In a Strange Room

Jun 15, 2012 Teresa rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Teresa by: ·Karen·

I don't know if it's something in me or something in the book that makes me think of its title as "In a Dark Room," which is not like me at all, as I'm a stickler for exact titles. There is much darkness here, but the work is focused on the 'strange' (not familiar) 'rooms' (not literal) the writer/character finds himself in as he travels excessively and obsessively, it sometimes seems.

This is a hybrid sort of book. It's listed as fiction, but the author names his character Damon and uses both 'I...more

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Jul 16, 2012 Fionnuala rated it 4 of 5 stars

I read this while travelling and the unfamiliar surroundings, the new vistas, the waking up in a strange room added an extra dimension to this already challenging reading experience. Galgut steps outside the conventions. Not for him the adherence to a plot or the limiting of himself to details related to that plot. He writes life as she is lived. The three interlinked accounts in this novel seem as aimless as the journeys undertaken by the main character, who is mostly referred to simply as 'he'...more

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Aug 29, 2012 Ben Winch rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: anglo, african, south-african

This is a beautiful book and Damon Galgut is a brave, committed writer. Committed? It takes commitment to lay yourself bare, without self-pity, without shame, without apology. Nothing is wasted here; there is no wallowing. Perhaps owing to the simple innovation of the form (a trilogy - or better, tryptich - of short novellas, each recounting a journey), there is little need for scene-setting or back-story. Galgut's alter-ego/protagonist exists only when he's traveling, never sinking into routine...more This is a beautiful book and Damon Galgut is a brave, committed writer. Committed? It takes commitment to lay yourself bare, without self-pity, without shame, without apology. Nothing is wasted here; there is no wallowing. Perhaps owing to the simple innovation of the form (a trilogy - or better, tryptich - of short novellas, each recounting a journey), there is little need for scene-setting or back-story. Galgut's alter-ego/protagonist exists only when he's traveling, never sinking into routine for long, never far from drama or life-changing occurrence. Nor does this seem shallow; taken together the three episodes suggest a trajectory that extends far in either direction of what is told. True, it's a balancing act, and at times he seems about to fall. In the third story especially, the distance that has leant perspective to the other pieces almost collapses, as Galgut describes an experience so harrowing, so singular, so detailed that it must be autobiographical. (Probably the whole of the book is autobiographical, yet somehow it is not a memoir.) Galgut seems aware of this battle to maintain perspective, and frames each piece with a third-person point of view that gives way at points, as if instinctually, to the first-person. Whether this is systematic or not I don't know, but by the third piece we are almost in the realm of memoir, the beauty of the descriptions all but gone, replaced with a simple transcript of unrelenting anguish in an Indian hospital. But what a pay-off! This is brutal, real, powerful. And because of the balancing effect of the other two pieces, it is transmuted - just - into something like fiction.

In a Strange Room is not political, not overtly, but in examining the interaction of various Caucasian peoples in Africa and India it inevitably touches on politics. At one point, a Chilean man tells Galgut of an experience in South Africa, where a young American, a recent friend of the Chilean's, 'full of sentiment and goodwill about the country, talking... about racial harmony and the healing of the past' was stabbed in the back in Johannesburg for his watch and forty rand. Galgut writes: 'Why he tells this story I don't know, but there seems to be some kind of accusation in it.' Galgut neither defends nor criticises his country, but his alienation - familiar to me as an Australian but magnified in him beyond anything I have known - is surely, at least partly, that of all white South Africans, that of a transplanted culture. How are we to live in a place we have no claim to, or at least not the extravagant claim of our ancestors, but which is the only home we know? Galgut's response is asceticism. He acts, like a child in a stranger's house, afraid to touch anything - or anyone - lest it reveal him for the trespasser he is. Often bewildered, tortured, at times transfigured by guilt, he hurls himself out on his journeys as if to force himself to live, to render his alienation so acute that he must interact. And without having to spell it out, he suggests much about what it is to be a member of the so-called 'First World', and about the respect we owe our less-fortunate neighbours.

Plotless but never frustratingly so, and so focussed on its subject of who we reach out to in times of transformation that by the end its shape seems inevitable, this is a raw and confronting work that lays bare the motives behind a self-imposed rootlessness. With his conscious mind, Galgut knows it already, but on each journey some desperate, shadowed side of him seeks, against hope, to disprove it:

Wayfarer, there is no way -
Only foam trails in the sea.

