigious energies of her sprawling debut novel, a work that has been justly compared to the fiction of Ondaatje and Kingsolver. The year is 1936 and Henry Frye Gould leaves behind the spiritualist poseurs of New York society, as well as his wife and child, to go in search of a truly spiritual society. As a self-styled "anti-missionary," he sets sail for the Ceylonese village of Rajottama, his goal to create his own ideal Buddhist world, melding the best of East and West. Among the people who help and hinder Henry in his quixotic quest are Johnny, a charmingly precocious boy and secret British spy who becomes Henry's guide/confidant; his beautiful housekeeper, Nani, a village outcast and the object of Henry's affections; and a ham-eating monk who becomes Henry's mentor in Buddhism. Henry's utopia develops in fits and starts, but when tragedy strikes, things fall apart. The resulting disillusionment is intense, but redemption comes to Henry like a strange and unforeseen gift. In rugged, cadenced prose, Meidav delineates both the inevitability of human solitariness and the longing for the exoticism of the other. As in Peter Matthiessen's At Play in the Fields of the Lord, the novel skewers the cool superiority of the hubristic colonizing mentality. Hailed by the Voice Literary Supplement as one of its "Writers on the Verge" in 2000, Meidav succeeds on two levels, illuminating a rarely glimpsed culture and examining the tragic fallout of culture clash. Major ad/promo; author tour. (Apr. 7)
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

An archetypal story concerns the misguided Westerner who immerses himself in non-Western culture. Planning to do good, he harms the people around him before eventually being swallowed up by the very culture he has come to reform. In her first novel, Meidav, chosen as one of the "Writers on the Verge" by the Voice Literary Supplement last year, explores this theme through Henry Gould, a refugee from the spiritualist salons of New York who has come to Ceylon in the 1930s to find a pure form of Buddhism as well as to create a model village. However, everything works against him, from the British, desperately trying to hold on to their empire in the face of German and Japanese imperialism, to the ubiquitous caste system, to the ethnic and religious enmities of the Tamils, Singhalese, Hindus, Muslims, and Buddhists not to mention Henry's colossal ignorance of the country he is trying to help. Meidav skillfully limns her characters the priests, drummers, dancers, village aristocrats, and Henry's own entourage while slyly exploring the complete miscommunication among them. Not only is this a good public library read but it also illuminates the roots of the seemingly endless ethnic strife in modern-day Sri Lanka. Recommended for public libraries. Andrea Caron Kempf, Johnson Cty. Community Coll. Lib., Overland Park, KS
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 592 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books (May 10, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0618219161
• ISBN-13: 978-0618219162
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.3 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,356,250 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Hello Amazonians!

About LOLA,CALIFORNIA, a "Best Book of 2011" -- Wormbooks (http://lnvsml.blogspot.com/2011/12/best-books-of-2011.html)

Here's a bit of a telescoped biography: I just came back from two months in Cuba, having gone there with my mate and two little daughters. I teach at Bard College, in upstate New York. You could find more of the self-flogging sort of stuff at www.ediemeidav.com.

Some useful links (see web addresses at bottom of this):

1) the new beautiful film made by Snapdragon Films in honor of the novel LOLA, CALIFORNIA is on YouTube. See it, and if you like it, share it with your Facebook or Internet masses, your crouched Twitterati longing to be free, and ask them to do the same (as I understand this is how such things work).

2) Here's my advice to you writers out there, over at Poets and Writers.

3)And in about a week, online, you will be able to download for free some of the songs which Kevin Salem composed in/around the novel LOLA -- see what you think.

4) Meanwhile, here is a piece I wrote recently about the death of my father this year and Californian legacy: "Daughter of California" at The Millions.

5) Here, too, is a piece on David Foster Wallace which I wrote for Scott Esposito's Conversational Reading.

6) An article by Nina Shengold on Karen Russell and me in Bardlandia.

7) A recent review of LOLA over at The Daily.

8) Some excerpts from LOLA up at Sundance Channel via Em and Lo.

Some useful summer pixels for your eyes, we're hoping.

