The Long Day Wanes. A Malayan Trilogy [Hardcover]

ANTHONY. BURGESS (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: W.W. Norton (1965)
• ASIN: B001JYGZZA
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,567,286 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must Have for Ex-pats and Students of Asian Affairs, December 28, 2002

By 

AliMcJ (Dallas, Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Long Day Wanes: A Malayan Trilogy (The Norton Library) (Paperback)

This ranks as one of the funniest books ever written, while being at the same time a social history of Malaysia, or Malaya as it was known under British Rule. The first book of the trilogy deals with the last days of British colonialism (hence the title "The Long Day Wanes") through the misadventures of a remittance man named Nabby Adams, a civil servant, his wife, household staff, and local government characters. The second novel follows the civil servant and his failing marriage through the guerilla years in the struggling nation, and the third is The Coming of the Americans. These three events have been a sort of template for late 20th century global affairs. It's a tight trilogy that reflects historical and social changes through its characters in the satirical literary slapstick characteristic of Burgess at his best. If you've never read Burgess, this is the place to start. It will bring you an appreciation of "where he's coming from," literally: it is based upon his experiences as a British Civil Servant in the waning days of the Empire (upon which the sun set 30 June 1997 with the cession of Hong Kong to Red China). This review was originally published in June 1997 and with some site changes, my name got lost and Amazon was unable to transfer the review with my name attached, so this is a reprint of that earlier one.

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Funny but true, October 28, 2002

By 

Jason Drew (GA, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Long Day Wanes: A Malayan Trilogy (The Norton Library) (Paperback)

One thing I have always admired about Anthony Burgess's novels is the compassion that he quietly conveys for his characters. They are all flawed: imperfect archetypes, reluctant saviours, apologetic swearers, gin mixed in with the orange crush. And we recognize ourselves in them all for this essential humanity, their endless struggle or acquiescence, for or against their unlikely fates. Burgess's humour is rueful and sharp: wistful disappointment and calm despair are the backdrop for his characters' heroic protests or desperate affairs.

He also writes with a playfulness and intelligence that shines through every page. His sentences are as angular and memorable as his characters. His debts to Joyce and Shakespeare unite in his own unique style.

The Long Day Wanes shows much of Burgess at his best, his setting and characters memorable vehicles for their fates and larger themes. The setting in Malaya is a world apart: inner struggles against human desires, social forces against cultural divides. While writing of a world that fast disappears, he tells us a story old as the Malayan jungle.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The 'best' novel ever on Malaya (sorry, Malaysia), January 13, 2001

By 

featherstonhaugh "featherstonhaugh" (Southend-on-Sea, Essex United Kingdom) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Long Day Wanes: A Malayan Trilogy (The Norton Library) (Paperback)

Burgess has achieved something remarkable in this trilogy in penetrating the mentality of the Chinese, Indian, Malays, Eurasians and British colonialists who inhabited the pre-independence Malaya of the 1950's. He cleverly dissects his vast repertoire of characters, from the lowest Tamil night watchman, Malay driver or Chinese towkay, to the highest Malay prince or most gin-soddened British official, in the most unpatronising way with bucket loads of humour and insight.

Being British and having lived in Malaysia and Singapore for the past eleven years, I can deeply identify with the (alas, now imaginary) world of these three closely interlinked novels. It's a colourful cosmos which has sadly been erased forever by the forces of globalisation (that is to say, 'Americanisation'). In a sense, the erosion of the traditional ways and the coming of change and modernisation (not necessarily for the better) is one of the themes of the trilogy and a preface to the modern life of Southeast Asia, a place more of computers, stock markets and western style conspicuous consumption than a place of shady kedai, gin stengahs on cool verandahs or mysterious Wayang Kulit shows.

As a postscript to the Malayan trilogy, you should also refer to the second volume of Burgess's autobiography in which he relates a visit, many years later, to this much-changed locale and is accosted in the northern Malaysian town of Ipoh by a young Chinese girl selling him not her body, but a western brand of evangelical Christianity.