The In-Between World of Vikram Lall
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Giller Prize-winner M.G. Vassanji’s The In-Between World of Vikram Lall is a haunting novel of corruption and regret that brings to life the complexity and turbulence of Kenyan society in the last five decades. Rich in sensuous detail and historical insight, this is a powerful story of passionate betrayals and political violence, racial tension and the strictures of tradition, told in elegant, assured prose. The novel begins in 1953, with eight-year-old Vikram Lall a witness to the celebrations around the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, just as the Mau Mau guerilla war for independence from Britain begins to gain strength. In a land torn apart by idealism, doubt, political upheaval and terrible acts of violence, Vic and his sister Deepa must find their place among a new generation. Neither colonists nor African, neither white nor black, the Indian brother and sister find themselves somewhere in between in their band of playmates: Bill and Annie, British children, and Njoroge, an African boy. These are the relationships that will shape the rest of their lives. We follow Vikram through the changes in East African society, the immense promise of the fifties and sixties. But when that hope is betrayed by the corruption and violence of the following decades, Vic is drawn into the Kenyatta government’s orbit of graft and power-broking. Njoroge, his childhood friend, can abandon neither the idealism of his youth nor his love for Vic’s sister Deepa. But neither the idealism of the one nor the passive cynicism of the other can avert the tragedies that await them. The In-Between World of Vikram Lall is a profound and careful examination of one man’s search for his place in the world, with themes that have run through Vassanji’s work: the nature of community in a volatile society, the relations between colony and colonizer, and the inescapable presence of the past. It is also, finally, a deeply personal book speaking to the people who are in the in-between.
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Dette er en av de fem viktigste bøkene jeg har lest, viktig for meg vel og merke. Hovedpersonen, kenyanske Vikram Lall er tenåring i Kenya omtrent da jeg var tenåring i Kenya, og sjelden har jeg kjent meg selv igjen i en person som er så ulik som meg som det jeg gjør med Vikram. Vikram vokser opp i Nakuru, en by i Riftdalen, flytter til Nairobi, og må dra i eksil til Canada og ser tilbake på årene i Nairobi og Nakuru, og spesielt årene i Nairobi er å vandre i livet til trettenårige meg. Jeg får samme assosiasjoner som jeg får til en like fabelaktig bok, En fremmed ved mitt bord, som handler blant annet om Ivos fars år i Nairobi. Den samme alderen, ulik bakgrunn men akkurat de samme vibbene. Viktig.
The title of this novel works well. Vikram Lall was ‘in between' in all aspects of his life. In between cultures (of Indian heritage in Kenya - neither black nor white); in between relationships - the buffer between his forward thinking sister, who falls in love with a black man, and his mother, stuck in her traditional thinking; as a middle man - in between the American financiers laundering the money they are providing to corrupt politicians to prevent Kenya following Tanzania into communism; and also between his parents - his mother holding her ties with India, his father loyal to the British Empire.
The opening paragraph of the book reads: “My name is Vikram Lall. I have the distinction of having been numbered one of Africa's most corrupt men, a cheat of monstrous and reptilian cunning. To me has been attributed the emptying of a large part of my troubled country's treasury in recent years. I head my country's List of Shame...”
From his self imposed exile in Canada, Lall tells of his life story. His childhood as a third generation Kenyan, from a grandfather who came to work building the railway, and settled. His father, running a provision store in Nakuru, a town in the Rift Valley; his childhood friends Njoroge, Bill and Annie; and sister Deepa. In parallel, his tells the story of his exile, his current relationships - with sister Deepa, with Seema, and with Joseph, the son of his childhood friend Njoroge.
The story is set in post WWII Kenya, as the country is poised between British colonialism and independence. The indigenous Kikuyu, rebelling under the guise of the Mau Mau, with Jomo Kenyatta a figurehead in the revolt. The violence against the British, the rise of Kenya as an independent country, and the immediate fall into corruption, dishonesty and the ruthlessness of politics.
The setting, the main political and cultural characters and themes come across as genuine and well researched. The individual fictional tragedies and sadnesses woven through the factual settings are plausible and plot and characters are developed well in an enjoyable read.
The book covers a lot of ground, over a fifty year timespan from Vikram's childhood to the end of his story in what I guess is the 90s. A good read, 3.5 stars for me, rounded up in this case, because I enjoyed how well the true events were woven in.
