Recent first novels
Victoria Clarke
The Last King of Scotland by Giles Foden is a gripping tale of tropical corruption, 'a history of blood, misery and foolishness' set in Uganda during the despotic reign of Idi Amin. It charts the gradual moral decline of a Scottish doctor. Nicholas Garrigan becomes, unexpectedly, Amin's personal physician and thus begins an unwitting collaboration which through his spiritual inertia destroys him in both the world's and the reader's eyes.
Garrigan arrives in Kampala in January 1971, just in time to witness the overthrow of Obote and the emergence of Amin, wel- comed as a saviour. He is posted to a rural town where the expatriates live in a con- crete enclave attached to the medical clinic. Life unwinds peacefully for Garrig- an, punctuated only by curious and exotic African diseases, but soon an ominous series of unrelated events disturb the calm. Journalists disappear, and the Asian com- munity is victimised. None of this dents our hero's consciousness, immersed as he is in an affair with Sara, an Israeli doctor and Mossad agent.
The fateful meeting between Garrigan and Amin takes place after Idi is injured in a minor collision near the clinic. The doc- tor is instantly fascinated by Amin and they pass a surreal while in conversation on the roadside sipping Napoleon brandy. Shortly afterwards, Idi requests his transfer to Kampala and the relentless decay of Garrigan's soul begins. 'He who dips his finger into the honey does not want to dip it once only,' as Idi so astutely points out.
The expatriate world of Kampala is beautifully recreated with all its tiresome social idiosyncrasies, and it is against this background of pettiness that Nicholas fails to gauge the level of his increasing involve- ment, morally, socially, and professionally, with Amin's regime. While working part- time at the Mulago Hospital he is witness to various physical abuses and is aware of the rumours that abound. He even has first-hand experience of Amin's viciousness when one of his wives is discovered in an affair.
Despite this, Nicholas persuades himself to turn a blind eye. Meanwhile the British embassy attempts to interest him in a plot to kill Amin, but by now he is so deeply entrenched that he gives a classic Nurem- berg reply in his defence: 'Look, it's not like I'm going out killing people. There are hundreds of Ugandans in the same position as me.' When the regime is finally over- thrown Garrigan has been thoroughly com- promised and is vilified, to his amazement, upon his return to England. His belief in himself is merely shaken, not stirred.
This is a wonderful read, beautifully writ- ten, every description drenched with a deep sense of Africa. Giles Foden's first novel is a work of art.
Dorit Rabinyan is a young Israeli author whose Persian Brides is set amongst the Jewish community in a small Persian village at the beginning of the century. The novel centres on the women of the village, their hopes, their dreams and the harsh realities of their existence. The plot revolves around Nazie, an 11-year-old orphan betrothed to her cousin Moussa whom she cannot marry until she has her first period.
Bad a woman's life might be, but far worse is the plight of an unmarried orphan girl, and Nazie's only hope is her pimply cousin. The tale is told in a series of flash- backs and through gossip. Nazie's cousin Flora has been abandoned by her husband, a travelling cloth peddler with an alarming attitude to honesty. Flora is fat and jolly and much space is allotted to descriptions of her rolling, shining flesh, sparkling eyes and 'welling laugh and snorts'. The actual story of Persian Brides is short and simple: one abandoned wife seeking her traitorous husband, and one frightened child seeking marriage as a security blanket.
Upon this frame, as in a fairy tale, are hung the stories of village folklore — the local whore giving birth to a two-headed bastard, the ignorant girl and her equally ignorant husband who have trouble in bed. Food, too, plays an enormous part. Nazie is always kneading, stuffing and chopping with her thin, malnourished fingers, preparing feasts for her well-built relations. This is a really enjoyable novel, although it left this reviewer deeply grateful for the feminist movement.
Marcelle Theroux's A Stranger in the Earth is an amusing if somewhat over-the- top satire set in south London. It follows the fortunes of Horace Littlefair, a country bumpkin thrown upon the mercies of the big city after the death of his political-activist grandfather. Needless to say, his naivety and good nature allow him to cruise through the dilemmas he encounters without the qualms which assail the more decadent characters in the novel.
Finally, his derring-do wins over even the hardened news journalist of his dreams. Horace works for a local paper where he starts to cover the plight of the urban fox. This cause is soon taken up by the local MP who turns it to his own advantage with a cynicism thrown into sharp relief by Horace's good-heartedness. Events escalate to an extraordinary and topical conclusion. This is an amusing first novel but slightly tiring in its relentless Pursuit of the point, and it still has a slight feeling of the school magazine about it.
The Luneburg Variations by Paulo Maurensig centres around the chessboard. The plot and characters are elegantly drawn, their actions inexorable, and the finale is inevitable. The emotions and dramas of the war years, the concentration camps and the subsequent relentless pur- suit of the persecutor are set forth in a pre- cise and even fashion. This is a beautifully crafted and absorbing book which, despite the control, manages both to terrify and move.
Previous page