To your curiosity and happy literacy,
Edie
===
1) The video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6iY2A5EwMM

2) The writers' advice:
http://www.pw.org/content/melinda_palacio_7?cmnt_all=1

3) www.kevinsalem.com/Lola.html

4) Piece about death of my father:
http://www.themillions.com/2011/06/daughter-of-california.html

5)http://quarterlyconversation.com/david-foster-wallace-a-supposedly-fun-thing-ill-never-do-again

6) http://hudson-valley.chronogram.com/issue/2011/7/Books/Sunshine-States

7) http://bit.ly/qZDzkc

8) http://www.sundancechannel.com/sunfiltered/2011/07/new-summer-reading-lola/

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Original Epic!, June 20, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Far Field: A Novel of Ceylon (Hardcover)

Ms. Meidav's debut novel is a great book by a young promising author. As she takes you on this journey, and though she hints all along at the main character's trajectory, you are drawn into not only his world but into the inner lives of the villagers she depicts so successfully. Rather than romanticise the virtues of the east, Meidav trains her eye at a wide range of three-dimensional characters so that we come to see both aspirations and hypocrisies within American, English, and, yes, Sri Lankan culture. In this way, she truly gives another culture its due. Perhaps we find ourselves in many of the characters, all of whom I found engaging and rich in their human passions, all of whom I found true (if this is a useful word to apply in fiction) to a certain kind of subcontinental life, one that I was born into but which I have never seen so fully explored. Meidav's novel is a novel in the biggest sense of the word. It offers old-fashioned pleasures, a real world to enter, but with a contemporary pacing. It also lets the reader explore new ideas (about desire, grasping, human connection, cultures meeting and clashing) and does this all in a new style, something I have never quite seen before. Reading it, I thought about the truism that all original work will in its own time get scorned by those who are most interested in upholding convention. The book will appeal to those who have some interest in the East or Eastern culture, but also to those with an interest in what it means to be born within a certain culture and to travel away from it/toward it. It's not a history of Ceylon nor a scholarly study of Buddhism, but rather what struck me as an exploration of how hard it is for humans to connect and see one another across many divides, whether that of culture or of character. This is art, as the word artifice suggests. Picasso says art is the lie that makes us see the truth; this is how Ms. Meidav uses her art, to develop her characters, and yes, indeed we come to know the main character in his full depth as well as his auxiliaries. We know the protagonist's desires and dreams, as well as his inner conflicts. We may not like the protagonist, but like any great and memorable fictional character, he has a life beyond mere psychobabble. His true motives, like most of ours, contain their conflicts. I am looking forward to other work by this same author. I am a great fan of diving into a world as complete as the one which this novel offers us. Reading this book for me was a life-changing experience, a journey that makes me want to travel it one more time.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A stunning debut, April 30, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Far Field: A Novel of Ceylon (Hardcover)

Edie Meidav has made a fantastic debut. I didn't know what to expect, since I'm not particularly interested in Sri Lanka. For those who care about Asia, or Buddhism, there are plenty of fascinating descriptions and brilliant insights. However, even if you're not particularly interested in Sri Lanka, you should still read this exciting first novel. The Far Field is complex and challenging, but its rewards are great. At least if you're interested in the possibilities of fiction. Very rarely will you find such a rich and intense sensibility: bawdy, lyrical, philosophical, satirical, empathic and wildly imaginative. Each sentence is a pleasure. The publishers compare her to Ondaatje and Conrad, mostly because the novel concerns colonialism and Sri Lanka, but stylistically I dont' think she has much in common with them. Her true relations are to masters of ambiguity like Henry James and William Gaddis and Walter Abish. She's not interested in easy answers, but in refreshing the springs of aesthetic delight. If you want to read something flat and tidy, maybe this book is not for you; if you care about the art of fiction, and the renewal of the English language, then you must become acquainted with Edie Meidav's work.

11 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A marvelous debut!, March 23, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Far Field: A Novel of Ceylon (Hardcover)

It's extraordinary to think that this is a first novel. Ms. Meidav writes with such confidence, intellectual breadth, and lyric power that you feel like you're in the presence of a fine, mature writer. The book is long and, at times, difficult and dense, but if you like serious fiction, which makes you think and ponder the nature of human motivation, you will love and appreciate this book. The story and writing have a wonderful cumulative power that will you leave you awed by the imaginative range of the author. Ms. Meidav exhibits an ambition and daring that is so rare in contemporary fiction. You will be amply rewarded by the journey Meidav takes you on. I highly recommend this book.