From: Biniam Haile \(SWE\) (eritrea.lave@comhem.se)
Date: Sun Jul 27 2008 - 06:19:52 EDT
Towards Asmara By Thomas Keneally
Sunday 27 July 2008
Towards Asmara by Thomas Keneally travels through Eritrea's war of
independence, a conflict that outsiders interpret
Towards Asmara by Thomas Keneally was eventually disappointing. As a
process, the experience was strewn with beauty, vivid images and
arresting phrases. The author, for instance, described desert vegetation
ready to burst into life at the first "rumor" of moisture. The writing
style has a quirky inventiveness that regularly surprises. Where Towards
Asmara eventually breaks down, however, is its inability to take the
reader past the credibility hurdle that spans observer and participant.
Not that one particularly wants to participate! War, famine, being shot
at, placed under house arrest or being tortured are all experiences to
avoid on most working days and Towards Asmara is packed with them. The
journalistic skill with which the book's events are described is
enormous. We are introduced to enough history for context, enough
current events to situate and enough political interests to begin an
understanding.
So if the style is good and the context is engaging, where is the
problem? The answer is in the book's characters. Darcy is an Australian,
a bit mixed up after his ethnically Chinese wife ran off with an
Aborigine jailbird back home. Now she won't even deal with him. There's
Amna, an Eritrean guerrilla who has suffered every imaginable torture at
the hands of the Dergue. There's Julia, a British lady of some class who
is researching women's issues for the Anti-Slavery Society. There's
Masihi, a film maker, and Christine from France who finds a role working
with him.
And here is the problem. Towards Asmara claims the status of an African
novel, but we never experience any aspect of the plot from within an
African or local psyche. The place, its people and the events that
unfold there are seen from without, via an external interpreter's
filter. The immediacy of war, ambush, famine, conflict becomes lost in
the second nature of the characters' experience. Also, the complications
of the personal lives of these observers neither complement nor contrast
with the exigencies of fighting for a cause. Eventually, everything
seems unlikely, not least the very involvement of those involved with
the events that unfold.
At one point, there was a suggestion that Darcy's ethnic minority wife
back home in Australia might be offering an intellectual parallel with
the Eritrean struggle. She, an apparent outsider, was allying herself
and choosing to travel with an indigenous oppressed race, just like her
estranged husband was doing with the Eritreans of Ethiopia. But that
idea fizzled out, thankfully, because it could never have been
sustained.
Towards Asmara is a thoroughly enjoyable read. At times the style and
language are a complete joy. But, when it avoids polemic, it approaches
caricature. The reader, like its foreign observer participants, is left
out of the understanding and experience the book promised to deliver.
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/towards-asmara-by-thomas-keneally.html
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