The Red Book

The Age

Saturday May 31, 2008

Cameron Woodhead

The Red Book

Meaghan Delahunt

Granta, $29.95

IN THE RED BOOK, AN Australian, a Scot and a Tibetan meet in India and find their lives entwined by destiny. Francoise is an Australian photographer who comes to Bhopal 20 years after the industrial disaster that continues to haunt the city. Naga is a Tibetan refugee. His family died in the Bhopal tragedy and the rage he harboured as a young man has been tempered by monastic life. And Arkay is an alcoholic Scot; he has embraced Buddhism in an effort to replace spirits with spirituality. The three characters take turns narrating and the best parts of the novel are about Westerners seeking themselves in India. Where Francoise's wandering life and Arkay's tortured one are made for each other, Naga's struggle isn't really dramatised. Even so, Meaghan Delahunt has produced a novel suffused with deep reflections on ethics and religion, East and West, love and despair.

© 2008 The Age

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