This month’s #6Degrees, hosted by Kate from Books are my Favourite and Best starts with a bestseller from the seventies called Passages by Gail Sheehy. Its subtitle is Predictable Crises of Adult Life.
Well, as usual I haven’t read it so it was off to My Books at Goodreads to see if there were any with Passage(s) in the title. There were seven, the most interesting of which was Rites of Passage (1980) by William Golding. We all know Golding as the author of Lord of the Flies but as you can see from the novels I’ve reviewed, this Nobel Prize winner is a much more interesting author than that. Rites of Passage is Book One of a trilogy that was made into a BBC serial called To The Ends of The Earth, and it won the Booker in 1980. 
It’s a tragi-comic sea journey and a satirical coming-of-age tale about Mr William Talbot, a young aristocrat on his way to Australia to take up a government position procured for him by his wealthy godfather. The BBC series starred a young Benedict Cumberbatch, and I’ve watched him it three times because we have it on DVD.
It is not easy to portray satire on screen without losing its subtlety. I was reminded of this recently when I was laid up for a while and bought some new DVDs to tide me over the enforced lying about on the sofa. Among these was a screen adaptation of J G Farrell’s The Singapore Grip, the third in his Empire trilogy. As you can see, I thought that the book was not great:
The novel drowns under the weight of its own research, and the characterisation is woeful. It’s about the last days of British power in Singapore before the Japanese invasion in 1941, beginning with a depiction of the lost world of British privilege and exploitation, and taking 596 pages to detail the inexorable progress of the Japanese towards victory.
But the adaptation was atrocious. Even more heavy handed than the novel. Oh well.
The Fall of Singapore reminded me of another book with Singapore in the (sub)title, war as its theme, and a screen adaptation (called Paradise Road, 1997) — but On Radji Beach: The Story of the Australian Nurses after the Fall of Singapore (2010) is a very different book indeed. I know only a few non-fiction titles about the role of Australian nurses in war time, the best of which is Kitty’s War by Janet Butler.
Like all the best books, Kitty’s War(2013) is more than what it appears to be i.e. the untold story of a nurse who served in WW1. It’s also a book that teaches its readers how to interrogate history. Butler is explicit about what she found in Kitty’s letters and diaries, but she also draws attention to what’s not in those sources. She shows how Kitty self-censored her letters home so that her loved ones wouldn’t know how much danger she was in. She was also very careful to avoid anything that might damage the reputation of nurses. Time and again I have applied Butler’s technique to the news I consume. What am I not being told?
Source: Wikipedia. This map shows the Brandt line, grouping Australia with the Global North.
For example, today’s reports about the failure to achieve consensus on Ukraine at the G20 meeting is not being framed as what it is: a rare example of the US being unable to impose its hegemony in a public forum, and a portent of its declining influence. As I learned from The Burning Archive, Indian Prime Minister Modi started the recent Voice of the Global South Summit with a claim to replace Britain in the Security Council along with its power of veto because India, he argued, represents the Global South where most of humanity lives, and Britain, he says, is no longer a major power. Things are changing, but the mainstream media either hasn’t caught on or is in denial. Media representation of the Global South is problematic. We are mostly not told anything about it except in terms of negative stereotyping. I prefer to think that it is ignorance rather than a conspiracy, though I’ve been wrong before. But try Googling Voice of the Global South Summit and see which media is reporting it, and which media is not. It will be interesting to see if it gets a mention in the next issue of Australian Foreign Affairs to which I subscribe.
I think it’s partly ignorance, partly geo-politics, and partly racism that accounts for the skewed version of WW2 that persists. This week I’ve been reading Thomas McKenna’s Moro Warrior: A Philippine Chieftain, an American Schoolmaster, and The Untold Story of the Most Remarkable Resistance Fighters of World War II in the Pacific. I’ve never heard anything about the role of the Philippines in WW2 except as a stepping stone for Macarthur on his way to Japan, and I didn’t hear about this story of Philippine Resistance fighters in the mainstream media. I read a review of it in the Asian Review of Books.
I really ought to have read more from the Philippines. It’s one of our near neighbours and we all need to be more knowledgeable about our geographical neighbourhood. I have read their famous classic Noli Me Tangere (Touch Me Not) (1891) by José Rizal, translated by Harold Augenbraum which is the book that started their independence movement. I also have Ilustrado by Miguel Syjuco on the TBR but it’s been there much too long, and I would like to read some of the books suggested here as The Best Books in Philippine Literature. Wish me luck with that: not one of those titles is available in my libraries… I wonder how members of the Filipino community feel when they find that the only books from their home country in libraries are travel and cooking books?
