About book The In-Between World Of Vikram Lall (2005)
"My name is Vikram Lall. I have the distinction of having been numbered one of Africa's most corrupt men, a cheat of monstrous and reptilian cunning. To me has been attributed the emptying of a large part of my troubled country's treasury in recent years. I head my country's List of Shame..." The modern day history and cultures of Kenya is intertwined with the folklore and history of India by the protagonist, Vikram Lall, while hiding in Canada after he was used as a scapegoat by the corrupt officials in the Kenyan government in an international scandal. The rich textures of a multicultural society is described in all it compartmentalized splendor. "...every evening from the melting pot of city life each person went his long way home to his family, his church, his folk. To the Kikuyu, the Luo were the crafty, rebellious eggheads of Lake Victoria, the Masai backward naked nomads. The Meru prided themselves on being special, having descended from some wandering Semitic tribe. There were the Dorobo, the Turkana, the Boran, the Somali, the Swahili, each also different from the other. And then there were the Wahindi—the wily Asians who were not really African."Vikram Lall spends his time in Canada writing down the story of his family and himself, which begins during his innocent childhood days in the small town Nakuru, where his parents owned a provision store in the Valley Shopping Centre. His parents catered for the European settlers'needs, but was also popular for the samosas, dhokras, bhel-puri, and tea, which were consumed with gusto by their clientele in the community."It has occurred to me—how can it not?—that my picture of my past could well have, like the stories of my grandfather, acquired the patina of nostalgia, become idealized. But then, I have to convince myself, perhaps a greater and conscious discipline and the practice of writing mitigate that danger. I do carry my album of photos with me and my acquired newspaper cuttings and other assorted material, and there is always Deepa to check facts with. Still, what can ultimately withstand the cruel treachery of time, even as one tries to undermine it?" At the children's level, the clashing cultures, classes and prestige did not matter and children from different races made friends. They would ultimately be haunted by it in their later lives. "So many such moments I could recall, gentle as dewdrops, transient and illusory like sunbeams; charming as a butterfly’s dance round a flower." ..."It was a world of innocence and play, under a guileless constant sun; as well, of barbarous cruelty and terror lurking in darkest night; a colonial world of repressive, undignified subjecthood, as also of seductive order and security—so that long afterwards we would be tempted to wonder if we did not hurry forth too fast straight into the morass that is now our malformed freedom. The Mau Mau murders of white farmers and their families brought an end to this innocent era, in which Vikram, his little sister Deepa, his Kikuyu friend, Njoroge , the two British children, Bill and Annie, unknowingly prepared themselves for a new dispensation in Kenya. " It was the nights that curdled the blood, that made palpable the terror that permeated our world like a mysterious ether. The Mau Mau owned this darkness, which cloaked them into invisibility"..."Some Mau Mau used to put the body parts of their enemies into the stew they used for their oathing ceremonies." Jomo Kenyatta, who later became the first Black president, lend prestige to the guerilla fighters' campaign although he denied being their leader.In his later years, working for the government in various positions, Vikram had to deal with the aftermath of the political and social revolt in the country as well as the heartbreak of his childhood friends who did not make it. He witnessed the greed and betrayal by the new leaders, who enriched themselves on an unprecedented level, but who failed to fulfill their promises to the veteran Mau Mau guerrillas who had to leave their land, their lives and their families to fight for independence from the British. Upon their return, they found their land taken by the new rulers and their cronies, and had to discover that they were used by an elite who never intended to pay them for their services in any form whatsoever. They did not want to be reminded of the brutal killings they inspired in the name of liberation from the oppressors. " The three-piece-suited African leader with a son at Harrow wants no reminder of the primitive processes that were sometimes at work behind the freedom struggle." ..." They had only recently walked out of the forest, members of two gangs, having deposited their weapons at the Nyeri police station, and now they wanted to know where was the reward they had been promised when they left everything behind to go fight for freedom. We are poor and despised, our land was taken away, confiscated by the Bilitis, the British, given to the Humungati, the dreaded Home Guard, as payment to hunt and kill us; now where is the compensation promised to us, where are the European farms we were told would be ours after uhuru, where are the big houses, where is the wealth?…" "Middle-aged retired guerrillas who had once given up all to live in the forests, to rule the nights, to draw blood and terrorize in the name of freedom, and to suffer and risk death for themselves; who with homemade guns and machetes had sorely tested the military might of the British, thus hastening independence."..."We gave up our property, we gave up good jobs with our English bosses who were generous for the times…Why do our politicians call us outlaws and bandits, aren’t we the army of the people? Even now we are ready to defend them…" Vikram soar in the government ranks at the right time. "In this new decade of the 1970s which had just set in, when I found employment that would alter my life in previously unthinkable ways, our times were actually turbulent and reckless, in a manner I can only describe from a personal point of view and in hindsight. But I make no moral judgement on the time or its people, I am quick to add, I am hardly in a position to do so. Independence had brought an abundance of opportunities, the British and the Europeans vacating lucrative farms and businesses and well-paying jobs, foreign aid and loans promising contracts and kickbacks; this was a time to make it, once and for all, as a family, as a clan, as a tribe—the stakes were mountain-high. ...""And this in the tinderbox cold-war climate of the period, foreign