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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Witty, Clever and Well-Done, September 5, 2004
Thomas Keneally's The Tyrant's Novel opens in a refugee holding camp of sorts in a Western nation. The initial narrator tells a brief story of meeting one of the refugees held there, Alan Sheriff, who is seeking political asylum and whose story makes up much of this enjoyable novel. Alan was a very successful novelist, with an American publishing contract, in a fictional country that is a thinly-disguised contemporary Iraq. His life is ideal, or as much as that can be when living under a despot's rule, when it pretty much crumbles in front of his eyes. His beloved wife dies suddenly and he is subsequently 'asked' by the Great Uncle, the tyrant of his country (and a dead ringer for Saddam Hussein) to ghostwrite a novel for him. The request is not just for any novel, but one which is so wonderful and moving, one which so exposes the effects that economic sanctions are having on his country that the world's superpowers will be convinced to removed those sanctions. Part of what makes Keneally's novel so wonderful is that it is both a politcal novel and a novel about writing and the creative process. Keneally masterfully, seamlessly blends these two genres into an enjoyable whole. The novel is at once a politcal allegory and a story of symbolic writer's block. It is an excellent, heart-breaking story, well-done and compelling. Enjoy.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Keneally in award-winning form with serious political novel., October 7, 2004
In this novel within a novel, Australian author Thomas Keneally returns to the political themes which won him prizes for The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, Voices from the Forest, and Schindler's Ark. Keneally has always been at his best depicting ordinary people facing extraordinary pressures, especially from governments bent on totalitarian rule, and this contemporary allegory is no exception. Taking place in an unnamed oil-rich country in the Middle East ruled by a tyrant who calls himself Great Uncle, the novel centers on a man calling himself "Alan Sheriff," a short story writer given one month to write an "autobiographical novel" for which Great Uncle will take full credit. Sheriff, we learn in the opening chapter, is telling his story to a western journalist from a detention camp in an unnamed desert country, where he has languished for three years.
Keneally increases the impact and universality of the story through his clever use of western names. As Alan Sheriff tells the journalist, it is important for his credibility in the west that he be like a man you'd meet on the street, which is much easier with a name like Alan--"not, God help us, Said and Osama and Saleh. If we had Mac instead of Ibn." Alan believes his "saddest and silliest story" will interest Americans, despite the fact that his country and the US are now enemies.
Through Alan's story, the reader meets Mrs. Douglas, whose nephew, not careful enough of the pH level of Great Uncle's swimming pool, has been shot and hanged from the ramparts; Mrs. Carter, whose son has been missing for six years; Alan's beloved wife, Sarah Manners, an actress who has become unemployable; Matt McBride, another writer who becomes head of the Cultural Commission where he works for Great Uncle; and Louise James, an American who would like to get Sheriff to come to Texas as a visiting professor. All these characters contribute to a stunning conclusion as Sheriff tries to write the required novel.
Easily the best Keneally novel in over a decade, this serious and thoughtful novel has significant political ramifications. The characters are "ordinary people," much like the rest of us, caught in extreme situations, and Keneally builds up enormous suspense as the long tentacles of the tyrant grab everyone in their path. Though most readers will recognize the unnamed country and the tyrant, it is a tribute to Keneally that their specific identities are totally irrelevant to his themes and plot. The author makes it clear that a government's manipulation of the people's perceptions through staged events is not limited to the Third World. Mary Whipple
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7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The master is restored, June 6, 2004
Allan Sheriff, circled by wire in a desolate place, has a story to tell. Actually, he has two stories: one, his own, describing the life of a writer in Hussein's Baghdad and the other with the same theme. The difference is that the first tells the story of the second. Why is Sheriff fenced in at a remote location of almost indescribeable desolation? What abominable crime has put him there? In answering these questions, Thomas Keneally has returned to the top rank of novelists. He excels again with this modern tale of international politics, survival in an oppressive regime, and personal tragedy. This is among the finest of Keneally's works. Sheriff, a reputable writer, is recruited by Iraq's Great Uncle to post a message to the world. The "sanctions" imposed by the victors of the First Gulf War have brought poverty, lack of food and water and depleted medical facilities to their country. The whims of an arbitrary government, the absolutist nature of the leaders - already a dynasty in the making, and needless casualties from a meaningless war are minimal when contrasted to the universal suffering caused by curtailment of the oil exports. Great Uncle wants Sheriff to expose this injustice through a novel depicting conditions. Sheriff, who might have been willing and able to perform this feat, is afflicted by a more personal crisis - the loss of his wife Sarah. "Alan"? "Sarah"? This couple is close friends with Matt McBrien and Andrew Kennedy. Are these names typical of a Middle Eastern people? Keneally deftly arabesques away from pigeon-holing these people and their circumstances as "Arabs" or even Muslims. In depicting Sheriff's relations with "Mrs Carter", for example, Keneally shows the universality of a mother's grief, the shameful machinations of a government engaged in useless and costly war, and the mixed feelings of soldiers. He doesn't want to distance his characters from the reader - and the use of Anglo-Celtic names in a novel about a suffering people brings us closer to their realities. With his vivid, expressive style, Keneally uses Sheriff to guide us through the harsh world of a despotic regime. Whatever his faults, Hussein's Iraqi people was the true victim of a higher level of despotism - trade embargoes and external demands by international agencies. Keneally describes a nation living on the edge of survival. The people may have the Great Uncle's Blue Overalls at their doorstep, but they know it wasn't the Great Uncle that cut off their drinking water or intercepted the medicines. The reader can always rely on Thomas Keneally for stories of intense feeling and wide interest. He surpasses many of his earlier works with this modern story. That the "Coalition of the Willing" have launched a crusade against the Great Uncle doesn't reduce the value of this book. Keneally uses Sheriff to expose many facets of Iraqi life. His wit and sardonic humour are more pointed here than any previous work. Keneally's sense of justice is monumental. It's a sense to be admired - better, to be emulated. He knows there are no simple answers to human questions, and he displays that view in this exemplary book. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
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