Book Review: Fan-Tan (Marlon Brando and Donald Cammell)

I don't know what caught my eye first--the exotic cover art, or Marlon Brando's name. Yes, Marlon Brando, the Hollywood legend, co-wrote a book with struggling filmmaker Donald Cammell. My curiosity compelled me to read their adventure for myself.

Anatole Annie Doultry is a convict in a Hong Kong prison, who bets everything he has on cockroach races. When he saves the life of another prisoner, he inevitably finds a way out and crosses paths with
Madame Lai Choi San--a sultry and mean gangster. When these characters team up, they take to the high seas with a plan to a ship-load of silver and treasure.

What's more interesting than the actual novel may be the history of its inception and writing. As far back as the 70s, Brando and Cammell hit it off well and brainstormed potential movie ideas together. There is likely an alternate universe where Fan-Tan exists as a gritty 70s thriller (they try to sell this as a "swashbuckling adventure," but I get more of a film noir vibe out of this). They decided to try their luck penning the story as a book first, then maybe adapting it to film. A series of disagreements and conflict inevitably caused the project to remain shelved until 2004, just after Brando's passing. What's printed now is a patchwork made from Cammell's and Brando's unfinished drafts, but pieced together by the editor. I have a feeling the actual text is mostly Cammell's work, with Brando supplying the ideas (especially behind the character, for whom Brando could have easily been typecast).

The slapdash quality of the text may not help much, but I have a stronger feeling that Cammell and Brando never invested much time in honing their novel-writing or editing skills. The result is a 230-something page tome that feels like 230,000 pages. Most pages are spent effusing detail and purple prose on the reader--so much that it kills narrative momentum. When action actually happens, it's presented very dryly in long passages of unengaging commentary. Personality exists in bursts, but the book's overall voice is stiff and distant. The book even jumps between points-of-view without breaks (headhopping).

What little story exists is made even less palatable with the characters. Maybe they'd be more likable on a big screen, but on paper they just come off as mean, angst-ridden, manipulative, selfish, and racist. The main character comes off as misogynist, especially given what happens in the end (and yet, it also comes off as wish-fulfillment--I'm not sure if it's disgusting or laughable). There are moments where Annie just starts raging out and cursing people out, and I never really understood where it all came from--it's like, chill out dude. Moments like those, all the sex and womanizing, the gritty tone, and the run-down settings betray the authors' intents to be edgelords, but it all falls flat given that I can't really root for any of these characters, and their overall adventure amounts to little more than a gross punchline.

It's a shame, because there are moments that work. I just don't feel that the book was refined enough to work--the text bored me, and the story it tells is a stale, shallow one populated with unlikable characters. Don't let Brando's name (or ego) fool you, this is a pretty droll affair. It's a shame given the amount of collaborative passion (and research, they really went all out) that was poured into the work. Some things probably need to remain buried for a reason, although less-picky readers might consider this buried treasure.

3/10