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A review by larissadistler
The Village in the Jungle by Leonard Woolf
4.0
This was so interesting. Horribly depressing and a little terrifying, but very interesting.
I happened across this minor classic novel at work. It was chosen by my library director as a featured book for one of our newsletters. I never heard of it before, but she discovered that it was written by the husband of Virginia Wolfe. I was curious enough to read a bit more about the novel and discovered it was about colonial Sri Lanka and that Leonard wrote it after being a general in Ceylon for many years.
Early prose has an fascinating way of being disturbing with very little actual disturbing imagery. There are no sex scenes and the violence is much more understated than that found in novels today, but Leonard definitely makes his point. Life in the tiny jungle village is rough and if the higher ups, the Sri Lanken headman and his associates, didn't like you, then you were likely to starve. In years of poor crop yield disease is rampant in the weakened villagers and unless the headman is sympathetic to your family death abounds.
The jungle is described in enough detail with enough personification that it is a character itself. It comes across as an indiscriminate monster and savior alike. The real monsters are the people. Power and safety are difficult to come by and when one or the other is secured, anything will be done to keep it.
I really felt for the protagonists and even the antagonists when all is said and done. The story mostly chronicles the life of Silindu and his twin daughters. They are individuals with their own agendas to live peacefully with themselves and the jungle. The villagers decide they are pariahs and even demons and therefore life not even a finger to help them as they are plotted against over and over for the gains of others. The stories of his daughters, Punchi Menika and Hinnihami, are heartbreaking in the way there lives are wasted at the expense of others.
This is not a story with a happy ending, but in the end it's clear that things keep moving regardless of the suffering of one village. This book really should be more well known. It's unique in the period which it was written as it is about the colonists and not the colonizers and it is sympathetic to the colonists giving them life and stories of their own.
I happened across this minor classic novel at work. It was chosen by my library director as a featured book for one of our newsletters. I never heard of it before, but she discovered that it was written by the husband of Virginia Wolfe. I was curious enough to read a bit more about the novel and discovered it was about colonial Sri Lanka and that Leonard wrote it after being a general in Ceylon for many years.
Early prose has an fascinating way of being disturbing with very little actual disturbing imagery. There are no sex scenes and the violence is much more understated than that found in novels today, but Leonard definitely makes his point. Life in the tiny jungle village is rough and if the higher ups, the Sri Lanken headman and his associates, didn't like you, then you were likely to starve. In years of poor crop yield disease is rampant in the weakened villagers and unless the headman is sympathetic to your family death abounds.
The jungle is described in enough detail with enough personification that it is a character itself. It comes across as an indiscriminate monster and savior alike. The real monsters are the people. Power and safety are difficult to come by and when one or the other is secured, anything will be done to keep it.
I really felt for the protagonists and even the antagonists when all is said and done. The story mostly chronicles the life of Silindu and his twin daughters. They are individuals with their own agendas to live peacefully with themselves and the jungle. The villagers decide they are pariahs and even demons and therefore life not even a finger to help them as they are plotted against over and over for the gains of others. The stories of his daughters, Punchi Menika and Hinnihami, are heartbreaking in the way there lives are wasted at the expense of others.
This is not a story with a happy ending, but in the end it's clear that things keep moving regardless of the suffering of one village. This book really should be more well known. It's unique in the period which it was written as it is about the colonists and not the colonizers and it is sympathetic to the colonists giving them life and stories of their own.