The Water Theatre (Unabridged) [Audio Download]

This is not just an elegant, erudite novel. It is also a genuine page-turner. Epic in scope, the story, which spans three countries and several decades, gripped me from the outset. Even though it is constructed on a grand scale, the author never loses control of his material. In fact, brilliantly, just as we are settling into a story that appears to be alternating between the first- and third-person, the present and the past, he pulls the rug out from under our feet, plunging us into the past for a sustained period and to stunning dramatic effect. This made me impatient to begin each chapter and discover where this astonishing narrative is going lead. And it did not disappoint. The climatic, Orpheus-like descent into the underworld is, quite simply, breathtaking. In short, a novel of great imaginative power, with passages of exquisite beauty that linger in the mind long after the last page is turned.

Lindsay Clarke, the novelist, once said in a magazine interview I was conducting with him: `Without imagination compassion's not possible'. This is a blindingly obvious truth, but so obvious I'd never formulated it, and I've never forgotten that phrase. In a post-Enlightenment world we are taught to revere the rational mind, which of course undeniably has an essential place in consciousness, but often at the expense of the imagination and the qualities of empathy that accompany it. This seems to hold true in every area of human experience, but before I get onto a rant about the defective collective imagination, the absence of which allows us to objectify and exploit other people, species and the planet, I shall return my attention to Clarke's newest book: The Water Theatre, in which he redresses the balance. It's a book that champions the world of the imagination and the feeling nature, although never in a sentimental way; and it is also in some ways an overtly political book, in which friends oppose each other over poetry, politics and philosophy, with initially disastrous consequences; and yet at the end there is reconciliation; redemption, one could say. And growth, that essential component of human consciousness. Clarke also has so many wise things to say that the 'pull quotes' alone from the book would make a truly wise non-fiction collection on the restoration of soul to our hollow times.

The Water Theatre works very well as a literary novel. The descriptive passages are rich and poetic. The plot is taut and its secrets and mysteries are skilfully unfolded. Also I'm a sucker for what Germans call the Bildungsroman, the novel of character formation usually associated with coming of age, but for Clarke Bildung is more than an adolescent rite of passage, it is a lifelong process.

The main plot concerns Martin Crowther's relationship with the Brigshaw family: charismatic political activist father Hal; son Adam as Martin's best friend; daughter Marina as Martin's elusive love object; mother Grace trying to hold everyone together. The story switches between two time frames: Martin's coming of age, and his mission forty years later to put things right between them all. The book's issues are big. For example, young Martin a nascent nature poet from a limited working class home meets the Brigshaws, and his vision of life's possibilities becomes expanded when he sees the scale of Hal's idealistic political aims, which are to be played out in an emerging African nation struggling for independence. This experience leads Martin to decide on a career as a TV journalist awakening the conscience of the world from successive international trouble spots, but this choice leads Martin to dismiss the spiritual intimations of his youth in favour of action in the "real" world. As time and events unfold it is the deeper purpose of the novel to show that attention to the spiritual dimension need not be an introverted alternative to political responsibility but could be a deeper and saner form of engagement towards those same aims.

The forty year timescale of the action allows Martin, Adam and Marina's lives to come full circle, and reach a new connection with the parts of themselves they left behind on becoming adult. The polarity of Martin and Adam - how they mirror and live inverted versions of each other's lives - reminded me of Herman Hesse's Narziss and Goldmund, and like Hesse, Lindsay Clarke dives deep into the mythic patterns of life. The strength of this book for me is how Lindsay Clarke managed to set these mystical concerns alongside a realistic view of the twentieth century horrors of war, famine and genocide. It's usual when finishing an engaging novel to feel at the end the loss of this imaginary world. The sign of a really special novel is when something remains - the inspiration that comes from being exposed to the inner workings of someone else's spiritual journey, the recovery of the sense of the deeper purpose of life.