governments peddling influence, bribes, arms. Many of the newly powerful had never been in close proximity to such authority before, such organization, such influence, such access to wealth as had become possible. From pit-latrine to palace, was how one foreign journalist crassly described these changes in fortune; he was quickly deported. But his fault was more his limited imagination; ..."Money and power were all around me, the one dizzying and glamorous, the other intimidating and coercive, and the two often went together." ..."Black chauvinism and reverse racism were the order of the day ...""Njoroge too was beginning to believe that the freedom movement and the Mau Mau had been betrayed—that ours had become a country of ten millionaires and ten million paupers, as J.M. himself had loudly proclaimed ...""My boss was said to belong to a secret Inner Circle of the President’s men, who had sworn to keep the presidency among themselves, or at least within the Kikuyu people. ...""Total corruption, I’ve been told, occurs in inches and proceeds through veils of ambiguity." Vikram has to come to terms with his memories, his involvement in the events that influenced the outcome for Kenya, his family, his friends, his children and himself.A perfect title was chosen for this novel. Vikram was in-between countries, cultures, relationships, ideologies, social mores and values when he started out recording his memories of a lifetime in Kenya. He has to come to terms with a country that has been run off the tracks by dishonesty, ruthlessness, theft and lies, with the indirectly blessing of the power players of the world.The novel is as much a historic-fictional tale of Kenya, as it is the soul-wrenching journey of a man who has to come to terms with himself and the future he has carved from his past. All lives have an innocent beginning, concluded by a guilty ending, fueled by subjective perceptions. However, life is not always about perceptions only. It is also about survival on different levels by people who simultaneously become the victims and victimisers in their own lifestories and have to find their identity, history and heritage. Most endings are never written, most stories never told.A slow-moving, exhausting read. However, a story which brings more truth and insight into the tales of Africa and its people, particularly the minorities, including the Indian population, who were born Africans but denied their rightful citizenship or respect by the new conquerors. Human rights is only a method to madness. A fallacy. An irony of history. Being born in Africa does not mean you have a right to be called African. Some Africans are simply not welcome or acknowledged. The winner takes all. God quietly helps us all, cry the minorities of the world ! The book is similar to The Wizard of the Crow by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...You have to mentally prepare yourself for the experience. It is a novel about a warm, loving family, cold-bloodedly dropped into the hands of a ruthless political destiny.
This is my first book of the year, and it took me quite some time to get into it.Few things annoy me more than when an author decides to ignore such a useful stylistic conventions as using quotation marks to offset dialogue! I like quotation marks. It makes the book easier to parse and gives me a clear idea of who is saying what. I discarded Blindness for similar reasons. Had I not been more favourably disposed to M.G. Vassanji after reading The Assassin's Song, I might have done the same thing.I have an inkling as to why Vassanji chose this departure from the norm. By abandoning quotation marks—in effect, dialogue itself—everything everyone says comes to us via Vikram and is interpreted and filtered through Vikram. All of the characters speak in Vikram's voice, and his is the only voice in the book for that reason. Still, this was an annoying aspect of The In-Between World that did not encourage me to continue reading.After about the first third of the book, the story picks up as Vikram moves into adulthood. It's painful. That can be a good thing—and I didn't expect a story of unmitigated happiness here. Vassanji is capturing the zeitgeist in the microcosm of an individual, and seldom is the zeitgeist a wholly good one. Vassanji is careful, however, to portray the bad and the good. It was a time of murder and corruption, but it was also a time of hope and inspiration.As a depiction of Kenya in the late twentieth century, this book fails to yield the scope required for a detailed understanding of the political dynamics at work. However, the interactions between the characters, particularly between Vikram and his relations, give us an idea of the pressures the external world puts upon everyone in Nairobi. Nairobi is much like the main character: a nexus of European, particularly British worldviews with East African identity and cultures. And that portrayal of personal transformation, of a change of identity as Kenya comes of age and gains independence, is the most rewarding part of The In-Between World.This book has a perfect title. The In-Between World of Vikram Lall describes precisely what it is about. Vikram is in-between everything and everyone. As an Indian born and raised in Kenya, he is neither an "African" nor an outsider. He is alien to his own country. Among his family, he can never seem to take sides in issues. And in Kenya at large, he becomes a power and money broker, not out of avarice but because he gets caught up in larger affairs.It's this sense of "going with the flow" and powerlessness that prevents me from sympathizing with Vikram. He only takes responsibility for his actions at the end; that's why he's telling this story, I suppose. It's difficult to criticize this, since it's an intentional component of Vikram's characterization, yet it detracted from my enjoyment of the book. As much as the life of an Indian family in Kenya fascinated me, as much as I cringed at the tragedy of Deepa and Njoroge's love, Vikram's constant disavowal of responsibility looms over the narrative like an approaching storm cloud.If I have to generalize (and you know I do), I'd say that this is a worthy book. My criticism is subjective, so I don't want to warn people away because I disliked the lack of quotation marks or the characterization of the narrator. There's something in this book that will appeal to everyone, even if few people will find everything about the book appealing. Am I so sure it was worth the Giller? No, but then again, it's probably a good thing that I don't have to decide these matters.
