The Impressionist (Hardcover)

This plot, loose though it is, moves along at an astonishing pace and is aided both by Kunzru's marvellous rendering of myriad characters and by his tragi-comic wit tinged with elements of farce. Read it twice - once for the humour, pathos and sheer exuberance, and again for the intellectual vigour which may well be lost in the sheer excitement of the first reading.

In a daring move, Kunzru throws the conventions of characterization to the winds. Instead of bringing his main character alive by showcasing his uniqueness and highlighting his different personal perspective on the world and its history, Kunzru does the opposite. In Pran/Rukhsana/Chandra/Pretty Bobby/Jonathan Bridgeman, he gives us a character who becomes, during the novel, less unique, more stereotypical--a man who sees life "in general" and from the perspective of whatever society he inhabits, a man who accepts the judgments and morality imposed upon him, acting, ultimately, "For God and England and the Empire and Civilization and Progress and Uplift and Morality and Honor."

Set primarily in the latter years of World War I and in the turbulent 1920's of the British Raj in India, the novel introduces Pran Nath Razdan, the beautiful, spoiled, and arrogant son of a wealthy court pleader in Agra. Banished from his home when his true status as a half Anglo is discovered, he must adapt to changed circumstances to stay alive. As the chief hijra of Fatehpur tells him when he assumes the role of Rukhsana and enters the harem of the Sultan, "We are all as mutable as the air! Just release...your body and you can be a myriad! An army!"

In successive roles in other locations, he learns to create impressions, to become stereotypical of the cultures in which he finds himself, to be whatever someone wants him to be, from a male prostitute and procurer in India to a student at Oxford and an assistant to an anthropologist in Africa. Along the way, he learns that it pays to be British--while the reader sees the extent to which British colonialism and arrogance have indelibly changed the world for the worse.

Satirical touches (not the least of which are some of the characters' names), broad humor, and irony make reading this story a continual delight, despite the author's occasional lapses into irrelevant background material for some of the characters. The descriptions are vibrant, the observations of human nature are incisive, the message is important, and the conclusion is wonderfully appropriate. This is a book which escapes the bounds of its plot to make an important anticolonial statement and promote respect for other, non-western cultures. Mary Whipple

And make his way he does, by adopting different guises and roles, ultimately masquerading as an orphan Jonathan Bridgeman, where he studies at Oxford and goes off on an anthropological expedition with his sweetheart's father to Africa. The sections of the book cover one "identity" each, and it's notable from the first change that Pran Nath never really makes the decision to change his role himself: his impressions are thrust on him by fate. This is an early indicator of what becomes glaringly apparent as the novel progresses - that Pran Nath, Pretty Bobby, Jonathan Bridgeman or whoever, has no character of his own. He is a void at the centre of the novel. Clearly this is deliberate, or at least understood by Kunzru, as we learn from this passage, where our hero watches a real impressionist on stage:

"The man becomes these other people so completely that nothing of his own is visible. A coldness starts to rise in Jonathan's gut, cutting through the vodka. He watches intently, praying that he is wrong, that he has missed something. There is no escaping it. In between each impression, just at the moment when one person falls away and the next has yet to take possession, the impressionist is completely blank. There is nothing there at all."

Nonetheless this emptiness at the centre does mean it's hard to see The Impressionist as more than a high-class entertainment, despite its occasional probes into racial acceptance and social satire. Still, high-class it certainly is, and quite simply one of the best-written books I've read, word for word, in ages. Kunzru has a real way with novel little expressions, none of which I can trace now of course to cite in evidence, but take my word for it that the book is never dull or hackneyed in its 500 pages. And Pran Nath's blankness is amply balanced by the richness of the surrounding characters - I was constantly finishing little vignettes into the characters' pasts with a smile on my face of pure satisfaction. (The relating of a form of futures trading in a primitive society is particularly original and brilliant.) Even characters who only appear in a few lines have a curious vividness:

Rising up behind the main hall, the glasshouses appear like a miniature crystal palace, glittering in the sunshine. Mesmerized, Jonathan is approaching them across the back lawn, when a voice bellows out, stopping him dead in his tracks.
"Boy! BOY!"
He wheels around to find a red-faced man leaning out of an upstairs window.
"What on earth do you think you're doing?"
"Going -"
"What?"
"Going -"
"WHAT? I hardly think you should be going anywhere over the grass. Regard! What you have wrought!"
Jonathan looks down, and sees that his shoes have left a trail of little bruises on the sleek green-striped surface.

"Lawn!" shouts the man. "Parents, masters and senior domestic staff only! Exceptions! Prefects on Sundays! All upper-form boys on Founders Day between two and four in the afternoon! Now get off!"
Gingerly Jonathan steps onto a gravel path. The window is slammed shut. He thinks for a moment, takes out his pocket book and writes: further demonstration of the significance of lawns. Englishness seeps a little deeper into his skin.

However I expect that the absence of human interest from the central character's blankness will stop The Impressionist from becoming the Corelli/Birdsong-level word of mouth hit that it richly deserves to be. Nonetheless Kunzru is a talent to watch who will, I hope, go on to do even greater things.