Damon Galgut / Features / Untitled Books

What I'm reading: Housekeeping, and The Siege Of Krishnapur

Damon Galgut

South African author of The Quarry, The Good Doctor and The Impostor.

Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson

This astonishing first novel achieves the vertiginous feat of being utterly compelling while having almost no plot. The story of two sisters growing up in a remote town on a lake in the American North-west, its action is mostly internal and subtle. Ruth and Lucille suffer a series of abandonments, beginning with the spectacular suicide of their unbalanced mother; the series of female relatives who succeed her either die or run off, until they land in the care of their eccentric aunt Sylvie, steeped in her own brand of transience. Men are only a distant presence in this narrative, either dead or useless; the remaining characters, and their prevailing ethos, are profoundly feminine. And the voice of the book itself is unmistakably a woman's voice - tender, gentle, wry and melancholic at the same time. Indeed, the power of the narrative (which is considerable) lies in the quality of this voice; it's been a long time since I have encountered such fine, delicate, exquisite writing. Both tragedy and the ordinary are subsumed in its measured cadences. Crystalline and translucent, the ultimate effect is of a whole world in miniature, set in amber.

The Siege Of Krishnapur by J.G. Farrell

This book has been a big discovery for me. First published in 1973, it has recently been reissued and deserves to find a whole new readership. A fictionalized account of a group of English colonials in the Indian Mutiny of 1857, its real subject is the double-faced nature of civilization and progress. Through the central character, Mr Hopkins (known as the Collector), and the various officials and civilians that surround him, the writer manages to evoke a complex debate about various philosophical issues that hardly ever sounds contrived. None of the mutinous Indian troops feature here, except as an encroaching presence driving inwards; this keeps the focus very tightly on the white characters, who are both tragic and hilarious. As the siege progresses, and the English lines of defence draw ever inward, Mr Hopkins's assembly of mementoes from the Great Exhibition - representing the high-water mark of western development - are used as make-shift ammunition. Clever and engaging, the book's greatest achievement is in its sustained note of irony, which also never excludes the human detail.

Friday, 4 July, 2008