Animal's People [Paperback]

The central character, who is also the narrator of this story, is the force which gives the novel its incredible emotional power. Animal, so named because his twisted back forces him must walk on all fours, was the victim of a toxic gas leak from a foreign-owned company in the Indian town of Khaufpur. Animal is crass, obsessed with sex and self-interested enough to slip drugs into a love rival's drinks. Despite this he is an earthy, funny, self-aware and thoroughly likeable character and a brutally honest narrator.

It is perhaps not possible for someone who has not lived through such horrors to truly understand what it must be like for those who have, but getting to know Animal allows us to come as close as we are likely to get. Animal's dealings with the foreign `doctress' Elli also give us a window of understanding that opens onto the chasm that divides most readers from Animal's world, not just because we have not experienced the kind of atrocity he has, but because we are affluent and privileged.

This is a book about cynical exploitation by big business of the situation in less affluent countries. It is about the corruption that hampers the fight for justice and compensation for the victims and it is about the lack of any true understanding by outsiders of the real plight of those who live in `the kingdom of the poor'. It is also a book which brings all this alive in a very visceral way. Noone could be left untouched after reading this novel.

Animal's People is a grand novel, combining the epic with the personal.

On the epic scale, we have the fight of the victims of an explosion in a poison factory to seek their justice through the corrupt court system in India. And on the personal level, we have the individual drama of the victims as they seek to live their lives and love their loves in the shadow of the factory, coping with their various forms of damage.

The setting for the novel, Khaufpur, is a thinly disguised representation of Bhopal, which did suffer a chemical factory tragedy in 1984. The star of the novel is Animal, a child whose bones warped in the chemical fire and now walks on all fours. Animal has an engaging personality, a huge bundle of hope, a libido that is out of control, and a rather irritating style of syntax. Having grown up under the protection of Ma Franci, a French nun, he is taken under the wing of Zafar and Nisha, who run the campaign for justice. Animal falls madly in live with Nisha, but knows that Nisha will choose Zafar over him because of his deformity. Much of Animal's life is spent, then, wishing he could walk upright because then he might have more chance with women.

Then, the campaign for justice scores a hit as a court is willing, 20 years on, to consider seizing the assets of the "Kampani" if it doesn't come to court to answer charges relating to the poisoning. But this is set against a backdrop of political scheming and corruption, apparently led by the Chief Minister himself. A doctress then arrives in Khaufpur, Elli Barber, to run a free clinic for people suffering the after-effects of the poison. Elli-doctress finds things hard going as the town tries to decide whether to trust her.

Without giving the game away, the schemings carry on at a fair old pace, as various characters have to balance their loyalties to one another against their loyalties to the campaign. The plot is rich and satisfying.

The characterization, too, is of the highest order. Animal, in particular, is painted in bright colours. He has a scatological sense of humour, and an unhealthily selfish streak of which he is not ashamed - he just tells people he is an animal, not a human. Ma-Franci, Somraj, Zafar, Nisha and Elli-doctress also have a great deal of depth and complexity. Zafar, in particular, gives an excellent depiction of the charismatic leader, prepared to put the personal aside for the cause of the people. In one section of the novel, Zafar takes a different view of the best course of action to most people - and uses his charisma to get people to follow his preferred course against their better judgement. This section was highly convincing.

The novel is quite excellent - save for the irritating device of using Animal's convoluted syntax and spelling to deliver the narration. This is unnecessary. The novel is good enough to stand on its own feet, without resorting to gimmicks. Moreover, the syntax sits ill with a character who is supposed to be highly intelligent and who uses such glorious language to produce such a vivid picture of Khaufpur and its denizens. The irritation factor does abate with time, but it spoils what would otherwise have been a perfectly balanced novel.

For those who are interested - Indra Sinha's Khaufpur website is worth a look just to marvel at his intense level of detail.

Animal's voice is a tour de force - as strong and individual as the voice in Vernon God Little and equally funny. This a dark, unsentimental portrait of a community who have been shat on from a great height by the rich and powerful and who continue to survive and dream and hunger for a better life. It is an accurate and unsentimental portrait of the India that tourists never see - a world in which the poor help each other not because they are noble or selfless but because they know they can expect no help from anyone else. But though anchored in reality, the book also touches on larger issues and we accompany Animal on a life-changing journey as he struggles with jealousy and loyalty, love and hate and ultimately life and death. I should confess here that I am Indra's sister, but I am also a professional literary consultant and creative writing tutor, used to giving criticism objectively regardless of whose work it is.