From a Seventies bestseller to a wishlist of Filipino Lit, that’s my #6Degrees for this month!
Image credit:
- Benedict Cumberbatch as William Talbot: https://www.bbc.co.uk/drama/totheendsoftheearth/
ANZ LitLovers LitBlog
You are so right, it is hard to find any books from the Philippines or South-east Asia more generally in the UK but you are geographically closer, so I thought you might have more there. I was going to give Singapore Grip a whirl – there was a TV series recently, is this the atrocious adaptation you’re referring to?
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By: MarinaSofia on March 4, 2023
at 5:14 pm
I think our situation here is akin to the way the large countries in Europe dominate culturally over smaller ones like Romania, but it’s exacerbated by Anglo culture (i.e. the US) dominating everything here.
This is the TV series: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Singapore_Grip_(TV_series)
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By: Lisa Hill on March 4, 2023
at 6:44 pm
Oof, I don’t think I’ve read any Filipino books at all. That can’t be good. (It’s nice [for a certain value of “nice”] to see there’s at least one in Penguin Classics format, though.)
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By: Elle on March 4, 2023
at 10:37 pm
This list at GR might be a place to start.
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/27969.Filipino_Novels
I say ‘might be’ because people are always adding books to lists that clearly don’t belong.
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By: Lisa Hill on March 4, 2023
at 11:26 pm
Oh thank you! (Yes, isn’t that infuriating! Makes my bookseller heart sink.)
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By: Elle on March 4, 2023
at 11:28 pm
Where is your bookshop?
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By: Lisa Hill on March 4, 2023
at 11:44 pm
I don’t work there anymore, but for six years I was at Heywood Hill on Curzon Street in Mayfair :)
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By: Elle on March 5, 2023
at 12:53 am
I was briefly a bookseller too. I bought more than I sold!
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By: Lisa Hill on March 5, 2023
at 1:05 am
It’s SUCH an occupational hazard
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By: Elle on March 5, 2023
at 4:11 am
*chuckle*
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By: Lisa Hill on March 5, 2023
at 10:05 am
You are right, I don’t know much about active Philippine role in the war. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
I haven’t read a lot of Filipino literature, but Melinda Bobis’ Fish-hair woman is a great place to start.
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By: whisperinggums on March 5, 2023
at 4:04 am
I’ve read two by Bobis: Locust-Girl and The Kindness of Birds, and I bought a copy of her early one, The Solemn Lantern Maker after I read your review of Fish-hair Woman. She’s a very interesting author.
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By: Lisa Hill on March 5, 2023
at 10:10 am
She is – I still have to read the Birds one.
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By: whisperinggums on March 5, 2023
at 11:01 am
Great chain Lisa, very international!
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By: Cathy746books on March 5, 2023
at 4:31 am
Thanks, Cathy! I like your all-Irish one:)
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By: Lisa Hill on March 5, 2023
at 10:04 am
I totally agree about The Singapore Sling TV series. It wasn’t great!
I also have a WWI nurse connection in my chain this month.
For all the proliferation of WWII novels, there are still very few that are set in the Pacific. Every now and again there is one. Otherwise they are all Europe, or set in the homeland, for example women’s roles at home.
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By: Marg on March 5, 2023
at 9:22 am
LOL Marg, that is the best Freudian slip ever: The Singapore Sling instead of The Singapore Grip. Because that is what I remember about the series, the endless drinking of cocktails!
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By: Lisa Hill on March 5, 2023
at 10:04 am
I’ll blame being in Singapore recently. It’s the best I can come up with
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By: Marg on March 5, 2023
at 12:35 pm
*chuckle*
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By: Lisa Hill on March 5, 2023
at 12:50 pm
Very serious books linked up here. I admire your stamina in reading such books. Anything. Political raises my blood pressure so I have been shying away from them. Interesting topics though.
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By: TravellinPenguin on March 6, 2023
at 1:37 pm
LOL I can just imagine your blood pressure if you read my latest NF book: it’s called How to Hide an Empire, A Short History of the Greater USA!
(I don’t know whether I will read all of it, it’s quite long.)
