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The Prisoner of Paradise by Romesh Gunesekera (view source)
Revision as of 10:27, 3 February 2012
, 10:27, 3 February 2012no edit summary
Shipped into this cauldron is young Lucy Gladwell, arriving to live with her aunt and uncle after the death of her parents in England. Her aunt, Betty, is a paragon of decorum, concerned with what is right and fitting for a young girl and running her plantation house with some tenderness towards her servants, but traditional in her views. She and her husband, George, are used to the colonial life, having lived in the West Indies previously, where George's racist views have been forged. Also recently arrived on the island is the somewhat incongruous presence of a Ceylonese Prince, his brother and their young translator, Don Lambodar. The prince is in a British enforced exile and is only partly a prisoner. This appears to be based on a factual exiled prime minister, although his elevation here to a fictional prince adds glamour but also makes the story a little too fairy tale. However, the focus is not on the prince, but on the young translator and his feelings for Lucy.
Ostensibly it's a conventional story of boy meets girl, boy cannot express himself, girl hated boy, and will they won't they resolve this issue all set against a backdrop of social tension and unease. There's even the good old fall literary fall back of nature, here in the form of a tropical hurricane, to bring things to a head. It's the issues of social tension though that, for me, made it a slightly difficult story to get sucked into. Gunesekera covers a lot of issues, which undoubtedly would have been issues of the day, but there are just so many things going on in the background that this distracts slightly from the central story.
It feels like a very old fashioned book. Partly of course this is due to the 1825 setting, but also due to the writing style which can be described as 'flowery' - both metaphorically and literally as Gunesekera is much concerned with the flora of the island which is also something of a melting pot of influences.
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[[Category:Historical Fiction]]