Rice in Silver Bowls

3.5/5 ( ratings)

All the spellbinding fascination of the Orient, and the romance and drama of the coming together of alien cultures, draw the reader into this richly woman, many-peopled saga of a Western business dynasty in the Far East.

The center of this epic novel is Bangkok, in the golden sunset of foreign influence after the second world war. Here aging Wilhelm Petersen must fight to keep his hold on the commercial empire he has built with the aid of his beautiful and ruthless Oriental wife. Here his nephew, Johannes, after years of exile from Nazi oppression, must choose between the half-caste mistress who has taught him pleasure, and the wife and children coming to join him from Europe. Here Pauline, Wilhelm's proud and fiery daughter, must gamble her happiness in a marriage to an American, hoping his passion for her will continue to dispel the spectre of racial prejudice.

Around these central figures swarm a host of other superbly vivid figures - men and women, old and young, European and American, refugees from war-torn Europe, Siamese and Chinese. They combine to create an unforgettable picture of two worlds in a single city: the self-contained, isolated world of the foreigners, and the complex, deeply rooted oriental world of the foreigners, and the complex, deeply rooted oriental world of those who both serve and mock them, are used by and use them.