(Antonio Machado)

(less)

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Jun 26, 2011 Jessica rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: literary-fiction, so-african-writers, novella

There are certain writers one discovers, whose works one reads, consumes, as if they were writing directly to you, for you. Damon Galgut is such an author for me. This is the fourth novel (a trio of novellas, actually) I've read by him, and it's the most intensely personal, and (perhaps along with 'The Good Doctor,') the most beautiful and harrowing.
You can find other reviews to tell you plot, etc. I'll say simply that Galgut is one of the most authentic and significant novelists writing today....more

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Feb 10, 2011 Sunil rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, post-modern, return-tickets, word-wines, favorites

How do you sit down and write a review for a book that deep down you know not just speaks for you but in its own strange way represents you ? Yes! represents you, or whatever that is you. You don't, you can't. You sit and close your eyes and let all the thoughts the book evoked within you turn inside your head, one after another like waves crashing on the shore. Some day when the stirring has settled, I will write. I know I will.

For now, all I can say is just that this book has been written make...more

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Sep 25, 2010 Nancy Oakes rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: booker-prize-nominee, fiction

In A Strange Room consists of three novellas. The first is called "The Follower," in which the narrator (also named Damon) is in Greece, visiting the ruins at Mycenae, and on the empty road meets a fellow traveler, Reiner, going the other way. They strike up a conversation, and Reiner tells Damon that he has to catch a train that night. However, when Damon arrives back at the hostel where he is staying, he finds Reiner there, having missed his train. Eventually Damon returns home to South Africa...more In A Strange Room consists of three novellas. The first is called "The Follower," in which the narrator (also named Damon) is in Greece, visiting the ruins at Mycenae, and on the empty road meets a fellow traveler, Reiner, going the other way. They strike up a conversation, and Reiner tells Damon that he has to catch a train that night. However, when Damon arrives back at the hostel where he is staying, he finds Reiner there, having missed his train. Eventually Damon returns home to South Africa where he finds himself thinking of Reiner, and decides to invite him to come and visit. The two decide to travel to Lesotho where they embark on a series of long hikes with unforeseen consequences. The second story is called "The Lover." Once again Damon is traveling, this time in Zimbabwe -- "no particular reason or intention has brought him here." At a bar at Victoria Falls he meets a group of fellow travelers on their way to Malawi. He decides to go with them, and realizes that they don't know each other but have only banded together for safe travel. However, he soon ditches this group for another group of three people who he keeps bumping into -- Alice, Jerome and Christian. When the trip is finished, Damon decides to go home rather than to Greece where he's been invited by Jerome and Alice, but is struck with instant regret. So some time later, he takes them up on their offer for a visit to Switzerland. The last story in the book is "The Guardian," which finds Damon heading for Goa (India) with a good friend of his named Anna, "somebody he loves and who makes him laugh. Somebody he wants to protect." He has promised Anna's partner he would watch over her carefully, because Anna's already "gone off the rails" in the past. But Anna's troubles cause her to start “losing the plot, living in fast motion, speeding along” and eventually, things come crashing down, spiraling out of control.

Besides the experience of traveling with someone tying together these three stories, in an interview, Galgut noted that the unifying theme in these stories is that there is a "spectrum" of categories people in "intimate" relationships fall into: power, love, and guardianship. I would add that there's a theme of dashed hopes in a "what could have been" sort of way that seems to run throughout as well.

In a Strange Room is not a novel filled with action, but rather a story told in a quieter, understated tone. The narrator relates his story often as if he's watching himself from another vantage point, so that sometimes he's speaking in the first person, and the telling changes to a third-person narrative, where "I" becomes "he" or "Damon." And as I was reading it, I couldn't help but wonder if this was a disguised piece of autobiography, only to learn after finishing the book in the above-mentioned article that the author believes that

"the process of memory is also a form of fiction. Part of the point of this book is that it should be published as fiction and make people reflect on the boundaries between fiction and non-fiction."

And he's absolutely correct, now that I think about it. I really liked this book as a whole, although my least favorite story was the second one, because it seemed that the longer it went on, the less powerful it became. What comes out of this book is honest emotion, which I appreciated. Definitely recommended.(less)

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Aug 06, 2011 Larry Hoffer added it

Damon, the narrator of Damon Galgut's beautiful yet spare In a Strange Room, can't seem to settle down. Every time he finds himself settling into a place, he is struck by the somewhat inexplicable need to roam. Perhaps this quote says it best: "There is a moment when any real journey begins. Sometimes it happens as you leave your house, sometimes it's a long way from home."

