Author Georgina Harding takes a unique look at World War II’s
effect on a small area of Romania, through the eyes of a deaf mute man, and the
effects she achieves are nothing short of spectacular. Well, “spectacular,” may
be a poor descriptor – this book is full of subtle touches rendered in gorgeous
language, and the accumulating power is spectacular. And the high skill in the
prose extends to the intricate plot, as well. No wonder it was short-listed
for the 2012 Orange Prize; this book gets my highest recommendation.
Augustin is born to a peasant mother who cooks at a large
house in rural Romania. It gradually becomes clear the child cannot hear, but
unfortunately not before it is too late to try to teach him. As he reaches
pubescence his work ethic and kind heart have carved out a niche for him on the
estate. Then the war comes and the household splinters; Augustin, nicknamed
Tinu, ends up relocated and finally imprisoned by the new Communist authorities.
As luck would have it, he ends up in a hospital and one of
the nurses is from the family he used to serve. She struggles to bring him out
of his shell, and is helped by others on the staff. Tinu touches all he meets;
people open up to him in these troubled times and reveal their innermost
selves. He becomes a receptacle not only of what people tell him, but of the
experiences of the entire country. And through it all, Ms. Harding’s prose contains
gift after wondrous gift.
A sample from early in the book:
Dusk was falling across the garden, the hills, the view of the village. In the river, darkening scraps of colour grew sodden and began to sink unseen. The boy walked home across the grey fields. All colour was gone now; the plank fence about the yard, the barns, the woodpile reduced to a smudged charcoal blackness.
Another, two thirds through, to show a brilliant image
achieved by the author:
The deaths and the processions press and tangle in his memory. No pattern to them, no chronology either. There are tanks, men, horses, lines of men, dressed in the colours of the soil, of mud and dust; and if they were stripped of their clothes they would be pale and bare like pale stalks that should be concealed beneath the ground, covered over again with soil.
This stunning image mixes in Augustin’s mind with the
figures he has seen on the walls of the churches: “… pale lines of naked men
marching up and down the scenes of judgement.” So the war’s all-encompassing
devastation takes on the appropriate magnitude: Judgment Day.
Obviously no further judgment on the Second World War was
needed, nor on the repressive impulses of the Eastern European regimes that
followed it, but Painter of Silence’s
contribution is a unique one. It places a young, defenseless man at the center
of the storm, and he suffers through it with his unique handicaps and strengths.
He accretes a more universal role in his suffering, and the author accomplishes
all her grand ambitions in somber, beautiful, even-keel language that suits the
subject perfectly.
This book is exceptionally artful, a complete joy to anyone
who appreciates deep purposeful prose and lofty ambition. Take this beauty up.
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