|
In the country of menShelf life: Looking at secular booksIN THE COUNTRY OF MEN When so many of the world’s Christians are living as a despised and persecuted minority, and when the media at large has little concern to comment on their fate, it is good to find a novel which brings the horrors of an oppressive, persecuting regime to our attention. While the characters in this novel are not Christians, and are persecuted for their political beliefs not their faith, we still see into the darkness of a violent, totalitarian state. The scene is Tripoli, 1979, and the story is recollected by a grown man in exile looking back on a summer of fear and betrayal. Slooma’s materially comfortable existence is already marred by his alcoholic mother’s over-intense love and his father’s distance. He is caught between hatred and admiration for his father and an overwhelming desire to protect his mother, who was betrayed into this marriage at the age of 14 for the crime of holding hands with a boy. Slooma‘s plight is affecting; told to be the man of the house when his father is away, he listens to his mother’s drunken confessions. No guidance or real protection or intimacy is offered him. He is made to grow up further when a neighbour disappears and it seems that his father is next on the hitmen’s list. Questions of loyalty and manhood arise, when Slooma realises he is not powerless in this situation; his words can turn round the lives of others. Although 200+ pages long, this book gives only a brief window into an alien culture. We meet a small cast, some of whom are not fully realised, and the events move rapidly towards a fairly abrupt end. It is a first novel which did well enough to get on the Mann Booker prize shortlist, I think because of the intensity and clarity of the writing. Sensuous at times, elsewhere coolly accurate, the tone of a growing boy is convincing. Libya has moved on little since those days. And there are plenty of other states around the world where families are persecuted and terrorised; let’s pray for them. The political opposition portrayed in this book can achieve only so much, let’s pray for countries to be transformed by the power of Christ in the gospel. Sarah Allen© Evangelicals Now - February 2007 |