The book follows Damon on three separate journies, which are three separate chapters. In the first, he meets up with German...more

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May 30, 2013 Daniel G. rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, gay, hares-hyenas-bookclub, literature

My partner and I host travellers from around the world. Our guests tell us stories like these three from Damon Galgut.

The “In a Strange Room” of the title refers to what happens as you travel. Each morning you wake up and find yourself in an unfamiliar room.

This book is not a novel, but three independent stories first published in the Paris Review, and linked together by theme. Galgut titles the stories based on the role the narrator plays in each one: follower, lover and guardian. Each of the s...more

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Aug 12, 2012 Alice Meloy rated it 3 of 5 stars

Three sort of separate stories narrated by the same person (like the author, named Damon) at three times in his life. The first finds him as a young man, traveling around Eruope somewhat aimlessly. He meets a young German man to whom he is attracted, and invites him to come visit his own country, South Africa. Sexual tension runs high, but is frustrated. There is more sexual tension in the second section when Damon, a few years later, meets some travelers in Zimbabwe (where he also seems to be t...more

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Feb 06, 2012 Ben Dutton rated it 5 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Damon Galgut came to world attention with his 2003 work The Good Doctor, which was nominated in this country for The Booker Prize, and won him the Commonwealth Writers Prize and the Dublin/IMPAC Award. That novel, which I read at some point in 2004, revealed a prodigious talent, and it is a treat to have a new novel from him. (I missed The Imposter which was published in 2008, I suppose because I was leaving university and moving across the country at the time).

In A Strange Room is actually thre...more Damon Galgut came to world attention with his 2003 work The Good Doctor, which was nominated in this country for The Booker Prize, and won him the Commonwealth Writers Prize and the Dublin/IMPAC Award. That novel, which I read at some point in 2004, revealed a prodigious talent, and it is a treat to have a new novel from him. (I missed The Imposter which was published in 2008, I suppose because I was leaving university and moving across the country at the time).

In A Strange Room is actually three short stories featuring the same protagonist, also called Damon, and his journeys around the globe. Galgut, we know, is a keen traveller, and I recall reading that much of The Good Doctor was written in Goa. The first of the stories, The Follower, takes place in Greece and Lesotho, and sees Damon befriending a German traveller with whom he goes hiking. The second, The Lover, sees Damon in roving again in Africa, where he meets a beautiful Swiss boy, and follows him back to Switzerland where tragedy strikes. The final part, The Guardian, sees Damon travelling to India with an emotionally unstable young woman, Anna, who has attempted suicide.

These summaries do little to suggest the power of Galgut’s novel. Written in a beguiling mixture of first and third person voices (often within the same paragraph), which really should not work, but does, In A Strange Room reveals a central figure is at once a watcher, and the watched, who remains distance and yet strangely familiar. More than once this makes for heartbreaking reading: we see Damon reaching out to another, attempting to make connection, only to be repelled. It is just the first type of border he cannot cross: there are also land borders, where guards must be bribed, and countries he can be expelled from for not having the right passport. Galgut has always been good on outsiders, and this new novel is no exception.

As usual Galgut’s prose sings: there is a looseness to his prose that hides the taut construction. You sense every word here is considered, every syllable is in the right place. It is a master at work. Galgut, the kind of writer who will undoubtedly win big awards in the future, perhaps even the Nobel, like his fellow countryman JM Coetzee, has achieved something formidable here. If this is not the best novel of 2010, then I will be greatly surprised. (less)

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Feb 02, 2012 Monica rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is an amazing book. The words are poetry. The sentences are magic carpets of words that take the reader from one thought to the next...many times leaving disturbing feelings and images behind. This is what I call “raw” writing. From the heart, with emotion, with great sensitivity. I read this book ever so slowly so that I could savour every moment I spent within the pages. I love the way Damon Galgut writes. I love the way he makes me think as I’m reading. Haunting...unsettling...unforgetta...more

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Jul 12, 2011 Kiwiflora rated it 3 of 5 stars

