Asian Saga, The - Book 4

I've read this book three times and it never gets old! It is a fictional account of life in a WW2 Japanese POW camp that is based on James Clavell's own personal experiences during the war. The book center on a conflict between an American and British officer and the British Officer's attempts to thwart the American soldiers efforts to make life as comfortable as he can for himself, even if it comes at the expense of others. This is a great story with very well developed and interesting characters, set against the backdrop of pain and suffering that is only truly understood at the end of the ordeal. ( )

Here's what I wrote after reading in 1988: "A story of survival of Allied POW's in a prison camp in Singapore. Showed starkly that survival, and man's strong instinct for it, is often brutal and lacking compassion. The most memorable character? "The King", the American Corporal who adapted royally to the camp and shrunk to his former self when it dissolved." ( )

Seeing a similarly titled review here, I recalled reading this book in the 1960s (or there about, it was many years ago and there was movie adaptation later).

I remember it highlighted some 'cultural' issues (American:British and British:British) in a closed and desperate environment, but don't remember enough to comment further other than to say it must have been written well enough. The story wasn't the kind I found above average though, or I would remember it better. ( )

The King is an American corporal held as a POW in Singapore's Changi Prison during World War II. He is also a prototype for most of the protagonists who would follow in James Clavell's novels. The King is the ultimate outsider. A man with no home back in the United States, no true friends among the small number of other American POWs, and completely apart from the culture of the other 10,000 POWs who are British and Australian.

But the King survives. And he does so mainly through his wits. In the Darwinian world of the POW camp, the King is the one most able to adapt and rise to the top, outwitting and dominating colonels, majors, captains, and even the Japanese guards. But he also succeeds in making this depraved life in the camp work--not just for his benefit but for others. He is domineering, arrogant, and conniving.
But like a business mogul--a sort of Henry Ford of Changi--he creates a system that provides for the general good. He even manages a privatized system of charity, making sure his unit and others are fed and survive.

Along the way, he makes one genuine friend, Peter Marlowe, a captured upper class RAF pilot, a veteran of the Battle of Britain. This pair makes an unlikely partnership at first that eventually blossoms into true respect and friendship. Until the war ends. Then, the King's world is turned upside down. He is returned to what he was before the war, a nobody.

Because this story is semi-autobiographical (James Clavell was also a prisoner in Changi during World War II), it's safe to assume I think that the final image of the King, which is sympathetic and even admiring, reflects some of Clavell's own notions about what it takes to survive. Supposedly, Peter Marlowe is based in some ways upon Clavell himself. And the King saves Marlowe. If not his life outright, then at least his gangrenous arm, when the King works a business deal to bring medicine needed to save Marlowe.

At book's end, Marlowe makes clear that he has also learned from the King. No longer does he judge people by their social class but by their individual accomplishments. He has come to believe in the idea of equality of opportunity. This belief in merit will define all of Clavell's later heroes, including Blackthorne in Shogun, Dirk Struan of Tai-Pan, and Gai-Jin's Malcolm Struan. All are grizzled survivors. And all of them are traders, businessmen who adapt to the worlds that are alien to them, medieval Japan, 19th century China, and the final years of the Edo Period in Japan.

There is one impossible to ignore metaphor in King Rat. And that is the Rat Farm that the King constructs to sell rat meat to the British officers. The Rat Farm, of course, is Changi in miniature. And when the farm is abandoned once the prisoners leave Changi, we are given a final glimpse of Adam, the ultimate King Rat, who breaks out of his cage and survives. ( )