Marriages, Infidelities, and Secret Lives

Malaysian writer Tan Twan Eng has certainly established quite a reputation as one of Malaysia’s foremost writers in the contemporary, perhaps all-time. While he was a lawyer by profession – he even worked for one of the country’s leading law firms – he was not able to resist the calling of the pen. He fulfilled this promise in 2007 when he made his literary debut with the publication of The Gift of Rain, a book he started working on while taking up a master’s degree in shipping law at the University of Cape Town in Cape Town, South Africa. The book immediately elevated Tan to global recognition as his debut novel was warmly received by readers and pundits alike. It was even longlisted for the prestigious Booker Prize in Fiction.

Tan picked it up a notch with his sophomore novel, The Garden of Evening Mists which was published in 2012. Like its predecessor, The Garden of Evening Mists was heartily received by the reading public and literary critics alike. Tan’s sophomore novel consolidated his status as one of Malaysia’s literary stars. The book was shortlisted for the prestigious Booker Prize in 2012 before it bested no less than Nobel Laureate in Literature Orhan Pamuk to become the first Malaysian recipient of the Man Asian Literary Prize. The novel also won Tan the 2013 Walter Scott Prize for best historical fiction, edging another literary titan, Hilary Mantel, in a reversal of the 2012 Booker Prize which was won by Mantel’s Bring Up the Bodies. It is without a doubt that Tan is one of the most sought-after voices in contemporary literature.

Any writer would have built on this momentum and written as many books as they could. Tan, however, encountered stumbling blocks that stymied his progress. He struggled to pick up the pen, coupled with the intensive research that comes along with the desire for historical accuracy. His impasse was exacerbated by his struggle to find a suitable title for his latest work, a book he carefully worked on for nearly a decade. In an interview with The Harvard Crimson, Tan said, “The title is like a signpost or a flag waving, where it points you to the direction when you’re getting mired in all this other stuff.”1 He has already provided his drafts to his publisher who eventually suggested that he title his latest novel The House of Doors. Without any more ado, Tan’s latest novel, The House of Doors, was released in 2023, over a decade since his last.

“Every night, I would lie on the patch of kweek grass in the garden, searching the night sky with my field glasses, a thrill bolting through me whenever I saw a dislodged star streaking across the heavens. I learned their names and their shapes: the Southern Cross; Auriga; Coma Berenices; Horologium; Orion; Circinus; Apus; Andromeda. I soon knew them all, these constellations in the night sky, constellations that had, since the beginning of the world, been sinking into the earth each morning, to rise again the next night.”

~ Tan Twan Eng, The House of Doors

Tan’s third novel opened in 1947, in Doornfontein, South Africa where Tan introduces one of the novel’s main characters, Lesley Hamlyn. She was grieving the recent demise of her husband Robert when she received a copy of W. Somerset Maugham’s The Casuarina Tree, a collection of six short stories. Robert was an avid reader who collected first editions. He also had all of Maugham’s books, including his novels, short story anthologies, plays, and essays. The package arrived from Penang, Malaysia bearing a variation of the hamsa symbol Maugham is renowned for inscribing on his books. Tan was born and raised in Penang while the Hamlyns call it their hometown: “Robert and I had uprooted ourselves from Penang at the end of 1922, sailing on a P&O liner to Cape Town.”

Maugham was not casually mentioned in the novel as he was a key character in the novel. The story then flashes back to the past. The year was 1921: “Somerset Maugham woke up choking for air. Violent coughing rocked his body until finally, blessedly, it subsided, and he could breathe again.” Maugham, familiarly referred to as Willie throughout the story, arrived in Penang, in the Federated Malay States. Willie arrived and stayed in the stately waterfront home of the Hamlyns, the Cassowary House; Robert, a lawyer by profession, was one of Willie’s long-time friends from London. The Hamlyns were naturally the source of envy of the neighborhood who wanted to entertain the globe-trotting, world-renowned writer; around this time, Maugham had already established quite a reputation as a storyteller globally.

Accompanying Willie on his adventure was his “secretary” Gerald Haxton. Gerald, however, was no ordinary secretary. Gerald was Willie’s longtime clandestine lover. Lesley frowned upon Willie’s lifestyle but she understood his plight. While the travel to Penang presented itself as an opportunity for Willie to take a break after his physically exhausting travels around Asia, it also doubled as a form of escape from his sham marriage – one he eventually realized he should have never had – with his wife Syrie whom he deliberately left behind in London. As the story moved forward, it was also revealed that Willie was on the brink of bankruptcy after one of his investments had incurred great losses; he was informed about it shortly after he arrived in Penang. This was a secret he obscured from Gerald who was used to a decadent lifestyle.

