PeterUK
February 7th, 2006, 15:49
A friend recently lent me a very tatty paperback version of The Falcon of Siam, a historical adventure story set in 17th-century Siam. He'd been telling me how good it was for some time. The dubious-looking author's name, Axel Aylwen, meant nothing to me and I started reading the 550-odd pages without much enthusiasm, wondering in fact if I'd even finish. However, I was soon sucked into the gripping tale. It recounts the adventures of the Greek-born Constant Phaulkon who arrives in Siam in the 1670s as an employee of the British East India Company. There are all the predictable ingredients - fights, shipwreck, imprisonment, love interest (strictly heterosexual, I'm afraid), courtly intrigue, redemption - but the quality of the writing is a cut above the average for this sort of thing and the book has clearly been well-researched by someone with, I suspect, much love of Thailand and its people. The Siam of that period comes vividly to life through numerous telling details, which don't feel merely tagged on, and the internal politics, in which the Dutch traders as the main European Power and a strong Persian muslim clique figure prominently, are intelligently described. I confess I didn't realise until I did a Google search that Phaulkon was a real historical personage who, astonishingly at a time when Siam was relatively secluded, rose to a position of great influence under King Narai. The book apparently mirrors his exploits fairly accurately. Not surprisingly, it was a bestseller when it appeared in 1988 and there is a sequel called The Falcon Takes Wing which I shall now be looking out for eagerly. I highly recommend the book to anyone who has a curiosity about life in Siam more than 300 years ago or who just enjoys a rattling good read.