The Singapore Grip by J. G. Farrell

First published: 1978

Type of work: Historical novel

Time of work: 1938-1942, and 1976

Locale: Singapore

Principal Characters:

• Walter Blackett, the protagonist, co-owner of the firm of Blackett and Webb
• Monty Blackett, Walter’s son and heir apparent
• Joan Blackett, Walter’s daughter, a bumptious femme fatale
• Matthew Webb, Joan’s intended husband and the son of Walter’s partner, an idealist
• Major Brendan Archer, a well-meaning but ineffectual retired British officer
• Vera Chiang, a social activist, Matthew Webb’s mistress

The Novel

Framed between an introductory sequence set in 1938 and a briefer, rather enigmatic, concluding scene set in 1976, The Singapore Grip details the single most important event to befall the British Empire in the Asian theater of World War II: the surrender of Singapore to Japanese forces. It does so with a breathtaking wealth of detail and in a tone the persistent irony of which has the effect of undercutting the narrative’s epic propensities.

The story focuses on the Blackett family, whose head is Walter, an ambitious, successful, avaricious, blinkered entrepreneur, co-owner of the firm of Blackett and Webb. In the opening sequence, everything in the garden is lovely, literally (not the least of J. G. Farrell’s accomplishments is the care with which he attends to local exotic flora and fauna and the rich, rather lotos-eating atmosphere they generate) and metaphorically. The metaphorical sense conveys ease, abundance, leisure, and freedom to do whatever one pleases, in either the economic or the political sphere. This lull before the storm is a subtle demonstration of how seductive is the grip in which the deracinated British imperialists are held. Before Singapore fell to the invading forces of an enemy empire, the Japanese, the Blacketts and their numerous ilk had hopelessly fallen for it.

Rather than take an explicitly economic or political view of his material, however, Farrell chooses to regard it from the standpoint of personality. Thus, much of the early action centers on Joan Blackett and her search for a husband. After a number of misadventures which embarrass the family and reveal Joan to be headstrong and silly, an end to her marital quest is thought to have materialized in the person of Matthew Webb, the son of Walter’s partner. A marriage between Joan and Matthew would make still more dynastic the grip exerted by the firm on the economic advantages provided by Singapore and its Malayan hinterland. Just as it seems that timid and self-conscious Matthew is going to be forced into an unwanted alliance with Joan, he surprisingly rejects her. Such a catastrophic and unexpected reversal of fortune neatly presages the rather larger historical reversals which are in the offing.

The world’s recalcitrance, typified by the failure of Walter and Joan’s marriage plot, becomes an increasingly familiar feature of the Blackett experience as the Japanese forces draw nearer to their beloved Eden. Monty, Walter’s son and heir apparent to the firm, proves to be a tiresome wastrel, incapable of behaving responsibly or of identifying with his father’s ethic of aggrandizement. The British community as a whole, including the armed forces, show themselves not so much incapable of protecting their interests as believing that those interests are threatened—Major Archer’s World War I experiences enable him to attempt the organization of rudimentary civil defense measures. Their ill-equipped efforts, however, denote the lack of realism which pervades the doomed colony.

As the inevitability of Japanese victory grows clear, it also becomes clear that the Blackett creed is at the end of its tether and that those who espouse it are being required to witness the end of their world. The creed is one of complacent omnipotence, and not surprisingly, the sudden, merciless exposure of its inadequacies by the enemy’s superior imperial drive has the effect of denuding the British incumbents of their pretensions. As they lose their grip on Singapore and are driven from their temporary paradise, they are shown in the tawdry, pathetic colors of their cupidity.

The Characters

Given his position as head of the import-export firm of Blackett and Webb, Walter, as a character, provides access to a wide social range, which in addition to being the basis of the novel’s panoramic exposition of Singapore, enables the reader to think of him as the embodiment of the British Imperial adventure in the colony. Such a view is facilitated by the fact that Walter seems to have a comprehensively secure grip on the colony’s main raison d’Etre, which is trade. True, he may not have been as opportunistic as he should have been in cornering the increasingly important palm-oil trade. Nevertheless, he personifies the self-satisfied middleman, who merely by positioning himself advantageously can reap the benefits of the world’s natural wealth.

His very success, however, blinds him to the possibility of decline. One of his main objections to the Japanese threat is that it will force the postponement of the parade planned to mark the centenary of Blackett and Webb. When Walter recognizes that the writing is indelibly on the wall, he even considers collaborating with the Japanese, so unwilling is he to forgo the round of greed, exploitation, and petty tyranny which his presence unwittingly but inescapably creates.

