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Season in the sand >> Fast nights in Quarantine by JULIET WATERS
Crace, who was on this year's shortlist for the Booker and who Will Self has called Britain's "foremost cartographer of fictional topographies," has set up the difficult challenge of creating a story out of this desolate landscape. Yet, from the first paragraph there clearly seems to be a story: "Miri's husband was shouting in his sleep, not words that she could recognize but simple, blurting fanfares of distress. When, at last, she lit a lamp to discover what was tormenting him, she saw his tongue was black--scorched and sooty. Miri smelled the devil's eggy dinner roasting on his breath: she heard the snapping of the devil's kindling in his cough. She put her hand on to his chest; it was soft, damp and hot, like fresh bread. Her husband, Musa, was being baked alive. Good news." You learn this is good news as you get to know more about Musa. A monster pig, Musa is a merchant who is charmless unless he's trying to sell something. In his private life with Miri he's worse than charmless, he's physically and psychologically abusive. Then again, tenderness is not the common attitude of their society. Musa and Miri have been dumped off a caravan because of Musa's fever, despite the fact that Miri is five months pregnant. Her only consolation, other than the promise of Musa's death, is that they may return for her in a few weeks after she has buried him. But there's bad news. While Miri is off digging a grave with her hands, sustaining herself with dreams of a life sans Musa, who should show up to resurrect Musa from death but none other than Jesus Christ himself, who is setting off on his 40-day fast but wants one last sip of water before he starts. So he takes some of Musa's water and pays him back by saving his life. This is an awkward teenage Jesus with no concept of himself as the Son of God, just a strong sense of calling and a nervous bladder. His 40 days are a self-imposed, coming-of-age ritual. But his instincts are still clumsy--even his talent for aphorisms is off. At one point, when he is desperate for something to drink, he starts to regret not having saved his urine, and imagines preaching to the crowd that "an empty purse is better than an empty pot." Along with Musa and Miri, three other travellers have arrived to stake their caves in the desert shrub land, each traveller in "quarantine" for a different reason. And each character becomes interested in the young Galilean to serve different desires. Still, the real character in this novel is the land and, on rare occasions, the weather. Crace is a genius at description and holds nothing back in his excruciating portrait of this month of isolation in a terrifying and barren world. Unfortunately, he doesn't have the same talent for plotting. After the promise of the first chapter, one discovers only the bones of a story. But he does create an interesting counter-story to the gospels. As the novel progresses, it becomes increasing obvious that Musa is Satan. In real life he is such an ordinary and recognizable figure of evil that Crace manages to create a fascinating novel of ideas. As Jesus speculates--when he's trying to read something in a language he doesn't know well--"God was in the spaces, he was sure. God went to the very edges of the page." Just as the horror of the Judean desert lies in what isn't there, Quarantine's story lies as much in what doesn't happen. But in Crace's stunning poetic imagery, God is very much in the details. Quarantine by Jim Crace, Viking, hc, 243 pp. $29.99
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For every season there is a book, and for this one it's Jim Crace's Quarantine. A good 40 days and nights in the desert of Judea, circa 17 B.C., will put things in perspective for anyone prone to bleating about the climactic horrors of an impending Montreal winter.