>>REVIEW
THE BEAUTY OF THE WORLD
Stacey Newman
Wingate Press, 228 pp.
Given that the invasion of Iraq was based on fables and fabrications, from the "weapons of mass destruction" to the al-Qaida connection, it’s fitting that it should inspire a fictional work like The Beauty of the World, Stacey Newman’s debut novel.
Although set in an imagined Latin American country, where the government has actually agreed to occupation by a western-based coalition of "liberators," Newman’s war story draws a pretty obvious parallel with the ongoing fiasco in the Persian Gulf. She posits a chilling time in the near future, when UN-defying invasions of resource-rich developing countries have become the norm, and while she never refers to real historical events, we can easily guess which one kicked off the trend.
Like Iraq, the occupation of the Republic of Perda hasn’t come off the way it was supposed to – at least for the Perdans, who’ve been led to believe it would be a smooth, almost corporate-style takeover aimed at stabilizing their economy. Newman depicts the run-up to the invasion and its devastating aftermath through the eyes of several young people caught up in the tragedy, in the process also crafting a romantic (not to say cinematic) tale of lovers in wartime.
The lovers are Talia, the headstrong leader of the pre-war resistance movement, and her colleague and fiancé Emil. They and their good friend Pierre, a government functionary who also secretly loves Talia, witness the bombing of Perda’s capital and are later interned in a concentration camp, along with, ironically, Talia’s estranged mother and Perda’s leader, Bellona Adalardo, who agreed to the occupation and intended the camp to be a temporary safe haven for the country’s elite. Instead, its been taken over by a rogue militia and turned into a kind of semi-Auschwitz, where the brutal rape of female prisoners is the least of the atrocities committed.
Most of the novel is told in non-chronological flashbacks as Emil, having escaped from the camp, makes a perilous trek across Perda to seek help in rescuing the still-imprisoned Talia. He’s accompanied on his journey by Sophie, a plucky television reporter who is one of the few journalists not participating in a global media boycott against covering the war.
Newman, a young writer based in Stratford, Ontario, is at her best when describing her conflicted characters’ motives and emotions, and when painting pictures of the grim prison camp and – particularly vividly – the lush landscape of her imaginary country. The novel’s political premise, however, is rather dubious, even in light of the Iraq outrage. Why would western powers stage a costly military invasion of Perda if the country’s ruling government has already agreed to hand over its resources to them? And the idea of the media protesting a war by refusing to cover it is unlikely, too – after all, the war-mongers would be more than happy to have their deeds go unreported.
Of course, plenty of movies have been constructed on much shakier ground and The Beauty of the World has a decidedly film-like quality to it, with a terse, present-tense narrative, brisk pace and diagram-like detail that suggest a scenario. It also has the attractive young characters that movies thrive on. But this doesn’t diminish the serious intent of Newman’s novel as an angry fictional response to current events. And we can only hope that her optimistic ending will one day be echoed in real life. |
Copyright ©2006 FFWD. All rights reserved.