Pilgrim Jones has done something shameful: crashed her car into a bus stop and killed three young children, although she has no memory of doing so. Did she swerve to avoid the dog and lose control of the vehicle or, consumed by anger and self-pity after being dumped by her human-rights lawyer husband, was she reckless? Certainly her neighbours in the small Swiss town of Arnau consider her a child murderer and, despite the sympathy of the police, she realises she has to get away. With no particular plan, she flies to Tanzania and, dropping out of a safari, pitches up in Magulu, a shabby village on the road to nowhere, with one bus out a week. Here she finds herself a world away from her former travels with her ex-husband, from her role as a diplomatic wife. Here, where the doctor has no medicine, the policeman no power to uphold the law, violence or the threat of it is ever presence at the periphery of her vision (p82/83):
But they would kill him, too, without hesitation, hang him from a meat hook, hacking him to pieces with a machete. They are bound together, this merchant of violence and his victims, as if they need each other; as if, like a snake eating its tail, there’s no distinction. Tom would say to me that violence becomes an identity, how people see themselves in the world, and to ask them to stop being violent is asking them to erase themselves.
It’s as dismal picture of Africa as depicted in Christopher Hope’s Jimfish, as far from the tourist safaris as one might get, with an element of magical menace thrown in, in the form of the discovery of a box of albino body parts that even terrorise Dr Dorothea. Gamely, Pilgrim offers to take them away and moves on to Tanga on the coast, where she meets fellow American Gloria who is channelling her grief at the death of her own wayward son into creating a home for AIDS orphans. Gloria seems keen to help Pilgrim, until she discovers what she’s done. Once again, the supernatural element creeps in as Pilgrim is confronted by a fragment of fabric from the dead girl’s dress in a local shrine. Is someone trying to frighten her or is this more dark magic at work?
I found this an engaging, engrossing and disturbing “grown-up” novel, somewhat reminiscent of JM Coetzee’s Disgrace (which I’m about to reread for my book group) in its themes of white guilt and shame alongside black violence linked to poverty. But it’s a hard one to review as I’m not sure I really understand what it’s about! It’s extra complicated by the move away from Pilgrim’s personal story in the second half to follow the perspectives of various other characters whose lives have intersected with hers. It’s a structure that would be frowned upon in creative writing courses – and I personally wouldn’t generally appreciate that belated switch in point of view – but it works here, especially as, through these other characters, Pilgrim’s fate unfolds.
But this wider perspective shows us that the shame is not only Pilgrim’s but belongs to all of us in the privileged west. Perhaps this is most clearly expressed by a very minor character, the police inspector’s wife (p222):
Ingrid had recently told him that horror was inconvenient, coming at you on the TV news before dinner. You resent it, she’d said, and you feel bad resenting it, and wonder what you should do to not feel bad. But the only solution is to undergo some kind of fundamental change in how you live your life, to become a doctor with Médecins Sans Frontieres or a social worker for abused kids. At least stop buying goods made in Chinese sweatshops. It’s so big, she’d continued, so impossible and awkward, and the easiest thing – therefore – is to feed the cat instead or make a note to buy more washing powder. And we always do the easiest thing, don’t we?
Faced with these dilemmas, there appear to be only three roles available: victim, perpetrator and rescuer. As we cycle between them, they seem to merge into each other, as if they’re all the same. Shame is Melanie Finn’s second novel (appearing eleven years after her debut and one, I’m sure her fans would agree, well worth waiting for) published by Weidenfeld and Nicholson from whom I received my review copy. It’s a powerful book I’d heartily recommend.
It’s as dismal picture of Africa as depicted in Christopher Hope’s Jimfish, as far from the tourist safaris as one might get, with an element of magical menace thrown in, in the form of the discovery of a box of albino body parts that even terrorise Dr Dorothea. Gamely, Pilgrim offers to take them away and moves on to Tanga on the coast, where she meets fellow American Gloria who is channelling her grief at the death of her own wayward son into creating a home for AIDS orphans. Gloria seems keen to help Pilgrim, until she discovers what she’s done. Once again, the supernatural element creeps in as Pilgrim is confronted by a fragment of fabric from the dead girl’s dress in a local shrine. Is someone trying to frighten her or is this more dark magic at work?
I found this an engaging, engrossing and disturbing “grown-up” novel, somewhat reminiscent of JM Coetzee’s Disgrace (which I’m about to reread for my book group) in its themes of white guilt and shame alongside black violence linked to poverty. But it’s a hard one to review as I’m not sure I really understand what it’s about! It’s extra complicated by the move away from Pilgrim’s personal story in the second half to follow the perspectives of various other characters whose lives have intersected with hers. It’s a structure that would be frowned upon in creative writing courses – and I personally wouldn’t generally appreciate that belated switch in point of view – but it works here, especially as, through these other characters, Pilgrim’s fate unfolds.
But this wider perspective shows us that the shame is not only Pilgrim’s but belongs to all of us in the privileged west. Perhaps this is most clearly expressed by a very minor character, the police inspector’s wife (p222):
Ingrid had recently told him that horror was inconvenient, coming at you on the TV news before dinner. You resent it, she’d said, and you feel bad resenting it, and wonder what you should do to not feel bad. But the only solution is to undergo some kind of fundamental change in how you live your life, to become a doctor with Médecins Sans Frontieres or a social worker for abused kids. At least stop buying goods made in Chinese sweatshops. It’s so big, she’d continued, so impossible and awkward, and the easiest thing – therefore – is to feed the cat instead or make a note to buy more washing powder. And we always do the easiest thing, don’t we?
Faced with these dilemmas, there appear to be only three roles available: victim, perpetrator and rescuer. As we cycle between them, they seem to merge into each other, as if they’re all the same. Shame is Melanie Finn’s second novel (appearing eleven years after her debut and one, I’m sure her fans would agree, well worth waiting for) published by Weidenfeld and Nicholson from whom I received my review copy. It’s a powerful book I’d heartily recommend.
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