FICTION:A striking new novel draws inspiration from classical literature to paint a vivid portrait of modern war
The Watch, By Joydeep Roy-Bhattacharya Hogarth, 319pp. £16.99
CLASSICAL IDEAS OF human dignity and honour are juxtaposed with the squalor of modern war in this important novel, in which the Indian writer Joydeep Roy-Bhattacharya strikes a balance between polemic and art.
Set in present-day Afghanistan over the course of about 36 hours, the immediate narrative takes place within and without an American army base. Within the base, such as it is, the men endure the tensions of days spent attempting to survive. Some of them went to war to change the world, but the only thing that has changed is their lives.
But outside, in the empty wasteland and mountain area, where an invisible enemy is most likely waiting, a woman has come into view, almost if she was in a play and has come on set. There is no glamour, though; she has dragged herself to the scene of the battle that claimed her brother. She wants his body and has brought with her a traditional burial shroud. She also has her musical instrument.
That she is brave is obvious, but the watching soldiers suspect that she may be a decoy. Roy-Bhattacharya is not writing a thriller, however; this novel develops into an elaborate and convincing study of men at war, their doubts, their memories and, most of all, their disillusion.
The girl is, as the author clearly intends, an Antigone figure, now, with the death of her brother, the sole survivor of a family obliterated by war. “It’s up to me now. I’m scared: my hands are shaking, my mouth is dry. I cast a look back at the mountains where I have spent my life, where I was born, where my family died.”
Her legs have been blasted away, and so her journey to bury her brother has been by the little cart she wheels herself about in. Even so, the American soldiers are wary, and when the newly arrived interpreter explains what she wants, her request is denied and a fraught standoff begins that causes some of them to question themselves and their leaders.
The opening is stark, almost theatrical and impressively dramatic, if far too stylised to sustain an entire novel. However, the narrative quickly consolidates itself through a classicist, Lt Nick Frobenius, who is to become probably the central consciousness in the novel, both from his own contribution and, after his death, in the effect he has on his peers. Frobenius is a highly observant thinker.
He may seem too convenient a character for a novelist to enlist, but the success of this characterisation becomes apparent as the narrative goes on. A sudden shell attack interrupts his thoughts and leaves him severely wounded, waiting to be flown home, but fate intervenes.
The story is then taken up by a sympathetic army medic. By this point Roy-Bhattacharya has not only established a strong story; he is also writing a novel that becomes as good as it is important.
Soon, we enter the thoughts of Masood, the young Afghan interpreter, who, on arriving at the camp, introduces himself to a soldier who ignores his extended hand. “Although I find his rudeness incomprehensible,” thinks Masood, “I shoulder my pack and follow him.”
Masood proves a fascinating character, nervous and anxious to please. He soon discovers that just because he speaks fluent, if formal, English, it doesn’t mean that he has mastered nuance.
Flashbacks and dream sequences add texture to the narrative, with its powerful message. Masood asks permission to gaze upon the faces of the dead Taliban lying in the dust outside the camp. “I remind myself that the Americans are here to help, and it is men like these now-supine wretches who slaughtered my family . . . I was the sole survivor of the massacre, but only because I was catching minnows in a nearby pond . . . I was six years old. It took me a long time after that to find my voice.” This episode shows that whatever about the international war that has raged, Afghanistan has been terrorised from within for much longer.
Roy-Bhattacharya goes from strength to strength in the closing stages of what develops into a remarkable novel, because of his use of memory filtered through the horrors of the moment.
Intelligent, sensitive, emotionally bereft Nick Frobenius keeps an admittedly literary journal, and near the end of the book a sequence of extracts of his observations take up the narrative. They include some astonishing reflections about being alive and facing death, including this:
“Strange how alien the mountains appear, and the desert as well, with its different coldness. Featureless landscapes. Futureless deathscapes. Still, you get used to them after a while. Although, when I come to think of it, I can’t remember that last time I was near a forest.”
States of mind, both fractured and lucid, dominate this serious and honourable novel about war. The Watch, dedicated to the Afghan people, is the first title from a new imprint, Hogarth, honouring the pioneering press founded by Leonard and Virginia Woolf during another war, in 1917. By drawing on classical literature, Joydeep Roy-Bhattacharya has fashioned a beautiful and heartfelt lamentation.
Eileen Battersby is Literary Correspondent
