Master and Disciple

The Gift of Rain a novel by Tan Twan Eng.  Weinstein Books.  432 pp.  $16.99.  ****

The Gift of Rain is one of the most affecting novels I’ve read in years; toward the end I was both riveted to and deeply disturbed by what I was reading, so that I could hardly sleep.  This is Tan Twan Eng’s first novel (and was nominated for the Man Booker Prize); he had a successful career as an attorney before taking up writing.

One can see him learning his craft[1]; the early chapters are self-consciously lyrical, but once he gets into the novel he realizes he’s got a great story and should skip the flowery description.  It’s an oddly old-fashioned book, the kind where two people meet, one poses a question, and the other sits back and says, to answer that I need to tell you the story of my life, and proceeds to so.  Toward the end Eng does a little too much summing up, and gets melodramatic (a tendency he’s prone to), but overall this is a solid performance, with a classic plot.

Set in 1939, it tells the story of Philip Hutton, the Malaysian son of a British businessman and a Chinese woman (this is, as far as I know, the only Malaysian novel I’ve ever read).  Philip’s older siblings had a British mother, and as a mixed-race child he feels out of place not only in his country but also in his family.  His father and siblings are away as the novel opens, and he meets and falls under the spell of a Japanese Aikido master whom he calls Endo-san.  He becomes the man’s disciple, and their relationship is the central fact of the novel.  It is a classic story of master and disciple.  The author himself has a first dan ranking in aikido.

I have no knowledge of aikido whatsoever, except for things I’ve read through the years; it is the one martial art that interests me, because its founder, Morihei Ueshiba, saw it as a path of peace, not of war.  I think that many martial arts—as this one does—use the aggressor’s energy against him, but this one has as its goal not destroying the opponent but maintaining peace.  Ueshiba had been trained in more conventional martial arts, but had several religious experiences in the course of his teaching.  One occurred when he was 42 years old.

“I felt the universe suddenly quake, and that a golden spirit sprang up from the ground, veiled my body, and changed my body into a golden one. At the same time my body became light. I was able to understand the whispering of the birds, and was clearly aware of the mind of God, the creator of the universe. At that moment I was enlightened: the source of budō [the martial way] is God’s love – the spirit of loving protection for all beings …

“Budō is not the felling of an opponent by force; nor is it a tool to lead the world to destruction with arms. True Budō is to accept the spirit of the universe, keep the peace of the world, correctly produce, protect and cultivate all beings in nature.”

This passage helps explain why the novel becomes so disturbing (and the author understood what he was creating; he says in a note at the end, “I should make it clear that the consequences of the use of [Ueshiba’s] techniques in this story in no way reflect his philosophy”).  While Endo-san seems to be a traditional teacher, taking on a pupil who is ready for him, he is actually a Japanese agent who is preparing for the war effort, infiltrating this prominent industrial family because Japan was planning to invade the country.  And once that happens, though he vows to protect his disciple and his family to the extent that he can, the whole story takes on a different feel.  The portrayals of Japanese wickedness are as bad as anything I’ve read.  Even James Jones’ famous war trilogy doesn’t present a worse portrait of the Japanese.[2]

That portrayal was difficult for me because I practice a religion, Zen Buddhism, that is quintessentially Japanese.  And though the basic teaching comes from India, as filtered through Chinese culture, it has always seemed to me that there is something special about the Japanese version (and about Japanese religion in general, as discussed in D. T. Suzuki’s Japanese Spirituality).

The same culture that created this marvelous practice was also ruthless in its aggressive imperialism during World War II.  There are acts of cruelty by the Japanese in this novel that are almost beyond belief, and very hard to take.

To his credit, Tan Twan Eng has created a protagonist who is facing exactly this dilemma, who feels not quite comfortable in his country or in his family, who has been strongly influenced for the good by his Japanese teacher, and who then faces the question of what to do when his teacher and his cronies invade his country and take over his father’s business.  The course that Philip adopts is a perilous one, and I was never sure, just as he never was, that it was right.  But he did his best within the limits of what he knew.

This is another book recommended to me by my friend Sally, who I believe discovered it because she was traveling in Malaysia.  It’s not a perfect work of art, but makes up for its failings with a spellbinding story.  It has stayed with me long after I finished it.

[1] I felt the same way about From Here to Eternity, a novel about the same conflict by someone who had actually fought in it (though no one ever accused James Jones of being lyrical).

[2] I should say that another great novel, A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki, looks clearly at this same paradox.  The marvelous story of a 104-year-old Buddhist nun who is helping a child who is being bullied, it eventually connects the bullying to the Japanese training for World War II.  That novel contains and embodies the same conflict.