Damon Galgut (2010 [2022]) In a Strange Room.

Damon Galgut’s novel, The Promise, won the Booker Prize in 2021. In a Strange Room was shortlisted for the Man Booker almost ten years ago. This is a short book, split into three parts: ‘The Follower,’ ‘The Lover’ and ‘The Guardian’. I liked the ‘The Guardian’ best and ‘The Follower’ least. I doubt I’d have continued with the book if it hadn’t had the tag: Booker Prize-Winning Author on the cover. I’m not immune to hype.

Like the moral philosopher Dr Samuel Johnson on his tour of Scotland’s Western Isles seeking rarefied specimens of literature that expressed general, but universal truths. When a book has won a major prize and I don’t like it—such as Shakespeare’s work—the consensus is the reader rather than the writer lacks certain civilised values. In other words, he or she, you or me, is an uncouth ninny. Guilty in my case. I’ve heard so many times I should love Romeo and Juliet or A Midsummer Night’s Dream, for example, and when I do, I’ll better understand its majesty.  I didn’t dislike this book as much as I fucking hate A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream, or I wouldn’t have continued reading it, but like everybody else my prejudices are my shortcomings.

‘It happens like this. He sets out in the afternoon on the track that has been shown to him and soon he leaves the little town behind. In an hour or so he is among low hills covered by olive trees and grey stones from which there is a view out over a plain that gradually descends to the sea. He is intensely happy, which is possible for him when he is walking out alone.’

The opening paragraph has the convention of a screen shot, which opens with scenery and then pans in to focus on the narrator. Present tense. Whatever happened has still to happen. The narrator is happy. The reader follows on.

We learn that the narrator is South African, like the author himself. He’s a tourist near Mycenae. He introduces himself to Reiner. He’s from Germany. His peccadillo is to dress in black. We find out he’s a control freak that always thinks he’s right. He wants to test himself against nature by walking great distances, building stamina and walking even greater distances. People and their cultures don’t interest him. Yet they fall into a homoerotic relationship, which is never consummated.

Damon is the wife or follower. This becomes clearer when Reiner comes to South Africa. His presence was not planned, but taken as a given. Reiner plans even longer walks through the continent. They divvy up tasks and what they’re meant to carry. But Damon is dependent on Reiner. He has no money, but notes down what he should owe. They have not been equals, but now the relationship is formalised as a wife dependent on her husband’s largesse.

But they do not become lovers. Damon hooks up with another group of white tourists who are also European. Christian is French, but can also speak English. Alice and Jerome are twins and Swiss. They speak only pigeon English. It is Jerome the beautiful boy, Damon falls in love with. But he can never get him alone and there’s awkwardness beyond language. Damon gets cut off from the group on the wrong side of the Malawian border post. He needs to get into Tanzania.

Paradise is never what is seems. Locals are dependent on the tourist trap, playing the role of faithful servants. Dr Johnson found it with the Scots. Damon finds it with the impoverished citizens of Africa, and later India. Damon for being so destitute seems to be always on the move and getting by without having worked much. Indolence pays. For Reiner, the explanation is he receives regular payments from home, and from saving from jobs he’s done, much like the twins. Money talks in any language. I’m not really sure what is says about Damon.

The novel is also told from Damon’s point of view. It’s his story. But instead of using the conventional ‘I’, narration is from an omniscient ‘he’ that is able to look at the present but also behave like an older and subjective ‘I’ able to evaluate choices made. That’s my reading of it.

The third part finds Damon middle-aged. He’s able to spend long periods in India. Again I’m not sure where the money comes from. He’s agreed to take a close friend Anna to South Goa. She agrees not to drink while she takes her medication that keeps her the right side of sanity. She flips quicker than a rupee tossed into the air. Anyone that’s dealt with mental illness will recognise what happens next. Damon hates her, but feels obligated to take care of her until he can get her back home. It’s a job he’s not prepared for, but he gets some help to navigate the Byzantium Indian hospital system by Anna, and other Europeans. (Anna is a former nurse who feels guilty about how her husband died.)

I’m beginning to tell the story, which in a review, isn’t great. We colonise what we know. Patronise what we don’t know. There’s a fair bit of Dr Johnson in each of us. Damon recognises that and that life is never more unfair than when it falls on you. Read on.