The Catastrophist : A Novel [Paperback]

Ronan Bennett (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 19, 2000

Short-listed for the Whitbread Novel Award, "The Catastrophist" is a haunting novel set in the politically charged landscape of the Belgian Congo just before independence. At its heart is the passion between novelist James Gillespie and the fiery idealistic journalist Ines, whom he follows to Africa as their affair begins to fray. They are as unlike as lovers can be; he is willfully apolitical and desperate for her love, while she is obsessed with the unfolding drama, caught up in history, hero-worship, and soon, a new passion. In a country that will self-destruct upon giving birth to itself, Gillespie is plunged into violence and betrayal, and moved by love to a final act of nobility. In his ravishing U.S. debut, Ronan Bennett delivers heart-stopping suspense, profound moral questioning, and a searing depiction of a doomed love.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Perhaps it takes a writer with Ronan Bennett's peculiar personal history to write so compelling a novel about the place where politics and art intersect. By the time he was 23, Bennett, an Irish Catholic from Northern Ireland, had already spent five years in and out of various jails, charged with politically motivated crimes he'd never committed. He then traded in prison walls for the rarified halls of academia, studying for a Ph.D. in history before embarking on a new career as a fiction writer. Though at first The Catastrophist, set in the Congo during its bid for independence from Belgium, may seem a far cry from Belfast in the '70s, Bennett uses his hard-won wisdom to examine the role of the artist in a political conflict.

James Gillespie, a disillusioned Irish historian turned novelist, has arrived in the Congo on the eve of independence, hoping to reunite with his Italian lover, Ines. The two had once been passionately involved in Europe, but Ines's job as a journalist took her to the Congo, where her Communist leanings have kept her. Ines is an enthusiastic supporter of Patrice Lumumba, and her journalism reflects her bias. Gillespie, on the other hand, has a novelist's broader view, and his ability to see all facets of the issue simultaneously keeps him from choosing sides and drives a wedge between him and Ines. As she becomes more involved with Lumumba and his followers, he is befriended by an American CIA agent whom Ines suspects of being an enemy. When the political situation heats up, she puts herself increasingly in harm's way until, at last, Gillespie must put his own life on the line to save hers. Bennett does a stellar job of recreating the complicated web of political intrigue and shifting alliances at play in the Congo in 1959, but he really shines when exploring how personal relationships unravel under the strain of ideology. As Ines tells Gillespie shortly before she leaves him, his ability to see all points of view is a privilege few people can afford: "When you are on history's losing side, when you are poor and cursed to eat bread, to accept your enemy's point of view is to accept starvation and slavery." The Catastrophist is a love story, a historical novel, a troubling reflection on Africa's ongoing political upheaval. --Alix Wilber --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

An Irish novelist finds himself trapped in an African colony's struggle for independence in this sophisticated and resonant political novel from the Whitbread Prize-shortlisted, Belfast-bred Bennett. In 1959, middle-aged writer James Gillespie travels to the Belgian Congo to join his young Italian girlfriend, In?s Sabiani, an idealistic journalist covering Patrice Lumumba's revolution for a Communist daily. In a colony swiftly on its way to nationhood, every action seems political. But narrator James clings to his ideal of artistic detachment, which drives a wedge between him and the engag? In?s. While James makes friends with U.S. attach? Mark Stipe, a stocky swaggerer who may be working for the CIA, In?s takes an African boyfriend, Auguste, Stipe's former houseboy and now Lumumba's right-hand man. Amid the tumult and intrigue of decolonization, James is forced to choose: will he cling to his ideology as a neutral observer, or help In?s and Auguste when they need him? Bennett's laconic style suits his cautious narrator precisely, recording his reluctant engagement with the Africans' cause. With deft strokes, Bennett shows how U.S. and Belgian interests, fearing Lumumba's Communist sympathies, quickly undermined his government, helping to power his rival Mobutu, who proved a bloodthirsty tyrant. This U.S. debut is Bennett's fourth book in Britain, where he's often (and rightly) compared to Graham Greene, praised both for his awareness of Third World politics and for his tactile sex scenes. Readers expecting a straight-up thriller may flip impatiently past flashbacks to Northern Ireland, meditative passages and references to Empson and Flaubert. But those seeking a well-made hybrid in Greene's modeAbuilt of irony and commitment, political theory and garish violence, erotic charge and historical factAwill find Bennett a writer who can shock, please, inspire, disturb and finally satisfy. (Sept.) FYI: Before he was 20, Bennett was arrested as an IRA activist (though he was not a member) and convicted of murder and armed robbery, but released when his conviction was overturned. Later, living in England, he was arrested on a charge of conspiracy and served time while awaiting trial, where he was acquitted. Upon his release, he studied history at King's College, where he received a Ph.D. He is now a journalist in London.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; 1st Scribner Paperback Fiction Ed edition (September 19, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684870363
• ISBN-13: 978-0684870366
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.3 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,300,123 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Catastrophist, December 5, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Catastrophist: A Novel (Hardcover)

