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michaelontheplanet 's review for:
The Other Hand
by Chris Cleave
Slight of hand: Chris Cleave comes from a good place - engaging with the legacy of colonialism, and the ugly side of the west’s scramble for oil, while uncovering the banal and brutal truth about the UK’s claim to offer “safe haven to those fleeing persecution”, and the general indifference of the British public to the plight of these people. 15 years on, and not much has changed in terms of treatment, but the public mood, whipped up by newspaper hysteria and opportunistic populist politicians, is considerably less benevolent than simply ‘indifferent.’
But…I have reservations about The Other Hand, and not just because it has aged. Whether a white guy from an averagely privileged middle class background - albeit with a childhood spent partly in Africa - can get inside [sic] a Nigerian girl sufficiently for it not to be appropriation is debatable, and something that the book doesn’t adequately answer. And perhaps most tellingly, does a journalist make the transition to long form fiction author successfully? Not quite.
Neither silly, self-absorbed Sarah with her unhappy marriage, vacuous magazine editorship, and Surrey upbringing firmly entrenched, nor Little Bee, the pseudonymous African refugee whose life entangles with hers with disastrous consequences, quite come across as fully rounded. Though it’s a clever juxtaposition where the Nigerian woman’s well-modulated English-learned-from-The-Times and every word chosen speech and thoughts are contrasted with the fashionista’s slapdash me-generation mix of self-pity and wannabe social conscience.
There’s a lot going on in The Other Hand - and the packing of so many traumatic, life-affecting events into its narrative arc risks overwhelming the reader - who may just pause to think, “really?” If we accept Little Bee manages to find her way to England after her sister is raped, murdered and cannibalised on a beach in West Africa, that she somehow held on to Sarah’s husband’s driving licence which fell out of his pocket when he was being a bit of a wuss in front of ganja-deranged machete-wielding mercenaries, and by an administrative error she’s released from the Essex detention centre and manages to walk to Kingston-upon-Thames to find the home address on the card, but then her luck runs out when Sarah’s son goes missing and the police are called, do we also accept Sarah’s lover, a mid-ranking Home Office official would call in favours to put the woman he supposedly loves and is worried about on a plane to Nigeria, with her toddler son is his Batman suit, so she can escort the now-deported Little Bee home? That the preceding sentence is so long is a reflection of the convolutions Cleave engages us in, not always successfully.
Ultimately, there’s something lacking at the heart of The Other Hand, whether it’s a sense that both women are cyphers for a class of people, who don’t quite jump off the page, or that the ending, with its trite hopefulness jarring after all the darkness within doesn’t fully wash, given the concatenation of events that precede. De l’autre main, there are some compelling scenes and a curiosity as to the ultimate end propelled this reader forward. As much a game of two halves as the title suggests.
But…I have reservations about The Other Hand, and not just because it has aged. Whether a white guy from an averagely privileged middle class background - albeit with a childhood spent partly in Africa - can get inside [sic] a Nigerian girl sufficiently for it not to be appropriation is debatable, and something that the book doesn’t adequately answer. And perhaps most tellingly, does a journalist make the transition to long form fiction author successfully? Not quite.
Neither silly, self-absorbed Sarah with her unhappy marriage, vacuous magazine editorship, and Surrey upbringing firmly entrenched, nor Little Bee, the pseudonymous African refugee whose life entangles with hers with disastrous consequences, quite come across as fully rounded. Though it’s a clever juxtaposition where the Nigerian woman’s well-modulated English-learned-from-The-Times and every word chosen speech and thoughts are contrasted with the fashionista’s slapdash me-generation mix of self-pity and wannabe social conscience.
There’s a lot going on in The Other Hand - and the packing of so many traumatic, life-affecting events into its narrative arc risks overwhelming the reader - who may just pause to think, “really?” If we accept Little Bee manages to find her way to England after her sister is raped, murdered and cannibalised on a beach in West Africa, that she somehow held on to Sarah’s husband’s driving licence which fell out of his pocket when he was being a bit of a wuss in front of ganja-deranged machete-wielding mercenaries, and by an administrative error she’s released from the Essex detention centre and manages to walk to Kingston-upon-Thames to find the home address on the card, but then her luck runs out when Sarah’s son goes missing and the police are called, do we also accept Sarah’s lover, a mid-ranking Home Office official would call in favours to put the woman he supposedly loves and is worried about on a plane to Nigeria, with her toddler son is his Batman suit, so she can escort the now-deported Little Bee home? That the preceding sentence is so long is a reflection of the convolutions Cleave engages us in, not always successfully.
Ultimately, there’s something lacking at the heart of The Other Hand, whether it’s a sense that both women are cyphers for a class of people, who don’t quite jump off the page, or that the ending, with its trite hopefulness jarring after all the darkness within doesn’t fully wash, given the concatenation of events that precede. De l’autre main, there are some compelling scenes and a curiosity as to the ultimate end propelled this reader forward. As much a game of two halves as the title suggests.