Web of retreat

Faber, #15.99

CARYL PHILLIPS has armed his sixth novel with three narratives and a cast of characters who disappear for stretches, as in the case of the narrator who is missing from most of the novel.

Yet the most surprising aspect is how the narrative sustains itself, how it relentlessly plays questions of identity and betrayal against each other, building the themes of displacement and survival in the face of persecution and treachery towards an ending that in many ways is dissatisfying, yet is also in keeping with the tone and dimensions he has established.

Phillips is best when playing with the strands of memory and history that show how we cling to aspects of the past which continue to torment us, how we become our own jailers, seemingly condemned to accept the judgment of others, no matter how systematic or explicit the torture; how questions of race and identity are established.

The rituals of the past and the perpetrators of anguish continue to haunt us, even when a kind of freedom or even release has been won. We see the past as present, accepting judgments which are no longer apposite to our conditions.

Rather than exploring the potential he offers with Stephan, the narrator who is a volunteer worker for a Jewish aid organisation, the narrative quickly shifts to Eva, Stephan's niece, a black Jew, whose life forms the spine of the novel. This is where the proximity with truth and detail shift, where Phillips cannot prevent an occasional nudge to make sure we understand the awfulness of her position.

We find her as a survivor of the Nazi camps, covered in lice, teeth missing, her body withered. She moves from past to present, gradually revealing her partial imprisonment in her home and her arbitrary survival. The picture is one of maturity being snuffed out by the society which condemns her because of colour and race. She dreams of finding freedom in America.

Eva's story is interleaved with an account of the persecution and death of three Jews in a town near Venice. Midway through the book, these are joined by the narrative of an African general, living in fifteenth-century Venice.

This narrative seems misplaced, never establishes itself and in places is almost didactic. The effect of the new narrative is one of interruption, rather than continuation.

These characters are eventually revealed as Othello and Desdemona, but only after this has become obvious. Phillips leaves their implications to be digested, abandoning the story before Iago's entrance, presumably in an attempt to show successful integration. There is little sense of impending tragedy, nor are we given more information than what we already know.

It also makes it difficult to return to the real tragedy of Eva, surviving in a Jewish camp in Israel, courted by a British soldier who wants to take her to England, and haunted by the presence of her past. This blighted past, her dark and careless existence, the way she adjusts to her new freedom, the absurdity of everyday rituals and conversation are the strengths of a novel which loses direction by going too far.