There are so many novels and so few of them are worth our time. I searched by topic (wanted something on South East Asia), read reviews, then tried a few each day, searching. Nothing is really badly written these days — kudos to the editing prowess of the industry. But most are shallow. Most are boring. Some are wrong. I could not have written any of them, I would have been too ashamed of myself to write them. I was ashamed reading, ashamed that someone disrespected my intelligence. Poor art offends.
Then this, a clear stand out. Probably one in a million.
Beautiful language revealing the author’s uncommonly sharp mind. Each chapter written like a stand alone jewel, with a beautiful closing sentence which resonates in the silence, makes you put down the book and stare, opens a meditation, like a flower. And the detail: places, foods, architecture, clothing, nick-nacks, mosquitoes: that’s how it feels to be there. This is it.
An interesting feature, whether by choice or accident: front chapters are written in first person by a rum fellow relating in jest the hilarity of his life. The later part in third person, revealing him to be self-centered and cruel and ugly. Not an uncommon experience. One is better off knowing people superficially.
In the middle, perhaps an unnecessary longeur, two women decaying unto death, punished by the hero for the sins of one of them. Decay and death described too minutely bore rather than shock.
Looking through her oeuvre, I longed to see more historical Ceylon. I didn’t find it. But I found what seems to be autobiographical “relationship-novel”. I am not a relationship-novel kind of guy, but this one I want to read. I want to know what it is like to be a sensitive, uncommonly intelligent woman in love.
One always hopes, though, sadly, the rare combination of sensitivity and intelligence does not guarantee insight. Insight requires something more on top.
Let’s see.
Michelle de Kretse, The Hamilton Case
Oltre Mare 