Damon Galgut is a South African writer. He started writing as a young man, and met with immediate success. This is his second Man Booker nominated and short listed novel. Much of his writing is set in South Africa and surrounds, and much of it also autobiographical. This novel is also partly set in Africa and may or may not be autobiographical. It could also be a book of travel writing of sorts too - he journeys to many of the countries of Africa, as far north as Morocco, and to India where the...more Damon Galgut is a South African writer. He started writing as a young man, and met with immediate success. This is his second Man Booker nominated and short listed novel. Much of his writing is set in South Africa and surrounds, and much of it also autobiographical. This novel is also partly set in Africa and may or may not be autobiographical. It could also be a book of travel writing of sorts too - he journeys to many of the countries of Africa, as far north as Morocco, and to India where the last part of the book takes place. It is such personal writing, with such personal insight and depth I almost felt as if I was intruding on someone's inner being. Such spare and beautiful writing deserves to be more widely read as it also allows us to look into our own selves.

This book is not just one story as most novels are, but more like three short stories, each from a different part of the narrator's life as he struggles to find his path in life. The chapters are entitled 'The Follower', 'The Lover' and 'The Guardian' and the narrator is each of these people. 99% of the story is narrated in the 3rd person, but so weirdly very occasionally, in mid sentence or mid paragraph he suddenly talks about 'I' and then immediately goes back to 'he'. I can't think of a possible reason why he would want to do this, it doesn't make sense. Damon is a loner, a young man who really does not know what he wants in life or how to get there. I get the impression money is not a problem as he doesn't really seem to do anything except travel aimlessly. Lucky him. In the third story, he would appear to be quite a lot older, settled and I would say now a successful writer. But he is still essentially a loner, still looking for that essence of peace and belonging.

I think every now and again we need to read books like this, beautiful writing, very spare, very reflective. It makes us think about relationships we have with people and how deeply affected we can be by the things we may say or do to those people - the subtle nuances of our friendships and relationships.(less)

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Jun 21, 2011 Maya rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Maya L.

Always a fan of Damon Galgut. I'm giving this three stars on the Damon Galgut scale...just because I think he can do better, or at least more pleasing to me.

This is three novellas. I thought the first one was outstanding--suspenseful, understated beautiful. The second and third weren't as good as the first. However they definitely all functioned really well as a group.

Things I liked about this book.
--I like a bunch of lines, but this convo was one of my favorites

You said you were looking forward...more

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Sep 21, 2010 Stephanie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Imagine finding yourself on a journey, on foot, through a not
particularly captivating landscape, and with a taciturn, mildly
repulsive companion.

That would describe approximately the first third of South African
writer Damon Galgut’s In A Strange Room, a novel about a man who takes
journeys, on foot, through not particularly captivating landscapes.

Fortunately, the novel improves as you keep at it, illustrating that
great virtue of the hiker, stamina.

Our protagonist is a South African named Damon, wh...more

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Jun 05, 2012 Jay Z rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fic-lit

Hmm. So the dude clearly has a way with words. There are sentences - paragraphs even - that are perfectly lovely. Unfortunately, the mechanics of the book aren't nearly as pleasing. There are three sections about our alienated and disaffected protagonist who travels the world because he can't sort out what the hell else to do with his time (roughly). One section finds him in Greece & Lesotho; another in Zimbabwe & Tanzania; and the last in India. In all three places, he tours with other...more Hmm. So the dude clearly has a way with words. There are sentences - paragraphs even - that are perfectly lovely. Unfortunately, the mechanics of the book aren't nearly as pleasing. There are three sections about our alienated and disaffected protagonist who travels the world because he can't sort out what the hell else to do with his time (roughly). One section finds him in Greece & Lesotho; another in Zimbabwe & Tanzania; and the last in India. In all three places, he tours with other people as lost, vague, and bizarre as himself. Having nothing in common but this, the sections don't hold together and it feels like reading three separate stories without beginning or end. Which might well be the point, since this is in fact a book about isolation and futility, and one man's inability to form meaningful connections with anyone around him. Still, this wandering fragmented post-modern style of writing is tiresomely frequent, and the more of it I read, the more convinced I am that it reveals only authorial laziness over craft. Not skill.

A small example is the dialogue, which can't be called anything but lazy, particularly in the first section. Conversations lie dead on the page, consist of a few words by each person, barely exceeding a line. There is no expression, no character, no colour. You learn nothing about the personalities of the speakers, which is the whole point of dialogue in the first place. Then, each terse pronouncement takes up a new paragraph and the gaping white spaces in between serve no purpose. At the end of the book, you know the characters no better than when you started which means you will remember only vague scraps about them when you close the book, and forget about them entirely by the time it's back on the shelf.

