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UK Authors - General fiction - |
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The Book of Shadows |
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 The Book of Shadows byNamita Gokhale Little, Brown 217 pages, 2000 ISBN 0316851558 Reviewed by our UK Editor Rachel A. Hyde This is not a historical novel in that it does not take place in the past but it is about the past – and the present and future as well. It tells of a house in the Indian Himalayas and the stories it can tell. Built in the 1860s by an English missionary and his wife who never thrived there after a mishap that has much to do with the mystic aura of the place, it has had many owners since. There were the sadistic lovers, Marcus and Munro, who were under the influence of Aleister Crowley, as was foolish Captain Walcott and his beautiful mistress Dona Rosa. There was the benign Catholic priest, Father Benedictus, who provided a peaceful interlude between these more tempestuous owners. Lastly, there is Bitya, who has returned to the house where she spent her childhood after her lover committed suicide and his sister threw acid at her face, disfiguring her. She comes there to find herself again, accompanied only by the mysterious servant, Lohaniju, and the voice of the house telling its story to her. Then there are the ghosts, which at times seem far more real than reality. Is the house truly haunted or is it her imagination? Will Bitya return to the outside world and take up her university teaching once more, or does the house have more to give to her than a life she has never enjoyed? In best Black Narcissus style, the Himalayas are portrayed as a place of magic with the power of nature, where anything can happen. Here, the veil between our world and the next is thin and things show through. Ms. Gokhale conveys the power of this haunting place very skilfully, as the worldly Bitya becomes more at one with her surroundings. We hear the voice of the house itself, a spirit flirting with wanting to be a person and being glad that it has no body - as it finds out what it is like to be human. Any reader who lives in a house that has had previous owners will surely be moved to ponder, as I did, about the life any old (or not so old) building has seen. One to savor and think over a long time after the book has been read. |
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