Weekend Book Notes

The House of Doors, Tan Twan Eng

The House of Doors, Tan Twan Eng - Longlisted for The Booker in 2023

“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.”

As is true of so many Booker Prize candidates, this is a quiet and nuanced book that could be described in the same way 2011’s Booker Awards Head Judge Stella Rimington summarized that year’s recipient (and one of my favorite books of all time) Julian Barnes’ The Sense of an Ending:

“…exquisitely written, subtly plotted…reveals new depths with each reading.”

(Sidebar Tidbit: In addition to being a Booker judge, Rimington was also a former Director of MI5. Not only is that double billing pretty darn sexy, but I can’t help but wonder if she was the inspiration for one of my favorite female characters—Slow Horse’s Diana Taverner, brilliantly portrayed by Kristin Scott Thomas. But clearly, I digress.)

The House of Doors centers around W. Somerset Maugham’s 1921 visit to Penang, where he wrote his short story, The Letter, (subsequently a 1940 movie starring Bette Davis) based on the scandalous Ethel Proudlock1911 murder trial. (The married Proudlock was accused of murdering her alleged rapist, who was not only rumored to have been her lover, but who purportedly, had recently cast her aside.) But neither Maugham, the trial, nor the other real-life players, such as Dr. Sun Yat-sen, are the central characters in this book. That nod goes to Lesley and Robert Hamlyn—the fictionalized version of Maugham’s, fictional friends—whose names Eng cunningly borrows from Maugham’s short story, resulting in a writerly sleight of hand which leaves the reader continually second-guessing which elements are real and which have been carved from air.  

The brilliance here is the way in which Eng uses Maugham’s Capote-like prowess for teasing stories—and secrets—out of people not given to sharing same.  By doing so, Eng provides a rather risky platform for our protagonist, Lesley, to tell her story to a man not known for his discretion. A story which as was true of many women of the era, is a hotbed of thwarted—and, as it turns out, realized—passions—both intellectual and physical. It is through Lesley’s eventual unburdening to and resultant friendship with Maugham, where the real gems of this novel are found. Through her, not only do we get a greater sense of the distortions of imperialism, with its issues of race, but of gender and sexuality, and all the other sorts of things that must remain hidden behind “closed doors.” But this evocative tale is much more than social commentary, it is a story about what it means to fall in love, although there are too many pitfalls for it to be called a love story. But having said that, there is a seduction scene that takes place within the physical House of Doors that is so nuanced and beautifully rendered—so mercifully free from throbbing body parts and pulsating bits—that Eng deserved The Booker simply for that.

And as Rimington implied with her description of The Sense of an Ending—this is also a quiet and subtle book—and one that deserves to be read at a languorous pace and in solitude, so that the reader can allow themselves to be fully enveloped by the cascading beauty of Eng’s words.

But despite (or perhaps because of?) the novel’s subtlety, there is also a nearly raging cinematic quality to this book that had me hankering for some Julian Fellows type to buy the movie rights. For as good as the book is, I couldn’t help but think it would make for an even better screenplay. From the start, I kept expecting some Silver Screen, white dinner-jacketed movie star to ascend from the pages while I read. (For anyone who has seen The Jewel in The Crown, PBS’s 1984 groundbreaking (especially for the time) adaptation of Paul Scott’s The Raj Quartet, The House of Doors is screaming to be made into a PBS mini-series that has us clamoring every Sunday to tune in and watch.)

While there are so many things I admired about Eng’s writing and this novel, there are places in which its initial promise are not fully realized—but that is a rather nit-picky point because when the novel does sing, (and it does so quite often) reading it felt a little like falling in love. And lordy-me, there’s not much that feels better than that.

Thank you for reading, and if you enjoyed this post, please hit the heart button below—that little gesture helps more than you know!

Diana

End Note: Good interview with Eng, who btw, writes in English, even though it is not his first language—how is that even possible??