Neil Bissoondath - A casual brutality

I hadn't heard of Neil Bissoondath when I picked up one of his books, A casual brutality (1988), at a bookshop somewhere in northern Scotland. When I started reading it, the novel appeared to me much too wordy, too 'literary' - too stiff. An example: the facial & psychological traits of the characters ('her blue eyes & high cheekbones & little chin - that kind of thing.) were depicted at lenght, and this, at first, made me cringe. Sentences stretched out into eternity, packed with information. But I didn't give up, and after 100 pages, the story started to engage me. And I started to appreciate the 'heaviness' of the language. The story is centered around Raj, a doctor, born on a small caribbean island, Casaquemada, and his Canadian wife. I must confess that the destinies of the main characters were less interesting than was the socio-economical setting of the book. A society that has undergone rapid changes; economic growth, and, then, recession and political instability. The author explores various attitudes towards these changes; some characters try to take advantage of the instability, whereas others remain passive, frustrated and afraid. Raj, from whose perspective the story is unraveled, is a far from likeable character. He's not a hero in any way. Life just happens to him, and he tries to do what is required of him, but not more than that. On the surface a voice of honesty, but there was always some kind of deception going on, a deception half-anticipated, half-realized. His self-deception not only concerned his personal life, but also the reasons for his moving back to Casaquemada after having lead a quite comfortable life in Canada. The political dimension of the book was often hinted at in unexpected ways; in depictions of cities, in the dynamics between people. I found this approach successfully employed. The overall tone of the book is that of paranoia, regret and grief. But, at the same time, irony permeats everything, and this is, I guess, partly why deception always seems so threatening.