Michelle De Kretser: The Hamilton case

One can see why The Hamilton Case won the Commonwealth Writers Prize (Southeast Asia and Pacific region). With this second novel, a complex family saga set in 20th-century Ceylon, Michelle de Kretser establishes herself as one of the best contemporary Australian novelists.

The passing of colonisation and the birth of the new nation of Sri Lanka are represented in microcosm by the fading glory of Oxford-educated Anglophile lawyer Sam Obeysekere on the one hand, and by his arch-rival, the ebullient and populist Jayasinghe, on the other.

Yes, there is a mystery, as the title suggests: the murder of an English planter that appears to have been committed by a coolie until Obeysekere — "Our Sherlock Holmes", as styled by the newspaper — identifies it as another Englishman's crime of passion. Case closed. Or is it? This is no straight whodunnit, rather the case is a niggling conundrum, a puzzle that encapsulates the dynamic of English, Sinhalese and Tamil relationships.

But the characters are no mere coat-hangers for the clothes of history. Sam Obeysekere ("Obey by name, Obey by nature", says Jayasinghe) is one of the most distinctive characters I've come across in a long time.

He is Sinhalese, but more English than the English. Such is the success — or insidiousness — of colonisation that makes people reject their own culture and background in favour of the "superior" ways of the colonisers.

The story is seen through Sam's eyes, but the author allows the reader to see how he comes across to others: arrogant, condescending and self-centred, increasingly and genuinely bewildered at his failure to relate to the changing world around him, and particularly to his son.

De Kretser is a confident and intelligent writer; her prose flows eloquently and poetically, with a touch of magic realism. Her familiarity with Sri Lanka is evident; she spent the first 14 years of her life there before emigrating to Australia. She vividly evokes the luxurious growth, the stench and rot of the jungle, and the decaying opulence of a dilapidated
mansion.

This is rich yarn-spinning, reminiscent of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, at times sprawling and meandering off on tangents. Two-thirds of the way through the narrative sags and turns inwards, focusing on the lonely parallel lives of Sam's mother and wife as they wade through madness and sadness.

There are family secrets hidden beneath the fabric of this sumptuously written yet subtly layered novel — one intrigues me still.

* Philippa Jamieson is a Dunedin writer.

* Vintage, $26.95