Joan, deprived by her sex rather than by her ability from taking advantage of the characteristics of her father, expresses them instead in a more fragile and intimate context than that of the marketplace, namely in personal relations. Her unquestioning belief in her own superiority and desirability leads her to manipulate and exploit those who respond to her allure. Her behavior, which evidently intends to place men in her clutches as tightly as her father grips Singapore, provides a deftly ironic commentary on the moral values which colonialism confers on its practitioners. Joan’s ruthless struggle to ensure that she and her unsatisfactory husband escape Singapore is an apt expression of her self-serving commitment to the imperial cause, which in turn proves to be a powerful reminder that she is every inch her father’s daughter.

In the light of Joan’s rather predatory sexuality and its relationship to the novel’s overall sense of engrossment, it is easy to see why a marriage between her and Matthew Webb would have been a disaster. If Joan personifies an overripe materialism, Matthew represents an undernourished idealism. Educated in the England of the 1930’s, when facile socialistic solutions to the world’s woes were in vogue, he arrives in Singapore anxious to acquire documentary evidence to fit his preordained view of the reality of colonial existence. Eager and ardent as he is to make a difference in Singapore, he finds that the social structure is such that it is impossible to convert his idealistic analyses into effective action. Yet, although Matthew has something of the buffoon about him and seems a prototype of Major Archer, in whose amateur fire brigade he eventually serves with distinction, the young man is not entirely a lost cause. He is treated with a gentler, more sympathetic irony, on account of his weaknesses, in contrast to the rather more barbed attitude to the Blacketts, which they evidently earn by the insufferable uselessness of their strength.

One reason to see Matthew Webb in a soft light is his connection with the deceptively exotic Eurasian Vera Chiang. Vera is, ironically, discovered and naively be*iended by Joan on a trip to Shanghai, even though it is clear that Vera is involved in that city’s volatile left-wing politics. The friendship continues for a time when Vera materializes in Singapore. She embodies a wave of the future contrary to that of the advancing Japanese, and irrespective of her political outlook (which remains undeveloped in the course of the novel) earns the reader’s respect for attempting to function in a directly practical and human manner, nursing those who fall afoul of the invasion. Although The Singapore Grip is strictly averse to criticism in an obvious sense by taking sides, it seems impossible not to believe that the alliance between Matthew and Vera is rather more hopeful than anything the Blacketts can offer. It is also important to note, however, that their relationship does not come to full fruition. It merely sounds the possibility of hope; it cannot act out that possibility.

Critical Context

The posthumous publication in 1981 of an unfinished novel by J. G. Farrell entitled The Hill Station prevents a neat encapsulation of his major work. Had The Hill Station not appeared, it would have been possible to deal with The Singapore Grip as the culmination of a trilogy of historical novels begun by Troubles (1970) and including The Siege of Krishnapur (1973). Nevertheless, these three novels are the major works of an important talent and have perhaps been unfairly overshadowed by some other contemporary end-of-the-empire sagas. It should be noted, however, that these works were well received in England, The Siege of Krishnapur winning in 1973 the prestigious and lucrative Booker Prize, for which The Singapore Grip was a runner-up.

As may be inferred from the titles of Farrell’s three most important novels, their setting is the British Empire (Troubles is set in Ireland). This setting, however, while conveyed with an impressive depth of research and a consummate eye for telling detail, is ultimately the mere backdrop for more challenging considerations, mainly having to do with the spectacle, existentially considered, of man inscribing himself in time, of man the historical animal. Seen in the light of such considerations, Farrell emerges as one of the more interesting English novelists of the 1970’s. Not only does his work touch a cultural nerve which was extremely sensitive, given the amount of literary stimulus it received during that decade; in addition it makes a distinctive contribution to one of the most interesting trends of the day: the rediscovery of the historical novel. Although, largely because his career was tragically terminated, Farrell cannot be called a major writer, The Singapore Grip is undoubtedly a major work of postwar English fiction, to the conventional tradition of which it is refreshingly eccentric.

Bibliography

Binns, Ronald. J. G. Farrell, 1986.

Fussell, Paul. Review in The New York Times Book Review. LXXX (May 27, 1979), p. 8.

Porterfield, Christopher. Review in Time. CXIII (May 28, 1979), p. 88.

Prescott, P. S. Review in Newsweek. XCIII (May 7, 1979), p. 92.