The House of Doors

“‘Fact and fiction are so intermingled in my work that now, looking back on it, I can hardly distinguish one from the other.’ —W. Somerset Maugham.”

This epigraph, a quote from the real-world Maugham, emblematizes the relationship between fact and fiction in The House of Doors and the theme of Intertwining Memory, History, and Storytelling. Tan announces to his audience that history and fiction will become so intertwined in the novel so as to be inextricable to one another. This both presents the story at face value—if it is impossible to deduce the truth, then there is no sense in attempting to do so—and casts perpetual doubt over the veracity of any event contained in the story.

“We showed that German writer around when he was in Penang—what was his name, dear? Hesse, wasn’t it? Yes. Hermann Hesse.”

Robert highlights several qualities about European society in colonial Penang and the colonial mindset. His offhandedness suggests haughtiness, as if visitations from literary figures is common or expected. For a German author like Hesse to be shown around by an Englishman (two groups that experienced lingering animosity in the post-World War I-era) suggests the insularity of European society in colonial Penang, in which white Europeans, regardless of national origin, were conferred “insider” status, as opposed to “outsider” Asians.