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Canadian Authors - General fiction - |
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The Flower Boy |
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 The Flower Boy byKaren Roberts Random House Canada 322 Pages, 2000 ISBN 375503161 Reviewed by Zaheera Jiwaji It is hard to believe that this is Karen Roberts' debut novel. The Flower Boy reads like a dream - a perfect, seamless experience into life at a tea plantation in the lush mountains of Ceylon during the 1930s. The British owners, John and Elsie Buckwater, enjoy a quiet life, far removed from a world at war. Farther removed is four-year old Chandi who lives on the estate, in a room behind the kitchen with his two sisters and his mother, the housekeeper. On his fourth birthday, his mother Premavathi is far too busy to pay him any attention. Elsie Buckwater has gone into labour, giving birth to her third child. Chandi assumes that as he is the youngest resident, he ought to be baby Lizzie's best friend. However, he is kept from Lizzie, and is only able to observe her from a distance until his eleventh birthday, when he is invited to her seventh birthday party. They immediately bond, and soon become inseparable. It is a natural friendship for them. Yet the adults question the growing relationship between the housekeeper's son and the plantation owner's daughter. The ugly nature of race and class threatens their innocent world, until a parallel relationship blossoms elsewhere on the estate. The Flower Boy is a beautifully written book, rich with the nostalgic observances of the writer's own Ceylonese heritage. Interwoven between the domestic tragedies and the increasing political turmoil, there are humorous touches and lyrical passages which warrant a re-reading. But beware, this is not a book that will make times long gone seem exotic and enticing. The Flower Boy leaves readers with a haunting message: Even an idyllic world, formed of love and compassion, cannot remove social barriers, especially those between the colonizer and the colonized. |
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