The other problem with this book is its narration, which shifts from third person to first back to third -- many times within the same paragraph. The point, I assume, is the obvious - to blur the line between fiction and memoir and to further the dreamlike, fragmented feel of the story blah blah blah. But in addition to being totally unnecessary, it's seriously disruptive and irritating.

Fortunately, the author's language was compelling enough to distract me from these more-than-minor irritants. In this way, it was compulsively readable and entirely worth the three stars. But beyond the good writing and the vague sense that this book could've been so much more, there isn't much else to recommend it. (less)

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Jan 20, 2012 Stacia rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012, europa-editions, man-booker

I finished In a Strange Room by Damon Galgut. Wow. The book centers on a fictional character, yet Galgut refers to him as both 'he' and 'I' at various points in the text, making it feel like it's really not fiction at all, but rather autobiographical. It also makes you feel close to the main character, then very far away, & back again. He also doesn't use traditional punctuation (i.e., quotes, question marks), but it fits perfectly w/ the flow of his narrative.

The prose seems simple enough,...more

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Mar 20, 2011 Andrew rated it 1 of 5 stars

Part travelogue, part psychologically deconstructive journey, In A Strange Room kept me at arm’s length for almost the entirety of its 180 pages. Structured as three mid-length stories strung together loosely as a novella, the most pressing thought I’m left with is that the book lacked focus—both on a macro and micro level, as none of the tales, independent of the whole, came together with any level of clarity beyond the objective curiosity they first inspire.

The three sections—“The Follower,” “...more Part travelogue, part psychologically deconstructive journey, In A Strange Room kept me at arm’s length for almost the entirety of its 180 pages. Structured as three mid-length stories strung together loosely as a novella, the most pressing thought I’m left with is that the book lacked focus—both on a macro and micro level, as none of the tales, independent of the whole, came together with any level of clarity beyond the objective curiosity they first inspire.

The three sections—“The Follower,” “The Lovers,” and “The Guardian”—take the main character, Damon, on journeys through Africa, India and parts of Europe, but at no point do the destinations have life breathed into them beyond the most basic clinical descriptions. The same could be said for the manner in which dialogue and interaction of any kind is handled—surgical, detached, and lacking all emotion.

I’ve been stewing over this review for days now, as I really don’t know what to say. I didn’t hate the book by any stretch, but neither would I recommend it to anyone. What is described as a journey not only through a series of exotic, sometimes treacherous, sometimes serene, landscapes, but also as an adventure as one man experiences a series of encounters that would change his life, feels like a limp, disaffected series of uncomfortable conversations from a man that seemingly wants and does not want to connect with the world around him at the same time.

The narrative choice of switching back and forth from third person to first, sometimes within the same paragraph, did not have the intended effect—I did not feel, at those moments of first person narration, an increased attachment or intimacy with Damon’s thoughts. Instead, it felt clumsy, as if I were reading the work of a writer who could neither decide to be here nor there with his thoughts.

As a purely psychological experience, there is a lot that could be dissected from Galgut’s writing style and affectations. But is it an enjoyable, intriguing, mystifying read? Not in the slightest. He approaches intrigue only with the last story, “The Guardian”, in which he takes charge over a severely bi-polar friend. In those final pages, glimpses of his humanity sparkle in and amongst some rather laborious literary choices, but never do they shine bright enough to provide you with an entry point into the young narrator’s heart.(less)

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Apr 03, 2012 Bronwyn rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Sooo... it took me a while to finally open this book, and once I did, it took nearly 100 pages before I was committed to finishing it. But then... I found it really bewitching. It's quite chilly to start with. Stark and reserved with few footholds for the reader. But as the novel (and, ahem, the narrator) progresses, you gain a deeper intimacy and connection.

