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Singapore, 1939: life on the eve of World War II just isn't what it used to be for Walter Blackett, head of British Singapore's oldest and most powerful firm. No matter how forcefully the police break one strike, the natives go on strike somewhere else. His daughter keeps entangling herself with the most unsuitable beaus, while her intended match, the son of Blackett's partner, is an idealistic sympathizer with the League of Nations and a vegetarian. Business may be booming�??what with the war in Europe, the Allies are desperate for rubber and helpless to resist Blackett's price-fixing and market manipulation�??but something is wrong. No one suspects that the world of the British Empire, of fixed boundaries between classes and nations, is about to come to a terrible end.A love story and a war story, a tragicomic tale of a city under siege and a dying way of life, The Singapore… (more)
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I think the characters were starting to come alive, but they seemed almost like caricatures of themselves: the British military leaders blind to the danger of the Japanese and resplendent in their faith in their own power; Walter the rich English trader blind to the human costs of the manipulation of markets and production for his own greater wealth and preoccupied with securing a useful marriage for his daughter Joan who is totally pampered and thoroughly selfish, but has more wits about her than her feckless brother, Monty, both of whom are juxtaposed against Matthew, prodigal son of Walter's aged partner, and who comes home to Singapore upon the death of his father; throw in a couple of characters: an American army officer smitten by Joan, but no match for her machinations, a down-at-the-heels Frenchman who does see the reality of Asia the Japanese menace much more accurately than his British friends, a beautiful but mysterious Asian girl who competes with Joan for Matthew (two beautiful woman who throw themselves physically at a guy who comes across as a well-meaning dork), and there you have the stew. I kept hoping the arrival of the Japanese and the introduction of some real hardship and terror would tighten things up a bit, but I glanced ahead and saw that the book ends just as the Japanese are moving into Singapore, and I couldn't wait anymore. I think it was all there, but for my taste, the book should have been edited down to about two-thirds of its length.
The
The personal interactions between all of the characters made this enjoyable for me.
As war edges closer the air of unreality gets thicker. Even when the Japanese attack Malaya in late 1941, these people just don't get it. Singapore Grip explores this world in detail and from many different perspectives. The higher in the colonial hierarchy, the harder it is for reality to penetrate. Walter Blackett, scion and head delusionist is still planning the company's 50th Jubilee while the Japanese are bombing the island and even Singapore town proper.
`Singapore Grip' is a vignette in what Huxley called "the descending road of modern history". The war gathers slowly, life begins to change, but not dramatically at first. But, the vise inexorably tightens and the world of the characters crumbles under the relentless pressure. Escape from the island seems at first an absurd idea, but it gradually becomes ever more desirable until it finally becomes impossible in the crush at the quays.
If you are tempted to turn away from this book, don't. `Singapore Grip' gathers force and clarity as Farrell slowly adds the pieces to his masterful mosaic and the reader is duly rewarded. The book has been recently reprinted in the excellent New York Review of Books Classics series. Highly recommended.
The European war has created a great demand for rubber. Walter Blackett sees this as an opportunity for profit by fixing prices and withholding product. This is also a time of general strikes and unrest. J.G. Farrell does not hesitate to show the exploitation that the British Colonial way of life practiced.
We see how their lives slowly change, they become more and more aware of the fact that the Japanese are moving down the Malay Peninsula. At first evacuation seems unthinkable, then perhaps desirable but of course eventually impossible. The Japanese arrive and Singapore suffers what Winston Churchill called “the worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history”.
I believe the author has written a historically accurate story, giving us glimpses of both the British and Japanese viewpoints. I found myself struggling at times with pages and pages of facts and political background information. Overall the tone of the book weaved back and forth between being ironic about the British Colonial system and a sense of whimsical memory of times lost.
The setting of the book is the island of Singapore, starting in 1937, just before the outbreak of World War II. The opening sets the stage for the Farrell’s attitude towards the British merchant barons in the Far East. The description of Singapore “high society" (meaning the British, of course) is a fascinating southeast Asian analogue of that same society in Ireland (Troubles) and in India (Siege of Krishanpur). Walter Blackett, head of the firm of Blackett and Webb, Singapore’s oldest British-owned business, is planning the company’s jubilee celebration: a massive parade extolling the virtues of Blackett and Webb as the epitome of progressive business and the benefits it brings to the substantially inferior natives and other ethnic groups who labor in the rice fields, rubber plantations, warehouses, and other entities of the companies diverse business interests. Yet, at the same time, we’re told of worker strikes, the horrendous living conditions of the workers, price fixing, the efforts Blackett and Webb have made to force independent rubber producers out and create an oligarchy of such producers for the British-owned business. On the horizon is the Japanese, whom no one takes seriously as a possible threat to the Malay Peninsula and Singapore itself. But nothing matters to Walter except Blackett and Webb, and to this end he is willing to use his daughter to seduce and marry, if need be, the son of the former owner, now dead, in order to get control of the son’s shares in the company. Interestingly enough, the daughter is perfectly happy to do so. All part of the ethos of the British merchant class.
Walter Blackett is a caricature; throughout the book, he is depicted as being far more interested in his business enterprises and the outwitting of a major rival than in anything else, including his country. When the Japanese do invade, Walter even contemplates doing business with them, clearly treason, but such notions never cross his mind. What’s good for Blackett and Webb is good for everyone else, including England, an astonishing perspective of collaboration with an enemy.
Matthew is the other major caricature, that of the guilt-ridden liberal who claims to see all the evil colonialism does yet does nothing but talk. And talk. And talk. To the point where it’s no longer amusing but truly boring—you want to shake him and tell him to just shut up.
We meet Major Archer again, in his 50s now, but this time, Archer is not the diffident, helpless soul he was in Troubles. In fact, during the Battle of Singapore, Archer heads one of the city’s volunteer fire brigades and organizes shelter and food for the ever-increasing number of refugees.
There are other, minor characters, more or less well done. Walter’s daughter Joan is too conniving to be real. There’s an American officer caught by the Japanese invasion. There’s the Frenchman Dupigny who was an official in French colonial Indochina before the Japanese overwhelmed that area. There are brief, interesting appearances of Malasians, ethnic Chinese who came to work in the rubber plantations, and others. Some of the minor characters are far more interesting than Walter and Matthew.
What saves this book is Farrell’s description of the defense of Singapore. Air Chief Marshall Brooke-Popham, a historical figure, was commander-in-Chief of the defense of the Malay Peninsula and Singapore. Farrell, as did many after the fall of Singapore, puts the principal blame for the inadequate resistance to the Japanese attacks on Brooke-Popham. Whether true or not, it makes for fascinating reading.
Farrell shines in his description of Singapore under repeated Japanese aerial bombardment. The finest scene in the entire book may be the one where Archer’s fire brigade, among others, is trying to contain the fire in a lumberyard. It’s a truly harrowing scene; that whole section alone is worth reading the book.
The Singapore Grip is an uneven and even awkward book, but Farrell’s prose is excellent and his treatment of the defense of Singapore superb. I only rated the book at 3 1/2 stars due to the characterizations--the caricatures--of Walter and Matthew; they really detracted from what would have otherwise been a superb book.
A love story and a war story, a tragicomic tale of a city under siege and a dying way of life, The Singapore Grip completes the “Empire Trilogy” that began with Troubles and the Booker prize-winning Siege of Krishnapur.