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By: Lisa Hill on March 6, 2023
at 5:00 pm
You are right. I can barely read anything from the States unless it is before 1960 or so. It isn’t the America I knew and loved. My alliances now are completely with Australia though we do have our own blood pressure rising events at times, lol.❤️😊
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By: TravellinPenguin on March 7, 2023
at 12:28 pm
Singapore! My better half and I are off for a week over Easter for a holiday. I am looking forward to it. You mentioned the Philippines not being on your reading radar, I have had the same feeling about Singapore. I have been looking as to what novel I might buy when there. In reality, we all tend to stick to what we know and at this point in my life with nearly 600 unread books on my shelf and reaching the age of a Beatles’ song later in the year I am having vast regrets as to what is not going to be read. I wish I had spread my reading wings so much further.
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By: fourtriplezed on March 6, 2023
at 7:38 pm
Singapore is on our radar because it’s the most congenial stopover on those long-haul flights to Europe.
There are lots of things to do, including bookish things. If you visit my travel blog and put Singapore into the search box, you will see that I have raised a glass to many a great writer in the Writers Bar at Raffles. (https://hillfamilysoutherndivision.wordpress.com/2005/11/19/day-2-singapore-high-tea-at-raffles-27-9-2005/)
Have a great time!
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By: Lisa Hill on March 6, 2023
at 8:37 pm
Impressive blog. Norfolk Island! We went for a visit Easter 19. I wrote a review of Norfolk Island by Merval Hoare on GR. The highest rating review, actually the only review. We will go back one day, just for the peace and beauty.
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By: fourtriplezed on March 7, 2023
at 9:25 pm
Thank you… it’s a nice record of our travels.
We were a bit worried about Norfolk Island because they were just recently threatened by a cyclone, but fortunately dodged it.
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By: Lisa Hill on March 7, 2023
at 11:18 pm
You mentioned some highly interesting books in your chain there, Lisa. I will definitely look up some of them.
My Six Degrees of Separation took me from Passages to Silent House by Orhan Pamuk.
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By: Marianne @ Let's Read on March 7, 2023
at 10:53 pm
Yours has two of my favourite authors, Anthony Trollope and Orhan Pamuk.
Which reminds me, I have a book of his to read on the TBR!
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By: Lisa Hill on March 7, 2023
at 11:27 pm
Oh, I’m glad you like Orhan Pamuk, he is also one of my favourite authors but I don’t often find people who even know him, well, at least not in the blogger community.
Enjoy your next book by him. I’m still waiting for his next book to be published in paperback.
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By: Marianne @ Let's Read on March 8, 2023
at 9:49 pm
Ah… that’s interesting. I don’t think I’ve ever seen his books in hardback here in Oz. Why would that be, I wonder?
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By: Lisa Hill on March 9, 2023
at 8:26 am
I suppose they’ve learned that it’s not worth letting people wait for three years (like in Germany) to buy the paperback. One of the reasons I read more English than German books because by the time they come out in pb, people have forgotten all about them.
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By: Marianne @ Let's Read on March 9, 2023
at 8:12 pm
Three years? It used to be common here for big name authors to come in h/b for a year and then be available in paperback, but as publishing has become more cutthroat more authors come out direct in p/b than h/b. Though there are exceptions…
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By: Lisa Hill on March 9, 2023
at 9:09 pm
Not always but it’s often about three years. One of the problems in Germany is that books are price-bound, so people have no choice. But I think the longer people have to wait for a pb, the more they borrow the books in the libraries. Or don’t buy them at all. I prefer pb to hb for many reasons, not just because they are cheaper but because they are lighter, easier to carry around and to hold, don’t take up so much space on the shelf etc. etc.
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By: Marianne @ Let's Read on March 9, 2023
at 9:18 pm
I prefer p/b for reading in bed. The Bell of the World, which I just finished reading, is so beautiful I didn’t dare read it in bed because I was afraid to damage it, to crease the pages or bend the covers.
But our P/bs are mostly what they call trade paperbacks so they’re not small and handbag friendly, well, not unless you carry around a tote.
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By: Lisa Hill on March 9, 2023
at 9:28 pm
Oh, I see. You are right, they are definitely not handbag friendly. We don’t even have that category, I never saw them in German. And probably wouldn’t even know what you are talking about if I didn’t know the English editions.
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By: Marianne @ Let's Read on March 9, 2023
at 9:39 pm
My reading on South East Asia is rather sketchy as well, so I’m glad to see your choices this time. I have read Farrell before but wasn’t aware of the Singapore books which will go on to my TBR. Great chain!
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By: mallikabooks15 on March 9, 2023
at 1:45 am
I’ve just finished reading one set in Korea, so I’m on a bi of a SEA roll:)
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By: Lisa Hill on March 9, 2023
at 8:25 am