Very good at describing the various moods of travel, and of the various relationships one has with the same traveling companion. A lovely...more

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Oct 09, 2012 Jim Elkins added it · review of another edition

Shelves: african

This is not a novel. I am amazed and depressed that this made it onto the Man Booker list.[return][return]Novels are supposed to be acts of imagination. This is barely papered-over reportage. There are entire pages that seem to exist simply because he couldn't think of anything except what actually happened. (For example, the revelation, in the second story, that tourists profit from poverty.) The stories parade fragmentation and apparent disorder as poetic virtues, when they're clearly just art...more

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May 08, 2011 Jane rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book is divided into three parts containing each journey. It is a gentle read and well written. I would call it the book equivalent of a road movie. One man's physical journey across Greece, India and Africa but also a personal and emotional journey. The author writes in the first person as the narrator.
The first third is travelling through Greece but also takes us back to Africa. He meets a young German and they are drawn to each other but it is a destructive friendship, one independant, d...more

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Jan 25, 2011 Deborah Halber rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book is called a novel but it seems more like three autobiographical stories about Damon Galgut's wanderlust and the anxieties that make him travel with more shades of obsession than enjoyment. He alternately refers to the main character as "he" and "I," and other characters call him "Damon." That bit of confusion aside (I was disappointed that the events described weren't necessarily true, because Galgut manages to make hiking with no destination a compelling read) the book describes local...more

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May 04, 2013 Garry rated it 3 of 5 stars

In a Strange Room is an autobiographical account of three separate journeys in the author's life. The first is a walking trek through the mountains of Lesotho with the strong-willed Reiner. In the second, he joins a group of travelers as they make there way up Africa, and it is a bittersweet tale of unrequited love. The third tells of his trip to India with the manic and suicidal Anna.

Each story is really a stand-alone novella. They have the same narrator and writing style, but otherwise there i...more In a Strange Room is an autobiographical account of three separate journeys in the author's life. The first is a walking trek through the mountains of Lesotho with the strong-willed Reiner. In the second, he joins a group of travelers as they make there way up Africa, and it is a bittersweet tale of unrequited love. The third tells of his trip to India with the manic and suicidal Anna.

Each story is really a stand-alone novella. They have the same narrator and writing style, but otherwise there is no overlap. Characters are different, storylines are separate, themes are different.

A couple of my friends have reviewed this novel already and have pointed to the first story as being their favourite - for me it was the third. It all comes down to personal preference I suppose, but I found the kindnesses and sacrifices shown by the satellite characters in this drama to be incredibly touching.

There was a sparseness to In a Strange Room that I liked. People come and go, and travels are transitory. You may think about them when you return home, and events may affect you for many years afterwards, but they are always part of another world and time. I've read reviews that say nothing much happens in the novel, but I disagree. A hell of a lot happens... it's random and fleeting, that's all.

Now to the rant... Galgut has laughed at the rules of punctuation and grammar. It's common for quotation marks to be missing in novels, as they are in this one, but this is just the start in In a Strange Room. Strangely enough, I didn't mind this as much as normally would - he's a clever enough writer to generally get away with it. Indeed, I think it probably helps the style and tone of the book. But there were some absolutely horrible passages that stopped me dead as it took me a few reads to decipher what was being said. To yank me away from the story, to break the mood like that, seems like a cruel thing for a novelist to do.

After a moment Reiner comes over and crouches down behind him. They say nothing, the silence thickens into tension and then Reiner says, in one of your letters.

Yes.

Wait. What? What did he say? Reiner's talking in one of your letters? Did you say that you were writing about Reiner and he is talking to you through that? Hang on, he was crouched behind you - he was probably the one talking. Was he talking in the style of one of your letters? But why would he say yes? What's he saying yes to? Hang on, let me read that again. Oh, I get it. Why didn't you just write....

After a moment Reiner comes over and crouches down behind him. They say nothing. The silence thickens into tension and then Reiner says "In one of your letters..."

"Yes?"

Now, to the author this was probably a very obvious passage. Maybe 99% of the reading population got it first time round. Maybe I'm the only person who struggled for a few minutes to interpret it. Yes, that might be the case, but it was totally unnecessary, and would have been avoided if the rules had been followed. If an author continually plays with the rules, he's eventually going to trip his reader up.

Lecture rant over. I liked what this novel was doing; I didn't like the way it did it.(less)

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Nov 27, 2012 Mary rated it 3 of 5 stars

This includes spoilers!

This is a travel book of sorts, the separate descriptions of three extended trips taken by the author that are unrelated to each other except that the author met or traveled with someone who touched him deeply, for better or for worse. Over time we learn that the author/narrator is South African, is a writer, and is named Damon. As the stories are told they appear to be autobiographical, but could of course merely be fiction, although set in places that the author has trav...more This includes spoilers!

