Saint Jack

Rating:
Summary: Early Theroux That Holds Up Nicely
Review: Below his somewhat crusty exterior, Jack Flowers cares - sometimes deeply - about the "flotsam and jetsam" he bumps up against - on the streets, in the bar, in his brothel. He really won't show it ... nor, perhaps, will he even admit it to himself ... but he does. And he has "all the time in the world" to do so, in his own backhanded way.

Paul Theroux cut some of his teeth on this early novel, and it holds up remarkably well on second reading. Somewhat acerbic, sometimes touching, "Saint Jack" is a true pleasure.

Rating:
Summary: Great Novel of Singapore
Review: Fine, absorbing literary novel follows the exploits of expatriate American stuck in Singapore because he has neither the ability nor the luck to go anywhere else. The novel has a nice atmosphere which reminded me of Graham Greene, Saul Bellow and Gore Vidal, and effectively evoked the sleazy underbelly of Singapore that still exists in that now outwardly squeaky-clean, but sinister city-state. I read this book while living in S'pore and was surprised how many attitudes and actions of the eastern and western characters were reminded me of the Singapore of today. So I felt the book worked in two ways, as a great, entertaining read for anyone interested in just a plain good book, and also as a fine evocation of the eternal aspects of Singapore. Saint Jack was also filmed - the film version is interesting because it captured the old colonial look of S'pore before the current regime of Harry Lee Kuan Yew tore most of it down, replacing it with souless concrete tower blocks. Yet the sleazy atmosphere remains, and comes out at night especially. Theroux's Hong Kong novel, *Kowloon Tong,* captures perfectly that other Far Eastern city state at the time of the 1997 Handover (I was living in HK at the time) and is also recommended, both as a fine read and as a fine description of the place. For a good non-fiction account of Singapore, try Stan Sesser's *The Lands of Charm and Cruelty,* with a great essay on S'pore and "the fear that even the best educated Singaporeans feel towards their government."

Rating:
Summary: Life in Singapore in the Sixties.
Review: Paul Theroux has consistently written about 'different' people. His first, WALDO, was so weird I had to write to tell him so. The main character in this one is no exception. He is a rouge, as far from a saint as one could be, who owns Dunroamin and promotes the low life: "If you've got a certain attitude toward cats, you're queer they say" is an example of his brilliant dialogue.

I wondered just what ethics could possibly 'burden' him. Theroux always did have a strange sort of ethics of his own, at least in his writings, fiction and otherwise. He was not one to turn his back on a pretty woman of any persuasion.

This was not my favorite of his interminable collection of which I own eleven. He has a strange sense of worldliness but is good at expressing himself. He was my favorite writer until Stephen Donaldson, Terry Brooks, and Sharyn McCrum came along to follow in his footsteps.

He is a master at describing the people and places he saw in his travel books. Some of his fiction is hard to understand, THE BLACK HOUSE being a good representation of his strangeness.