Austin Clarke: The Polished Hoe

Reviewed by SUSAN JACOBS


Mary-Mathilda Paul, the much-loved mistress of the Great House on the Caribbean island of Bimshire, otherwise known as Barbados, has been polishing, oiling and sharpening the blade of her hoe to a razor-sharp brightness for months before deciding what destiny God had in mind to put it to.

When Mr Benfells, her employer and father of her only son, is brutally murdered it is no secret who killed him. So universally was Mr Benfells loathed that the sergeant who akes her statement assures her that no one will lift a finger to indict her.

But Mary-Mathilda insists that her confession be recorded as an act of history, to set right what she sees as the irony of her existence and that of all the other villagers who have worked under Mr Benfells in the sugar plantation.

As her story unfolds it becomes a sprawling, yet intimate, history of racist exploitation, sadistic violence and impossible, often seductive, compromises.

Above all it shows the appalling abuse of women who, from a very young age, were sexual objects to be used and discarded by men of any status.

For many years one object of Mr Benfells ' lust is Mary-Mathilda 's field-hand mother, who hopes for a different future for her bright, beautiful daughter. But powerless to stop Mr Benfells from transferring his attentions to Mary-Mathilda, her mother can only lament that if not her it would have been somebody else 's daughter, so plots Mary-Mathilda 's elevation to pampered protection in the Great House (not far from the mansion housing Mr Benfells ' wife
and daughters).

Despite every advantage bestowed upon her brilliant doctor son, the taint of moral and spiritual corruption is a slow-burning flame that compels Mary-Mathilda to an act of retribution as symbolic as it is horrific.

Narrated for the most part in Mary-Mathilda 's distinctive speech with its rhythms, cadence and quirky mix of humour, anger and compassion, this novel is a tour de force.

It rakes up the brutal underbelly of colonialism, exposing the excruciating lives of oppressed people linked through forced complicity to their oppressors.

Powerful, engrossing, passionate and lyrical, it is a work of astounding breadth and grace, well deserving of the 2003 Commonwealth Writers Prize.

Strongly recommended.

Publisher: HARPER COLLINS

Price: $34.99

* Susan Jacobs is the author of Fighting with the Enemy: New Zealand POWs and the Italian Resistance