The Electric Rock Garden

by Philip Glazebrook

Hardcover

Published June 4, 2001

Reviews

[Panayoti Kelaidis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I confess, I’m a bit of a serial killer of authors: I tend to find someone new–such as John Ash–with whom I find I have an affinity. Next thing I know I’ve assembled their complete oeuvres on my shelf, and I patiently devour volume after volume. Some become permanent constellations in one’s firmament that way: Nabokov, Henry James, Flaubert for instance shine brightly in my personal literary night sky. Others are more like comets. Not every constellation becomes part of the zodiac. I’m afraid I’d already acquired an interest in Glazebrook: when I read his thumbnail biography in Wikipedia (or suchlike) and saw he was a Conservative politician and a bona fide dilettante. My heart sank a little. Completing the first book of his I confess he has lived up to (or rather, sank) to my expectations: the style is convoluted, arch and the plot of his book is flimsy. Nevertheless, I’ll be ordering a few more of his books, and over the next few years I shall dutifully plow through them. Why? Dense, personal books obsessed with the subtlety of interpersonal relationships, cultural clashes and manners with the text littered with colorful tropes–I’m afraid that’s my cup of tea. Alas, Glazebrook pours it out, however tendentiously. Why, you might ask (and probably didn’t) does one glom onto a new authorial victim for one’s serial murders? In Glazebrook’s case, four of his books have keywords in the title key to my private lexicon, namely “rock garden”, “Kars”, “Khiva” and “Byzantine”. And sure enough, a short way into this novel, the protagonist and antagonist are strolling through the Cambridge Botanical Garden’s rock garden (where I yearn to visit–perhaps next year) and the book’s title slips out. I spent much of the book patiently following its trail.

This book is ostensibly about the friendship, which it traces between two mildly repellant University friends who proceed to lead a wealthy (but not quite wealthy enough), apparently idle and strangely antipathetic friendship that culminates, as it were, in the visit of the English protagonist to India, whence the antagonist came and where he lives most of his years. The gist of the book consists almost entirely of the mental machinations and imaginings of the Englishman–who happens to be named Philip Glazebrook (a novelist no less)–as he plays mental chess with the Indian, grappling as well with India herself. Much of the action consists of speculation, assumption, presumption and acute analysis of motives and the imagined slights and measured actions of the supposed heir of a somewhat mythical kingdom in a suddenly democratic and increasingly egalitarian India. The clash of the elaborate class prejudices of two self-conscious upperclassmen from two antithetic but homologous cultures which have themselves blended and clashed for centuries provides the drama, which does manifest itself, in a somewhat tortured, Henry Jamesian sense. All the more remarkable, since it’s almost entirely without physical action or firm basis in reality. Glimmering through the convoluted text and the Englishman’s ruminations one gradually realizes that these two mentally sparring partners are probably one anothers best friends.

There is a sudden and dramatic denouement to the action that adumbrates the ends of many our personal friendships as we age. As I cast a glance backwards over the novel I realize that it achieved many of my expectations: the dense prose nudged me to an early sleep for the better part of two weeks. The flashes of imagery and occasional turn of phrase made the journey worthwhile. There was the eventual horrific apparition of a dreadful electric rock garden, though not the one promised in Cambridge (that one tantalizingly lingers through the book as a mirage). I rather liked the peripheral women–Her Highness David’s (the Indian’s) imperious and Victorian-era mother, …Diana–his overly clever prospective English wife, and especially the protagonist’s infinitely patient wife, whom he abandons for most of her pregnancy to galivant through India with his old chum. All three of these women are central to the “action”–presented as rather strong figures who are barely described physically (we know a lot about David’s corpulent build and how he wraps his turban, even) and all three are nudged peripherally out of the text as it lingers lovingly on the imaginary scuffles between two self conscious snobs. Lovely.

I’m looking forward to the “Byzantine Honeymoon” next since it’s already on my shelf…I’m desperately hoping it will be different in tone and action so that I can believe Glazebrook isn’t just hacking bloody chunks of his “reality” into a series of deceptively slender tomes. But I shall cautiously acquire the Caucasian and Central Asian travel accounts anyway–since I’m almost as obsessed with these regions as I am real rock gardens. And there are precious few literary works dedicated to either arena. Once I’ve nibbled through those, I’ll see if he rates more than a dim corner of my night sky.