“Forgetting is an art like other arts, It needs dedication and practice.”
The title of the first page of this book is ‘SAD CASES, GOOD SOULS’ 1970′ and just below it on the left corner of the page, I had written, in feeble black, by a graphite pencil, a date on which I started reading this novel. It is 12 September 2012, and after that, it is written ‘to the desert’, again by me using the same pencil.
I remember I had bought this novel just before my train journey to the desert land of India and most parts of this book were read by me during that journey. This is a well-written novel, indeed very well written. I had moved ahead with this novel due to its exquisite writing style. I am writing this review today because after rereading In a Free State, a few days ago, the plot of this novel flashed in my mind because a part of it is also set there in Africa like that of ‘In a free state.’
This entire story moves around the theme of “good souls and bad cases”. It’s an intelligent novel with the family saga of Ralph and his wife Anna Eldred. They live in England but later move to Africa as missionaries, not a religious one but for doing some good work only. Their difficulties in South Africa and then they’re getting drawn into the politics there and getting engaged in the constant conflict, all this has been perfectly woven in words by Mantel. There happens, with the family such things which ultimately shape their rest of life.
The characters of the novel are made really strong. Apart from Anna and Ralph, their son is strongly portrayed. Emma, sister of Ralph, who is unmarried but is having an affair with a married man, is also a character with command. When her lover Felix dies, she goes to a shrine, there is, a vast book on the porch, its pages ruled into columns. A notice promises there. “All whose names are inscribed in the book will be prayed for at the shrine.” But She does not write her name or name of her lover, rather she puts down the name of Ralph and his family!
Then returning from there, lines of poetry run through her head, those are insistent lines, stuffed with a crude menace.
“The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
A change in climate
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.”
This book leaves us with some very difficult questions.
Questions about faith and betrayal!
Questions about injustice and bereavement!
I loved the way this book is written, in quite an impactful and elegant manner!
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