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SynopsisSweeping in scope, both historically and geographically, Vassanji weaves a rich tapestry of vivid characters, real and imagined, in a Kenya poised between colonialism and independence. Vikram Lall, like his adopted country, inhabits an 'in-between world': between the pull of his ancestral home in India and the Kenya he loves passionately; between his tragic past in Africa and an unclear future in Canada; between escape from political terror and a seemingly inevitable return home ...a return that may cost him dearly. A master storyteller, Vassanji intertwines the political and the personal - the rise of the Mau Mau in the last days of imperialism looms large over a plot centring on two love stories and a deep friendship. The result is a sumptuous novel that brilliantly explores the tyranny of history and memory, and questions the individual's role and responsibility in lawless times. This a large sweeping novel, taking us from the 1950's to the 1990's. It concerns an Asian family in Kenya - during the years of political upheaval. the novel starts with Vikram Lall reflecting upon how he came to be known as one of his country's most corrupt men. This is a story of politics and corruption, but mostly it is a love story, as well as a story of friendship and belonging. Vikram Lall loves his country of Kenya, and yet he is continually seen as Asain rather than Kenyan. His career sees him making money out of corruption, but it is not untill later while in exile in Canada that Vikram lall begins to examine his responsibility in the events that shaped his and his family's lives.
—Ali
So much terror and love and loyalties and human failings to explore in this book. And what a sense of safety to do it in the hands of an exceptional storyteller and word artist such as Vassanji. It was a bonus, as well, to learn about the political history of Kenya in the 1950s – 80s through the richly imagined characters who embodied all aspects of those 3-way racially charged times. As for my 4 stars instead of 5 … I simply could not buy into that last page. So much to ponder en route to that final page, though.
—Susan
The title of this novel works well. Vikram Lall was 'in between' in all aspects of his life. In between cultures (of Indian heritage in Kenya - neither black nor white); in between relationships - the buffer between his forward thinking sister, who falls in love with a black man, and his mother, stuck in her traditional thinking; as a middle man - in between the American financiers laundering the money they are providing to corrupt politicians to prevent Kenya following Tanzania into communism; and also between his parents - his mother holding her ties with India, his father loyal to the British Empire.The opening paragraph of the book reads: "My name is Vikram Lall. I have the distinction of having been numbered one of Africa's most corrupt men, a cheat of monstrous and reptilian cunning. To me has been attributed the emptying of a large part of my troubled country's treasury in recent years. I head my country's List of Shame..."From his self imposed exile in Canada, Lall tells of his life story. His childhood as a third generation Kenyan, from a grandfather who came to work building the railway, and settled. His father, running a provision store in Nakuru, a town in the Rift Valley; his childhood friends Njoroge, Bill and Annie; and sister Deepa. In parallel, his tells the story of his exile, his current relationships - with sister Deepa, with Seema, and with Joseph, the son of his childhood friend Njoroge.The story is set in post WWII Kenya, as the country is poised between British colonialism and independence. The indigenous Kikuyu, rebelling under the guise of the Mau Mau, with Jomo Kenyatta a figurehead in the revolt. The violence against the British, the rise of Kenya as an independent country, and the immediate fall into corruption, dishonesty and the ruthlessness of politics. The setting, the main political and cultural characters and themes come across as genuine and well researched. The individual fictional tragedies and sadnesses woven through the factual settings are plausible and plot and characters are developed well in an enjoyable read.The book covers a lot of ground, over a fifty year timespan from Vikram's childhood to the end of his story in what I guess is the 90s. A good read, 3.5 stars for me, rounded up in this case, because I enjoyed how well the true events were woven in.
—Daren
