As promised, this is my review of the first novel to win the Booker Prize (now called the Man Booker Prize). I’m not going to give each novel a rating as I don’t think it is particularly fair to compare novels written forty years ago to those written today, considering that the novel as a genre has undergone a massive amount of change during the intervening period. I will probably finish with some sort of ranking of the ones that I enjoyed the most, though.
Something to Answer For is not a particularly complicated novel in terms of plot: Townrow, the protagonist, goes to Egypt at the request of the wife of a friend, who believes that her late husband was murdered. Mostly set in the Egyptian city of Port Said during the Suez Crisis of 1956, it portrays the adventures of Townrow, as he faces up to not only the conflict occurring around him between Egypt and her former colonial rulers, France and Great Britain, but also the conflict within himself between his innate selfishness and his desire to make amends for the failures of his past.
Something is a product of its time, pertinently raising questions concerning the nature of war crimes and colonialism, written at a time when the last vestiges of Britain’s empire were gaining their independence. Newby was a soldier in Egypt during the Second World War and his knowledge and enthusiasm about Egypt seeps through every page; although the protagonist of the novel is an arrogant, disinterested rake, his descriptions of the landscape and people of Egypt evoke a tantalising portrait of a beautiful country that is on the brink of emancipation and conflict.
I don’t think that Newby’s work would win the Man Booker Prize if it were nominated for the award today, as the plot is not particularly outstanding; however, it is, as I said previously, a product of its time and I would say that the questions that it raises concerning war and aggression, racism and colonialism are just as pertinent today as they were forty-one years ago. Ultimately it makes the Western reader question whether, as the product of a formerly imperialistic culture, we all have something to answer for.
A very interesting review, and what a great idea for a project to undertake too! I think I will have to read this book, as now living in a former colony (although in this case not British) and learning more about the perspective of the 'losing' side (history is always written by the winners), I can't help but feel that I do have something to answer for.
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