Colonialism, debasement, destruction

Seamas Keenan reviews The Catastrophist by Ronan Bennett, published by Headline, price £14.99.

Into the white paradise that is the Belgian Congo comes James Gillespie, novelist, sceptic, ex-soldier, ex-Irishman, in pursuit of Ines Sabiani, radical, crusading Italian journalist. Former lovers in a more temperate climate, Gillespie is desperate to recapture Ines' love, believing, in his possessive, frightening way, that this is his final chance for salvation. Ines, like the black Congolese, desires independence, and her developing strength and confidence create a resentment in Gillespie that mirrors the resentment of the white colonials who cannot believe the ingratitude of their slaves.

Ines involves herself in the Congolese freedom struggle, becoming friendly with Patrice Lumumba and the activists of the Mouvement National Congolais. Gillespie, jealous of her commitment, and of the revolution that is taking her away from him, hangs out with CIA agents and Belgian businessmen. Agonised, detached, capable of dismissing both sides of any equation, he tries to excuse his non-involvement by stressing the necessary impartiality of the writer. Even when he is forced to act, his actions are merely gestures, their integrity questionable.

Certain artists have always taken refuge in their ability to remain aloof from the political struggles of their time. Others have confused their own tangled lives with those of a struggling community. For all his self-ennobling meditations on the nature of art and the responsibility of the artist, there is a moral shoddiness about Gillespie. He uses art as an excuse. At the heart of his superficial soul-searching is concealed a deep lie and a deeper selfishness.

Colonialism in The Congo is possession, debasement, exploitation and destruction. The red blood of the murdered Congolese plumps the rivers and the soil, and the colonials, with their cocktails, tennis and desultory sexual affairs, chill the very air of Africa. The Congo is a land where the whites refuse to see a people's humanity, and expect from their subjects only a slavish shameful mimicry of white values and white aspirations. For Ronan Bennett, these colonial impulses can also find expression in the cloying desires of a man who cannot accept that his lover no longer wants or needs him.

The Catastrophist is a wonderfully subtle, beautifully written, examination of colonialism, the nature of power, and the psychically destructive consequence of dead love. It dissects, discomfortingly, the dark deceits that we all hold in our hearts, and the little lies that hold our lives together. It confirms Ronan Bennett's reputation as a novelist willing to interpret the inextricability of the personal and the political and questions the devices employed by "artists" to protect themselves from their responsibilities in the real world.

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