In the process of discovering the answers to these questions, Quin also discovers the best and worst of human nature. Whittemore did not just take his CIA experience and create a novel out of it. Instead, he used that experience to create a surreal mélange of images and characters in which each element is lucid in its madness. Quin's displays recurring themes of tenderness and love, as in scenes between a former prostitute and a Japanese general. But Whittemore also never flinches from describing the worst horrors of war and of human savagery .. the tome sets in motion a series of events that was to culminate in the largest funeral procession held in Asia since the thirteenth century. Good Reads. Quin’s Shanghai Circus is without a doubt an impressive work of story telling, although the novel is set mostly in Japan and China, Whittemore’s approach more resembles the intricacies of the most ornate Islamic scripts, in which one wonders how anyone could manage to unravel a text from the twists and coils and overlapping strokes. It’s not surprising that he shifted his setting to the Middle East after this book. According to his biographies, Whittemore spent some years working in the Far East for the CIA.
Link.