Bennett's novel was a fascinating read immediately following Barbara Kingsolver's Poisonwood Bible--the same setting, a completely different perspective, two excellent novels (read both). Bennett's casting of the end of a relationship, amid the destruction of a nation is a compelling story. The story of the protagonist's sorrow over the loss of his lover, and the story of the equally short and catastrophic independence of the Congo are superbly blended. The prose sings in this novel and although Bennett contends that, ...there is no such thing as a change in people... this is exactly contradicted by the story here. One wants to read this book and then talk about it--it is emotionally charged and goes to the heart of the issue of whether we ever really do connect with other people as the author portends his main character never had until middle aged and under extreme duress. One who found Cold Mountain intriguing, will also be captivated by The Catastrophist.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A story of lives drawn to conflict in the Congo, February 4, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Catastrophist : A Novel (Paperback)

Ronan Bennett's "Catastrophist" grips you from the outset. Who are these characters stranded on the banks of the Sankuru river in December 1960 and what is their involvement in the life and arrest of Patrice Lamumba? Why is this "a story of failure"? Bennett sucks you into the lives of the main protagonists in a style that is crisp and direct. Gillespie's cynicism and and resignation is set in contrast to the idealism and dynamism of Inez. Both are flawed. And the Belgian Congo is flawed. I never felt I was being given a treatise on the political history of the Congo but ended up being as intrigued by the story of its conflict as by the the fate of Bennett's characters. He has managed a considerable achievement in marrying a story of deep personal sensitivity and searching with one of the Congo's despairing lurch for normal life. And maybe it's about all our lives. This is a great book.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of great moral crises maintain their neutrality.", May 1, 2006

By 

Jana L. Perskie "ceruleana" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Catastrophist : A Novel (Paperback)

On June 30, 1960, the Congo was emancipated from Belgium. African nationalist leader Patrice Emery Lumumba became the first prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo when it declared its independence - the long awaited "Depanda" had arrived! In October 1958 Lumumba had founded the Congolese National Movement (Mouvement National Congolais; MNC), the first nationwide Congolese political party. Forced out of office during a period of violent political upheaval in September 1960, he was assassinated in January 1961.

During the Congo's turbulent beginning many countries intervened in its political affairs. "They used: fear of communism, economic collapse, civil war, and protection of European citizens living in the Congo to back themselves for intervening." And the expatriate community, living in luxury, sipping sundowners at poolside, did not appreciate their world, their comfortable lives slipping out of their control.

At the time, the Congo was the biggest and richest country in central Africa, one with huge strategic importance - not only to the Belgians, but to the US. Katanga Province, the size of Britain, remains one of the richest areas in all Africa if not the richest. "The mines of the Union Miniere and Forminiere provided the world with eight per cent of its copper, sixty per cent of its uranium, seventy-three per cent of its cobalt, eighty per cent of its industrial diamonds. Katanga has gold, silver, tin, zinc, manganese, columbium, cadmium, tungsten, tantalum: its supplies will never be exhausted." This was the land of Unilever, Brufina, Union Miniere and the Banque Empain, companies which were not about to let their holdings slip away easily.

Into this tumultuous, politically charged setting wanders James Gillespie, a disaffected Irish/English writer, author of a few well received novels and a contributor to various periodicals. He arrives in Leopoldsville with the intent of pursuing a waning relationship with Ines Sabiani, his fiery, radical Italian girlfriend with whom he is deeply in love. Gillespie's arrival in the Congo represents a major emotional commitment for him. Ines is a journalist with her country's communist newspaper L'Unita. She is as passionate about the cause of Independence and about the charismatic leader, Lumumba, as James is indifferent, or as he would say, "objective." And he is a skeptic, a pessimist. Part of the problem between the two lovers is that James is never on anyone's side. He insists, "I see all sides. My craft demands it." He is against intolerance, dogma, illiberalism. But he is for nothing. In?s invests herself emotionally as well as professionally in that which she believes. Her affair with James is doomed before Gillespie sets foot on African soil - just as Patrice Lumumba's government is doomed before he takes office. At one point In?s tells Gillespie that, "Dante wrote that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of great moral crises maintain their neutrality." She accuses him of being a "catastrofista," a "catastrophist," one who believes "that no problem is small. Nothing can be fixed; it is always the end."

As James becomes caught up in the historical movement, colonial injustice and the chaotic brutality that accompanies it, he is finally forced to take sides...and action.

Although well written, I did have some difficulty with author Ronan Bennett's style. It made for ponderous reading at times. I am fascinated by this period in Africa, especially the politics, and by the character of Patrice Lumumba in particular, so I had personal incentive to persevere. "The Catastrophist" reminds me of Graham Greene's "The Quiet American." Both novels deal with the chaotic end of colonialism, have journalists as protagonists and idealistic, if Machiavellian, CIA operatives fomenting intrigue and even more violence. The colonialists in both novels, the Belgians here, the French in Vietnam in Greene's work, act paternalistically and condescendingly towards the "natives" and don't really take the independence movements seriously.

"The Catastrophist was short-listed for the 1998 Whitbread Novel Award.
JANA