A young man makes three journeys that take him through Greece, India and Africa. He travels lightly, simply. To those who travel with him and those whom he meets on the way - including a handsome, enigmatic stranger, a group of careless backpackers and a woman on the edge - he is the Follower, the Lover and the Guardian. Yet, despite the man's best intentions, each journey ends in disaster. Together, these three journeys will change his whole life. A novel of longing and thwarted desire, rage and compassion, In a Strange ...
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A young man makes three journeys that take him through Greece, India and Africa. He travels lightly, simply. To those who travel with him and those whom he meets on the way - including a handsome, enigmatic stranger, a group of careless backpackers and a woman on the edge - he is the Follower, the Lover and the Guardian. Yet, despite the man's best intentions, each journey ends in disaster. Together, these three journeys will change his whole life. A novel of longing and thwarted desire, rage and compassion, In a Strange Room is the hauntingly beautiful evocation of one man's search for love, and a place to call home.
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This book (actually a linked trio of novellas) was published in Paris REview and shortliste4d for the Man Booker Prize. Not surprising. The narrator veers between first person and third person--it's confusing, but isn't that something great literature does? Well, no. And the lead character is just travelling, purposelessly, with no good reason to go anywhere. You hate him after a while. Doesn't that sound like it really should have been given the Man Booker Award? The lesser characters are also uninteresting unmotivated people--hey, this really should have won some kind of prize! Galgut's more recent novel, Arctic Summer, actually is a very fine piece of writing, on the contrary!