Willie’s predicament, however, has not blunted his eyes his eye for finding new materials and inspirations for his works. From his vantage point, he started to see Lesley as a prospect. He saw her as yet another “woman in the colonies stuck in an unhappy marriage.” This was a reality that Lesley herself underscored as the story shifted to her perspective. Her husband was a good two decades older than her. They have two children. However, Robert wanted to leave Penang for his brother’s sheep farm in South Africa. Robert, a veteran of the First World War, suffers from the effects of gas poisoning from his service. By moving to South Africa, Robert hoped to improve his health. Lesley, like the author, was born and raised in Penang, hence, her apprehension about her husband’s plans.

“He has not appeared in my thoughts in a long time, but as I gaze at the mountains from my step on this autumn morning I can hear his thin, dry voice, his diction precise, correct, like everything else about him. In my memory I see him again, on his last night in our old house on the other side of the world, the two of us on the verandah behind the house, talking quietly, the full moon a coracle of light adrift above the sea.”

~ Tan Twan Eng, The House of Doors

But there is more to Lesley beyond the facade she presented to the rest of the world. Lesley was once acquainted with rising Chinese revolutionary leader Sun Yat-Sen. Sun aspires to overthrow the Qing dynasty to establish a republic in China. To do so, Sun led several uprisings in China, most of which ended in failure. Sun, however, was nonplussed. In 1910, he was sent into exile in Penang. During his exile, Sun made a personal plea for financial aid from the Straits Chinese at the Penang conference. It was during this conference that Lesley crossed paths with the revolutionary leader. Lesley was fascinated by Sun’s politics and befriended him, even becoming an editor for the translated pamphlets for the Tong Meng Hui, an underground revolutionary society. Meanwhile, Willie believes that there is more than to the friendship of Lesley and Dr. Sun.

The complexities and intricacies of marriage life were among the prominent subjects examined by the novel. Marriage for convenience, such as Maugham’s and Syrie’s, was prevalent among the characters. Most of these kind of marriages are bereft of love and affection. As such, such relationships become susceptible to infidelities. The lack of love makes the partners look for it in other avenues. For Willie, his yearning came in the form of Gerald. However, it was not only Willie who was looking for love. It was also palpable how marriages place an undue burden on women, one that Lesley lamented. This was underscored by the case of Dr. Sun who engaged in polygamy. While Lesley was in awe of Dr. Sun’s firebrand politics, she silently disapproved of his marital status.

To further underline the complexities of marital life, Tan weaves into his lush narrative another real-life character: Ethel Proudlock, née Charter. In the story, Ethel was Lesley’s friend. Like Lesley, Ethel was Eurasian. She was married to William Proudlock who was the acting headmaster of the prestigious Victoria Institution for Boys in Kuala Lumpur. Lesley related to Willie how Ethel was arrested for the shooting of her attempted rapist, William Steward, a mine manager. It was eventually revealed that Steward was Ethel’s lover. However, like most of the story, the case was steeped in secrets as there was more to the case than a mere lover’s quarrel. Ethel’s case exposes the faultlines that undermine marriages while underscoring the double standards between men and women. Interestingly, the case of Ethel was the inspiration behind one of Maugham’s most popular short stories, The Letter.

As the story moved forward, it was slowly revealed that Willie was not the only character who had homosexual liaisons. Interracial relationships were also subtly underscored in the story. This underlined another facet of the story: the prevalence of secrets. Secrets pervaded the relationships and threatened the stability that everyone was projecting. The title is allegorical as understanding the characters entailed entering several doors, some of which are locked while some had restricted access. Most of the characters are living secret lives which are slowly unveiled as the story moves forward. Because of these secrets, the characters had to keep up appearances. The novel also subtly charted Lesley’s journey toward political awakening and embracing social activism.

“Nobody ever gives a full and complete confession. A chap will only confess to as much as he needs to exonerate himself. I’ve seen it in court time and again. Witnesses edit their memories about the things they’ve said and done. They rearrange the facts. All of us do it. We play with truth, mould it into the form that shows our best side to the world. You only hear one aspect of it. You can never get the whole truth, the whole story.”

