A brief and belated entry to record that we met at Maria's recently to discuss the The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng. Despite its length, and it is probably too long we decided, everyone apart from me had finished it (and I'm nearly there now) and enjoyed it very much. We were unanimous in agreeing that the portrait of Penang in the run up to and during the Japanese invasion was very atmospheric; and we really felt the cultural divisions there and Philip's duality. The general view was that there was a bit too much historical narrative "dumped" into the novel on occasions and that the martial arts sections, whilst interesting, were rather too protracted for most tastes. We had a spirited discussion about Endo-san and Philip's relationship - suffice it to say that some of us read more inference into some of the aikido scenes than others!
We are turning our attention next to more feminine matters: we will meet at Lucy's on 18th April to discuss Mary S Lovell's biography, The Mitford Girls.