This is a travel book of sorts, the separate descriptions of three extended trips taken by the author that are unrelated to each other except that the author met or traveled with someone who touched him deeply, for better or for worse. Over time we learn that the author/narrator is South African, is a writer, and is named Damon. As the stories are told they appear to be autobiographical, but could of course merely be fiction, although set in places that the author has traveled.

In the first of these the author is a very young man, who meets a German fellow hiker, Reiner, with whom he corresponds, and later does an extended hike around Lesthoto. There is a sense of a love or friendship gone wrong, with Reiner being too controlling – while the two young men are attracted to each other, Reiner apparently goes both ways as he chooses, or at least says he does so that he maintains the upper hand in the relationship. The author finally strikes out on his own, and there is a sense of relief that he has left Reiner’s control.

The second story is an odd mixture of travel experience and chance encounter – the author is traveling up in Zimbabwe, and joins a group to go to Malawi, and later goes to Tanzania. Part of this is a commentary on the behavior of some tourists who disparage everything that they encounter:

… and go on in loud voices about their terrible trip through Zambia. The rocks, oh, it was just horrible, and the bus-station, oh, it was so dirty, it smelled, oh, disgusting. The shortcomings and squalor of the continent have let them down personally, it never seems to occur to them that the conditions they found horrible and disgusting are not part of a set that will be struck when they have gone offstage.

The other part of the second story, however, is an encounter with three travelers with whom he starts traveling, and eventually visits in Switzerland, a brother (Jerome) and sister and another man, and Damon and Jerome quickly recognize an attraction for each other. The story ends abruptly when Damon sends a letter to Jerome that is returned a week later with a cover note (spoiler alert!) that Jerome was killed in a motorbike accident. This ending does have much the same feeling as the ending of Brokeback Mountain, a loss that is sudden and aching. The ending of this story is beautifully written:

... in every story of obsession there is only one character, only one plot. I am writing about myself alone, it’s all I know, and for this reason I have always failed in every love, which is to say at the very heart of my life.
He sits in the empty room, crying.

The final story occurs years later, in India where the author frequently sojourns, and has brought along a woman friend/acquaintance, Anna, who has had severe problems with depression (spoiler alert!) and does finally succeed in committing suicide. This has some interesting information about how hospitals work in India – a family member or friend has to bring in all supplies and medicine, as well as keep the patient clean and clothes washed. It becomes the most self-referential, because he encounters a cab driver who helps get Anna to a private clinic, and suggests that Damon write a book about the girl who wished to die.

This is all an easy read, and the second story had the greatest impact for me, especially as I looked back over my notes on the stories. I found it annoying that the author freely switched between referring to himself in the third and the first person, also a lack of punctuation enhanced the problems that made it quite confusing to understand which character held what view, said what, etc. For this reason I doubt I will search out more of Galgut’s writing. This small dose was interesting, however, and clearly I was intrigued enough to write a lot about it.
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Apr 14, 2012 Daven rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: best-books

Given the fact that I found myself most of the time mesmerized by this set of three travelogue novellas, I'd give this 4.5 stars, but not quite the full 5. There are all sorts of "despites" drifting throughout my reaction to this book: despite the fact that there is not a whole lot of "story" here; despite the fact that the characters are almost without exception remarkably self-centered and overprivileged; despite the fact that Galgut violates a fundamental "rule" of narrative structure . . . d...more Given the fact that I found myself most of the time mesmerized by this set of three travelogue novellas, I'd give this 4.5 stars, but not quite the full 5. There are all sorts of "despites" drifting throughout my reaction to this book: despite the fact that there is not a whole lot of "story" here; despite the fact that the characters are almost without exception remarkably self-centered and overprivileged; despite the fact that Galgut violates a fundamental "rule" of narrative structure . . . despite all, I found its reading compelling.

Somehow, Galgut pulls off what is structurally confounding and just plain wrong: the point-of-view of all three novellas shifts constantly and without pattern between first and third-person. (When my own students do the same in their writing, I grind my teeth and lapse into a stupor of befuddlement as to why this can even occur without detection by even the most inexperienced writer.) Yet, Galgut's shifts are casual, seemingly random, and ultimately purposeful. As we become familiar with the narrator's character (Galgut himself), I believe we intuitively see the method to his madness (perhaps double-meaning intended). Galgut's protagonist struggles profoundly with the attachment to others, but never directly acknowledges this. And so, navigating through "The Follower", "The Lover", and "The Guardian", he guardedly keeps his distance from life's encounters through a third-person perspective. Frequently, though, the draw of others and his own human weakness pulls him closer, and "I" circles in to fully interact on an emotional level with the other characters, sometimes in midthought: "Happy and unhappy, he falls asleep in the end and dreams about, no, I don't remember his dreams." In spite of his protective shield, "lives leak into each other, the past lays claim to the present", and Galgut's triad of journeys illuminate the tenuous nature of human relationships.

