First off I have an admission. My knowledge of the conflict in
Cambodia is largely limited to what I remember from The Killing
Fields and history classes in school. Therefore when I sat down
to read Vaddey Ratner's novel, I had to trust in her providing me
with the necessary information to fully understand the story she
wanted to tell.
Raami is a seven-year-old girl living under highly privileged
circumstances. Her father is a poet, but more importantly a prince
and therefore she is used to a life with servants and a beautiful
house with everything the heart of a young girl might yearn for. She
has a younger sister, still a toddler, and her uncle and aunt with
their twin boys, and her grandmother all live in the house together
with her and her parents. She is surrounded by family members and the
environment is loving and nurturing. The only spot on this image of
tranquility is the way polio has ravaged her legs and forces her to
wear a leg brace.
Suddenly everything changes when revolutionary soldiers, the Khmer
Rouge, come knocking on their door and forces them to gather what
belongings they can pack and leave the city. This is the beginning of
Raami's trials. Every time her family gets something taken away it is
done with the promise of something better in return, and always talks
about benefitting the cause and helping the organization. Soon hope
becomes ever more fragile and Raami's faith in humanity and the
kindness of others is put to the test.
The tale is a steady descent for Raami and her loved ones and through
her we are witnesses to atrocities that supposedly are done for the
benefit of the Cambodian people.
The novel is told through the eyes of a child, and not the grown
Raami looking back. Doing this can be a double edged sword. The
positive thing is that it gives the cruelties described more of an
impact, both because everything is in the present tense, but also
because a young child's ability to process and find meaning in the
inexplicable violence surrounding her is vastly different and narrow
compared to a grownup. The negative is that Ratner quite often uses
imagery and language that far surpasses the way a normal child of
Raami's age thinks and talks. I have yet to meet a young child that
expresses herself like this:
“I realized
with a start how the sparseness of one existence mirrored another,
how an old man's poverty gave a glimpse of the hardship he must have
endured when he was a boy, must have suffered his whole life, and
that small forgotten patch of ground, with its dilapidated hut and
drenched belongings, held in its reflection the deprivation of Papa's
childhood friend. It was clear the old sweeper was a version of
Sambath, and just as I saw a manifestation of my father in everything
that was noble and good, he saw a manifestation of his friend
everywhere, in every poverty-stricken person he met, and tried to do
for each what he hadn't been able to do for his friend.”
That is not the language nor the realizations of a small child, but
rather the grown woman. Therefore it might have suited the book a
little better to be more honest and just tell the tale in hindsight,
as it is done so anyway. It can at times feel a touch too
manipulative and the book never manages to make one forget that this
is really Ratner speaking through the young child.
Another problem, especially during the first 40-50 pages, is Ratner's
prose. She uses poetic images and flowery language to such an extent
that it tends to weigh down the prose and hinder the relevant and
important parts of the story from shining brightly enough. Several
passages early in the book are almost muddled by her attempt to weave
poetry into every sentence in the book. At one point she seems to get
a handle on herself and things become more balanced.
With the style that Ratner uses you also run the risk of
lessening the impact of the atrocities described by doing it in such a
beautiful way. Not that everything concerning human cruelty needs the
most sparse of style, but Ratner would not have done wrong by looking
at the way an author like Primo Levi describes the horrors of
holocaust and a concentration camp.
One should always consider this while doing a work on real events,
even when using a fictional form. This is the reason that Steven
Spielberg did Schindler's List in black and white. He did not want to
lend the events any form of beauty by having brilliant colors shining
through. Ratner takes the risk and often times it pays off, but there
are several instances where the evil deeds described seem lessened by
the beauty her prose infuses them with.
Ratner has acknowledged that the book largely is inspired by her own
life story. To such an extent that Raami's father's name is the
real life name of Ratner's father. In the Author's Note at the back
of the book she touches shortly on why she chose the medium of
fiction and explains that it gave her license to reinvent and use her
imagination where memory alone was inadequate. I'm not sure I fully
agree with that choice, and would have loved to read a true biography
from Ratner's hand where she could not soften blows with flowery
prose.
Nevertheless In the Shadow of the Banyan is a beautiful read
and the injustices of the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot (who's never
mentioned by name) are evoked vividly throughout the story. In many
ways one is left with a sense of hopelessness, for humanity does not
seem to have learned anything from all the lessons that have cost so
dearly in human lives. The reign of the Khmer Rouge was short in
years but has had devastating effects that are still evident to this
day. This much is surely gleaned from the words of Ratner. I just
find that more could have surfaced and stayed with me if she had not
spent so much of the book waxing poetical. A shame because this might
turn some readers away, making them miss an important link in the
chain of human degradation and cruelty that ran through the 20th
century.
