The Bungalow at No.2 Riverside Road
By Ian Clarke
Published by Oceanbooks Ltd, 2012
RRP $19.95
Oceanbooks Ltd is a cooperative publishing company
owned by writers, and for writers, and officially launched as a publishing
house in 2012 according to the website.
Ian Clarke is one of the authors and his profile is featured on the
website. He was born and brought up in
India.
The
Bungalow at No.2 Riverside Road begins around the eve of World War II in a
small Indian town Kirampur, in what was then known as the area of Bengal. It is a Colonial story with a good narrative
drive, straight-forward and conventional but filled with details that
substantiate the author’s very intimate connection with India. The novel doesn’t seem to be making claims to
be anything more than it is, with a forward-moving and very conventional
narrative that keeps you interested, with some nice observations and a
reasonable level of intrigue and drama – if perhaps a wee bit
over-construed.
Peter
Tennant is a Supervisor in an engineering works in Kiampur and when one of his
colleagues Stuart (who also lives at No.2 Riverside Road), dies unexpectedly he
returns to England and visits Stuart’s family.
He meets his future wife and after some level of romantic suspense, she
joins him in India (this is sort of a plot spoiler, but revealed in the blurb
on the back of the book).
Stuart’s death is the beginning and the
backdrop to the ongoing intrigue and drama.
Some of the more dramatic events that unfold (and they are very dramatic
and quite violent at times), are rendered like a good old-fashioned who dunnit style story, so that as a
reader you are kept somewhat distant from the full emotional impact of some
quite awful events. At times I felt a
bit surprised at the deft way death was simply another plot twist and I wanted
more emotional connection.
On
the other hand, the portrayal of Peter’s wife Rachel, who comes out from
England barely knowing her husband, on a kind of romantic adventure, is rather
well done. I liked the delightful detail
of her surprise and disappointment at
finding that No.2 Riverside Road is nowhere near a river, and then, the endless
hours she has to try and fill – getting used to five staff to wait on the household
so that she spends part of her mornings dodging the home-help and keeping out
of their way. I felt that Rachel’s
story worked well along with her encounter at ‘The Club’ with the expats – all
fairly easy to imagine, but nice details and obvious insight… some nice comic
touches.
The
canvas is one of the shifting political allegiances at the time, with
Independence looming and the infighting between the Muslim and Hindu
population. These are rather big topics
and the story focuses more closely on intrigue and drama and corruption at the local
level. You can feel the author’s
obvious affection for India and there is an Anglo Indian and Hindi glossary at
the back.
Where
the author really hits his stride, is in the conversations like this:
Rachel is bored and restless and
decides to head out from the house by herself to post a letter. She’s not meant to leave the house on her
own and wander around. She comes across
a milk shop and can’t resist going in just to do something to buy something,
and decides on a newspaper.
“Oh
yes, madam,’ the young man looked relieved. “You are wanting yesterday’s
newspaper or today’s newspaper?”
“Today’s,”
she said, pleasantly surprised. Normally
the paper did not arrive till the following day.
“Madam,
very sorry, madam.” He shook his
head. ‘For today’s newspaper, you must
kindly return again tomorrow, madam.”
Conversations
like this, between Colonial and Indian characters that reveal the author’s
local knowledge and insight. These
work well and reveal a lot about the era and attitudes. Although, I couldn’t help feeling though that
the author had missed a wonderful opportunity to reveal more of the colour,
drama, and sensory experiences of India.
Nearer the end, Rachel stumbles on a market and this is quite a dramatic
time in the novel, but I wanted to feel and smell and see more. Too, near the end some quite dreadful events
unravel and they are rendered pretty much as narrative drive, rather than the
reader feeling deeply connected to the horror.
If
you are interested in pre-Independence India from a Colonial perspective and
enjoy a conventional whodunit-style read, then this book may well be the one
for you.
Footnote:
Maggie Rainey-Smith (right) is a Wellington writer and regular guest reviewer on Beattie's Book Blog. She is also Chair of the Wellington branch of the NZ Society of Authors.
Footnote:
Maggie Rainey-Smith (right) is a Wellington writer and regular guest reviewer on Beattie's Book Blog. She is also Chair of the Wellington branch of the NZ Society of Authors.
http://acurioushalfhour.wordpress.com/author/maggieraineysmith/
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