~ Tan Twan Eng, The House of Doors

Beyond the preoccupation with marriages, infidelities, sexuality, and secrets, the novel also subtly examines colonial life in Penang. With its complex social structure – the presence of Straits Chinese, native Malays, and colonists - colonial Penang was a melting pot. However, this diversity was undermined by racial prejudice and even colonial gossip; the case of Ethel was a source of intrigue and scandal. It was also a period of rising sentiment for nationalism as the colony struggled with cultural and national identity. The atmosphere of the period was vividly captured by Tan’s writing; he demonstrated this uncanny ability in his previous works. The landscape was beautifully painted by Tan’s descriptive prose: “the air felt as if it had been painted on my skin with a hot dripping brush.” He further seduced the readers with the smell of excellent local cuisine.

A multi-layered story, The House of Doors also extensively examined the art of transforming actual life experiences into literature. It was reiterated in the story how Maugham defers to actual experiences for his stories, albeit with some alterations. As such, memory figures prominently. Robert even cautioned Lesley about Willie: “He’s my friend, but he’s also a writer, and there’s nothing he loves more than snuffling out people’s scandals and secrets.” This, however, did not deter Lesley from letting her guard down. At one point, Lesley asked Willie about his work’s fixation with unhappy marriages and adulterous affairs. To this, Willie responded that he writes “about the human weaknesses that created these unhappy marriages — cowardice, fear, selfishness, pride, hypocrisy.”

The House of Doors marks Tan’s long-awaited return to the literary scene. It encompasses a vast territory, from interracial and homosexual love stories to the art of transmuting actual life experiences into literary masterpieces. It is a vivid portrait of the complexities of marriages of convenience that also examines infidelities, secret lives, sexuality, social activism, and even the legacy of colonialism. In its midst is an artist in crisis and a wife who also has her own burdens to bear. These various elements were adroitly woven together by Tan’s atmospheric and lucid writing into a lush tapestry brimming with historical contexts. Longlisted for the 2023 Booker Prize, The House of Doors is another captivating work from a gifted wordsmith.

“On the farm, whenever I heard the rumour of thunder, I would stop what I was doing and go out onto the verandah. Seeing the hulls of the heavy clouds rising from the edge of the world, I would silently beseech them to sail towards us and give us rain to revive the earth’ scents and quench my soul. But more often than not those cloud caravels would sail further away from me, trailing echoes of fading thunder in their wake.”

~ Tan Twan Eng, The House of Doors
Book Specs

Author: Tan Twan Eng
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Publishing Date: 2023
Number of Pages: 304
Genre: Historical

Synopsis

The year is 1921, Lesley Hamlyn and her husband, Robert, a lawyer and war veteran, are living at Cassowary House on the Straits Settlement of Penang. When “Willie” Somerset Maugham, a famed writer and old friend of Robert’s, arrives for an extended visit with his secretary, Gerald, the pair threatens a rift that could alter more lives than one.

Maugham, one of the great novelists of his day, is beleaguered: having long hidden his homosexuality, his unhappy and expensive marriage of convenience becomes unbearable after he loses his savings – and the freedom to travel with Gerald. His career deflating, his health failing, Maugham arrives at Cassowary House in desperate need of a subject for his next book. Lesley, too, is enduring a marriage more duplicitous than it first appears. Maugham suspects an affair, and, learning of Lesley’s past connection to the Chinese revolutionary Dr. Sun Yat Sen, decides to probe deeper. But as their friendship grows and Lesley confides in him about life in the Straits, Maugham discovers a far more surprising tale than he imagined, one that involves not only war and scandal but the trial of an Englishwoman charged with murder. It is, to Maugham, a story worthy of fiction.

A mesmerizingly beautiful novel based on real events, The House of Doors traces the fault lines of race, gender, sexuality, and power under empire, and dives deep into the complicated nature of love and friendship in its shadow.

About the Author

To learn more about Malaysian and Booker Prize-shortlisted writer Tan Twan Eng, click here.

References

1. Weaver, John M 6 February 2024, Artist Profile: Tan Twan Eng on Excavating Old Stories and Using Writing to Learn. Accessed 10 February 2024, <https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2024/2/6/tan-twan-eng-house-of-doors-garden-of-evening-mists-profile-learning/>.