I can detect that there's a paper-thin separation between finding In a Strange Room fascinating and finding it grating. I'm sure there are readers who fall firmly in the second camp. But despite my possibly snooty "I-teach-writing-and-hey-you-can't-do-that!" instincts, I credit Galgut for taking a daring risk and creating a deeply introspective exploration of human interaction. Our encounters are fleeting and the odds against them ever happening are unimaginably high, but we still cross paths with those who end up burning with significance. Some we let ourselves draw close to, others we keep ourselves detached from. With whom have we had past chance encounters, and figuratively moved on, as Galgut literally does in his closing lines: the day is wearing on and he has a bus to catch, a journey to complete. It's time to go. He dries his eyes and picks up a tiny stone from the ground, one like millions of others all around, and slips it into his pocket as he walks towards the gate.(less)

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May 30, 2011 Ferina rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: memoir

Buku ini sangat muram. Kesan itu yang gue tangkap sejak halaman pertama. Buku yang sempat membuat gue penasaran setengah mati karena membaca di blog temen gue.

Terdiri dari tiga bagian, di mana si tokoh utama, bernama Damon, asal Afrika Selatan, berkelana keliling dunia. Di bagian pertama, ia bertemu dengan seorang pemuda asal Jerman, bagian kedua, bertemu dengan sekelompok backpacker dan yang ketiga, ia harus menjaga seorang sahabat wanitanya ke India.

Dari ketiga perjalanan itu, tak satu pun yan...more

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Oct 15, 2012 Danielle rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book plays mind-games - both with the reader, and I suspect, with the writer. Travelling involves, often, being in a heightened state and, especially if we travel alone, a sense that we can re-make ourselves in relation to strange environments and when meeting new people.

The three meditations on travel involve dislocations of self, time and reality and the author reflects this in his sparse style and his hopping back and forwards between third and first person. We sense that the material is...more

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Mar 05, 2011 Donald rated it 4 of 5 stars

This novel is told in three distinct parts, all with the same protagonist. In each case he is travelling or wandering, mainly throughout Africa and India. These are journeys of the mind and body. The exotic settings give it an air of otherworldliness. Also adding to the elusiveness is the use of both first and third person tenses by the author, i.e. "This is the first time they've been alone together. Now that the moment is upon him so unexpectedly, he doesn't know what to do with it. He is sitt...more

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Dec 25, 2010 Jim Coughenour rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: bleakfiction, armchairtravel

A solipsistic travel diary. A pointless confession of loneliness, estrangement and helplessness. On its back cover, the label "Fiction." This book is somewhere beyond the usual categories. At first it reminded me of Duncan Fallowell's strange, haunted One Hot Summer in St. Petersburg, and then it didn't remind me of anything at all except being alone.

Damon Galgut divides his book into three sections, from the existentialist obsession of "The Follower," through the mournful picaresque of "The Lov...more

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Mar 19, 2013 Hanneke rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

Dit boek stond op de shortlist voor de Booker Prize, maar heeft niet gewonnen. Volgens mij onterecht, want het is een van die boeken die zo’n impact heeft dat je er nog dagen van bij moet komen. En dat gebeurt alleen als je echt geraakt wordt. Als de gebeurtenissen, de menselijke interactie of gebrek daaraan, je pijnlijk bekend voorkomen.

Het boek beschrijft drie reizen van de hoofdpersoon, een jonge Zuidafrikaan, die Damon heet. Of de verhalen autobiografisch zijn, kan niet met zekerheid vastge...more

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Jun 19, 2012 Elise rated it 3 of 5 stars

I really did enjoy it. Truly. But it suffers in comparison to the other books I've read recently, which were so good as to merit constant revisitation and linger in my head like cobwebs you can't clear. This book was confusing, emotional, vivid...but not something I'll love forever.

One of the more interesting aspects was the author's penchant for switching between the first and third person narratives. Is the main character the author? Is he an imagined character? I never came up with a satisfa...more

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