The richly multicultural world of Malaysia in the 1960s is the setting for this evocative novel by Clarke ( My Father in the Night ), himself a resident of Borneo for many years. Dan Collins is a high-ranking U.S. State Department official based in Sarawak, the central province of the newly created country. When Eddie Gould, a State Department worker, "goes native" and shows up on the cover of National Geographic in tattoos and a loincloth, Collins is held responsible. Disturbed by a threat to recall him to Washington, Collins decides to search out Eddie himself. He travels upriver to the primitive village of Rumah Nadai, armed with only one piece of advice: "Watch out for the darkness." There, with the help of the local tribe's headman, Bawang, Collins himself transforms almost completely into one of the native Ibans, using a blowgun, raising a fighting cock and traveling alone in the terrifyingly dark rain forest. The novel is at its best when weaving together different cultures--Malay, Chinese, Iban, British--that struggle to form the emerging Malaysian nation. But the background and motivation behind Collins's flight into the jungle remains unclear, and a melodramatic ending involving encroaching loggers provides no additional information. This remains an appealingly written novel in which much is carefully observed, save for the main character himself.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
An episodic adventure marked by vivid depictions of the Borneo jungle and the indigenous Ibani culture, this third novel by Clarke (My Father in the Night, LJ 3/ 15/91) evokes two cultures competing for the allegiance of Dan Collins, head of an AID station in Sarawak. A young subordinate diplomat, Eddie Gould, has "gone native," inadvertently creating a furor in Washington when he appears, in feathers and tattoos, on the cover of National Geographic. Reprimanded by his bureaucratic superiors, Collins faces the loss of his assignment and opts to become a fugitive. He finds welcome, challenge, and sanctuary at a remote longhouse and gives himself over-almost completely-to familiar yet alien ways. Eventually, perhaps inevitably, a less benign interloper arrives, bringing senseless accidental tragedy to the Ibanis and a dreadful choice between two suddenly opposing cultures to Collins. Purchase for substantial fiction collections.
Janet Ingraham, Worthington P.L., Ohio
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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