Troubles is an unusual entry on the list of Booker Prize winners, as it didn’t actually win its Prize until 2010, despite having been written 30 years earlier. This came about because the rules for eligibility for the award were changed; until 1970 the Booker prize was awarded to books that were published during the previous year, while from 1971 onwards it was awarded to books published the same year as the award. This lead to all books published during 1970 to be ineligible for the award at the time. In 2010 The Lost Man Booker Prize award was commissioned and Troubles was voted the winner out of a shortlist of six titles.
Having explained the rationale for the award, I can now introduce the novel itself. Troubles is set in the Republic of Ireland in 1919, at a time when the Irish War of Independence was about to break out. The title is apposite, not just because of the political problems reflected in the novel’s setting but also the context in which it was written, as Ireland was suffering outbreaks of ethno-political violence at the height of The Troubles in 1970. Like Something to Answer For, looming conflict is a key theme in Troubles, with a growing sense of unease proliferating as the novel progresses. Set in the crumbling Majestic Hotel, the novel follows Major Brendan Archer’s escapades, after he travels to Ireland to meet the fiancée he acquired while on leave during World War I. His engagement, rather predictably, proves to be short-lived, but not necessarily for the reasons one might expect. The Major becomes ensconced in the faded glamour and shabby chic of the Majestic, unwilling to stay but not able to leave, as the place and the people begin to crumble around him.
The Majestic can be said to be a microcosm of Ireland at the time, although this is perhaps a slightly simplistic comparison to draw. Edward Spencer, the owner of the Majestic, is a member of the English gentry, attempting to keep control of his estate at a time when the local populace is growing restless for change. The place becomes ever more ruinous and decayed as Edward desperately tries to keep a grip on his fiefdom, while attacks on the hotel residents by local villagers become more frequent and alarming. The gathering clouds seem to be visible to everyone except him. This could be said to mirror the British government’s naive attempts to keep Ireland under British rule, at a time when the Irish were desperate for independence and were willing to fight in order to achieve it.
Decay is another important theme in the novel, and is not just implied by the physical deterioration of the hotel. Plants grow out of control to unnaturally large sizes and seem to be taking over parts of the building (Brendan describes seeing the bulge of a tree root appearing through one of the floors that is the width of his arm), while the number of semi-feral cats living in the building grows and multiplies at the same rate as their hostility towards their human hosts. The elderly residents also appear to be synonymous with decay; ladies of a certain age, widows or spinsters, all on reduced means, who are aging rapidly with deteriorating health (winter is described as a trial for all at the Majestic, as they face up to the reality that a number of the more frail guests will almost certainly be killed off by chills and colds).
None of the characters in Troubles particularly endear themselves to the reader, least of all the Major, who is paralysed by indecision throughout the novel. He becomes stuck at the Majestic like the other residents, trapped in a vestige of life as it used to be at a time of conspicuous change. Edward Spencer is blind to the faults of his rakish son and indolent twin daughters, and becomes ever more inactive and insane, haunted by the death of his wife. Most of the villagers are untrusting and hostile, while the wheelchair-bound Sarah treats the Major’s attempts to befriend her with gleeful disdain. While the domestic situation at the Majestic deteriorates, nobody seems willing to make any effort to change anything. The impasse between those who want change and those who are unwilling to relinquish what they have reflects the political situation as it was at the time the novel was written, and emphasises the key point that Farrell may well have attempted to make, that those who refuse to accept and embrace change may suffer the same type of inevitable doom that befalls the Majestic Hotel.
J.G. Farrell was to win the Booker again in 1973 for The Siege of Krishnapur, the novel that formed the second part of his Empire trilogy (this was to be concluded by The Singapore Grip in 1978, which did not win the Booker). Troubles was the first of these three books, and, despite not being recognised by the Booker panel at the time due to a technicality, the belated award has given this intriguing postcolonial novel the recognition which it fully deserves.
