Fiction:Belief is important. No matter how crazy a story may appear, belief, not logic, is the defining factor. A story may sound implausible, but this does not necessarily render it impossible to believe and a true storyteller is capable of making anything real and, ultimately, true, writes Eileen Battersby.
Indra Sinha's surprise Man Booker prize contender, Animal's People, makes no secret about being based on the facts of a horrific industrial accident, the virtual destruction of the Indian city of Bhopal in 1984 when approximately 40 tonnes of deadly gas was released into the atmosphere over the city. Thousands died, and the legacy of that utterly criminal environmental disaster continues to fester. Slow death by degrees has stalked other victims. There have been birth defects, and for others, illnesses and abnormalities have struck over time. The river and main water supply have also been left contaminated.
Sinha has changed the name; Bhopal is Khaufpur. Instead of naming Union Carbide as the perpetrator, the enemy is simply known as "Kampani" and the real enemy is of course, "Amrika", the US. Sinha's novel is important but it is also naive, contrived and never quite convincing. It is stalked by its own inconsistencies, most of which centre on Sinha's language and, most particularly, the characterisation of his central player, Animal. Admittedly though, the most difficult problem facing this well-intentioned, haphazard narrative is that it is trying to emulate the wayward exuberance of Salman Rushdie of Midnight's Children. In other words, Rushdie at his best.
"I used to be human once," begins Animal. "So I'm told. I don't remember it myself, but those who knew me when I was small say I walked on two feet just like a human being." Now 20, Animal, the narrator, walks on all fours. His spine has become twisted and so he crawls, his bottom held higher than his head. Not that this prevents him from spying on women having baths, or lovers engaged in moments of intimacy. He sets out to tell the story and warns us: "If you want my story, you'll have to put up with how I tell it" - and that includes a lot of unnecessarily phonetic spelling, Animal's ongoing obsession with sex and his large, but alas, underemployed penis.
ANIMAL'S WORLD LARGELY takes place in his own head - "Grim animal living without hope, that's how I saw myself. I asked nothing, expected less and was filled with anger at the world" - but he also has some social contact, mainly through his love for a young girl named Nisha. This love is countered by Animal's resentment of Zafar, a good-looking, able-bodied heroic type, and his rival for Nisha. Enter into this Elli, an American doctor intent on setting up a free clinic. She is good-looking and wears tight, blue jeans. The jeans are sufficient to preoccupy Animal, who has sex ever on his mind. Elli wants to save everybody, but she is American and therefore not to be trusted. As a character she barely rises above the level of token player. She is yet another of the weaknesses of this novel, which seems to think having an important issue as its source will compensate for just about anything else. It doesn't.
Chaotic narratives take risks but these risks are rarely in themselves all that problematic, providing the novelist is in control of the characters, the language and, above all, the tone. Animal is difficult to take seriously. He appears to have given up on people, and yet is ever ready for a fight and for a loner has conveniently placed himself in the heart of the action. Even so, considering that the narrative is supposed to be spoken by him into a tape recorder, this style of telling is not sustained. The narrative wanders about with Sinha clearly balancing the entire shaky structure upon the self-absorbed view of Animal who one moment is little more than a foul-mouthed thug, the next is a love-struck poet. Unfortunately, whatever his mood, be it crude or lyric, Animal, even with his vivid dreams and digressions and bizarre energy, is simply not very interesting.
There is no doubting Sinha's campaigning intent. This is an earnest, humane polemical work with moments of pathos as well as raucous humour. At the courthouse where the case had dragged on for years in between long delays, Nisha remarks: "New judge, I was four years old when this case began, now it's had 13 judges."
Elsewhere we hear of the experience of one man, now dead, as told not exactly by his widow but through the facts that now surround her plight. Aftaab worked in the factory and was aware of "how dangerous were the chemicals in there". Slipping into formal prose for a moment, the narrative then continues. "On that night he was at home off duty, when the stinging in the eyes began, the burning chillies, unlike most people he knew what to do." Having covered the faces of his wife and their two daughters with wet cloths, he led them out of the wind. "In this way they escaped where most of their neighbours perished. All were nevertheless damaged by the poisons."
The man is not so lucky. Soon he is coughing blood and his eyes "were nearly shut". He eventually dies. Animal hears the story and is baffled. After all, he reasons: "All of us worked every day with people with awful stories to tell."
Confusion, possible intrigue, idealism, hunger strikes and promises made which may or may not be kept, are all thrown into the pot. Elli herself, in one of her few semi-believable scenes, announces: "The world is made of promises. It's all very well to say such things, but noble ideas don't dull pain . . .".
This could well be a noble book, even an important one in that it is rooted in recent history and raises important issues that have not, and may not, go away. But it is not that good. Sinha has allowed his crude cartoon-like central character to undermine a narrative that at best is loosely handled and obvious. The biggest problem facing Animal's People is comparison. The finest of contemporary Indian fiction is outstanding - particularly in dialogue and characterisation. Sinha's hectic polemic lacks skill as well as narrative cohesion and, ultimately, a true voice.
Eileen Battersby is Literary Correspondent of The Irish Times
Animal's People By Indra Sinha Simon & Schuster, 374pp. £11.99