I have very much enjoyed the other works I’ve read by him. This one is…odd. Not at all like the others. The books chronicles a South African man’s travels in Greece, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Tanzania, and India, and the people and relationships that result. Feels autobiographical but I could be completely wrong. Just…odd, like I said before. I didn’t really care for it but he is great at setting moods. ( )

Novel in three parts, each recounting a journey by protagonist Damon – one to Greece, one to southern Africa, and one to India. In the first part, which begins in Greece in 1993, Damon meets Reiner, a German, and they eventually reconnect and journey through Lesotho together. In the second, Damon follows a group of tourists as they backpack through Malawi, Tanzania, and Kenya. In the third, Damon travels to Switzerland to visit his friend Jerome, then travels with his troubled friend, Anna, to India. Though Damon has the best of intentions, each journey ends in misfortune.

It is unusual in its voice, regularly switching between first person and third, and present and past tense. I assume that it is intended to convey the tone of a memoir, with the narrator looking back on his younger self, as indicated in this passage from the first section:

“He gets to the ruins in the middle of the afernoon. I can’t even remember now what they are, the remains of some big but obscure building, there was a fence that had to be climbed, there was a fear of dogs but no dogs appeared, he stumbles around among rocks and pillars and ledges, he tries to imagine how it was but history resists imagining. He sits on the edge of a raised stone floor and stares out unseeingly into the hills around him and now he is thinking of things that happened in the past. Looking back at him through time, I remember him remembering, and I’m more present in the scene than he was. But memory has its own distances, in part he is me entirely, in part he is a stranger I am watching.”

To me it reads as a journey of self-discovery, where lessons are learned on what not to do in the future. It seems full of missed opportunities to form deeper connections with others. I first read this author’s The Promise, which won the Booker Prize in 2021. I really enjoyed this one and plan to seek out more of his work.
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A gorgeously written, poignant, powerful, devastating book about isolation, loss, and love. Definitely a favorite this year. ( )

Two men, travelling in opposite directions, met each other on the road between Mycenae and Sparta. They chatted a few minutes as walkers on an empty trail do, and then each continued on his way. That night, the unnamed South African found the German, Reiner, in his room at the hostel. They spent two days together before continuing on their separate journeys.

They wrote each other for the next two years, and then decided to embark on a walking trip together. Lesotho was the country chosen. In this first of the three recorded journeys, the narrator, whom we come to know as Damon, is young, unsure of himself. For this journey, he calls himself 'The Follower'. As they walked, Reiner took more and more control of the trip, slowly and oh so assuredly. Damon, furious, repressed his growing rage. Can there be conflict if one side refuses to engage? "... in the end you are always more tormented by what you didn't do than what you did, actions already performed can always be rationalized in time, the neglected deed might have changed the world.".

A few years went by and a more mature, more assured Damon was now travelling in Zimbabwe, but still just as lonely. This trip was more promising, but there was a restlessness, a constant need to move on. Zambia, Malawi, small groups of travellers forming and reforming. "It's all touching and happy, but he's the odd one out here, he keeps a distance between himself and them, no matter how friendly they are." He is, after all, South African, and they all know how messed up that is.

Like the first journey, this trip offers promise, so much so that looking back, Damon will eventually see himself as 'The Lover.' He eventually found a trio with whom to travel: Swiss twins and an older French man. Here too though nothing can be said directly. The limitation this time was language. Damon could never speak directly to Jerome. His words were always translated and mediated through the French man. Once again there is the matter of external control as the older man only once left Damon and Jerome alone together. Damon, still suffering from paralyzing self doubt, could not overcome his fear of forming any kind of bond. In Tanzania, the trio invited him to Greece. "He shakes his head, his voice won't work properly. 'I must go back.' "

Arrangements were made for the future; "There is always another time, next month, next year, when things will be different."

By the time Damon embarked on his third journey, he was middle-aged. Over the years his travel pattern had changed: less restless, more focussed. However, for a man like Damon, this presented a new problem, that of forming connections with people and places he had visited before. This time he was travelling back to India, in the role of 'The Guardian'. His companion was a good friend, Anna, taking a time-out from her lover and her job. Damon knew of her mental health problems, knew he was to keep her on track with medications and away from alcohol and recreational drugs. What he was not prepared for was full blown psychosis and India's health care system. Rage once more, confrontation. Another parting, more letters.

Galgut's writing is powerful. The reader sees Damon through both his own narrative voice and that of Damon writing as a third person narrator, sometimes using present tense, sometime past. Over time, this allows Damon to grow and mature. His decisions and actions may not always be those a particular reader would choose. Some will be frustrated with him. Despite that, [In a Strange Room] is nevertheless compelling reading. All readers can recognize Damon's lament: "... in the end you are always more tormented by what you didn't do than what you did..."

‘Was I completely mad? How could I have thought to buy a book just like that – in such a frivilous, impetuous way – without checking to see that at least thirty of my Goodreads friends had given it the thumbs up?’


http://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpress.com/2014/02/21/in-a-strange-room-by-damon... ( )