The Asiatics : A Novel

Rating:
Summary: A beautiful work of the imagination
Review: Frederic Prokosch wrote this imaginary journey from Lebanon across Asia to Hanoi in 1931 before he ever set foot in Asia. In the novel, the narrator, a young American, travels in catch-as-catch-can manner across the exotic continent. The landscape descriptions are extraordinary. Everywhere he meets with adventure and exotic characters who lament the end of Asia as they know it (this in 1931!). The novel was a bestseller in 1934. I nominate it as the greatest forgotten novel of the 20th Century.