A mission to expose the madness

FICTION:It can read like a polemic, but Nuruddin Farah's latest novel paints a vivid picture of the poverty, corrupt politics and violence that plague Somalia

Crossbones By Nuruddin Farah Granta, 392pp. £16.99

A MILD, MIDDLE-AGED MAN of Somali descent travels to Somalia in the hope of finding his wife’s teenage son, who has left home in Minnesota, intent on training as a suicide bomber. Likeable Ahl hopes to bring the boy back to his wife, whose behaviour hovers between emotional extremes. Meanwhile, Ahl’s brother, Malik, a self-important freelance journalist, has also arrived in Somalia, in the company of Jeebleh, his kindly father-in-law, on a very different mission: he wants to be the one to tell the world the truth about Somalia.

Crossbones is the third in Nuruddin Farah’s Past Imperfect trilogy, the earlier instalments of which are Links (2005) and Knots (2007). Although each may be read as a self-contained novel, they also cohere narratively, not only through the historical fact that underlies the plots but also through the presence of some of the central characters, such as Jeebleh and the powerful female Cambara, the most consistently drawn and heroic figure in the trilogy.

Crossbones, the weakest of the three novels, ironically opens with some of the best extended storytelling Farah has yet written. It follows a boy intent on compensating for having earlier made a mess of a task: “He smiles with youthful bravado, betraying none of his trepidation.” It is obvious that the youth, in a baseball cap, carrying a heavy bag, is under orders. He is an aspiring killer who may himself be killed as he looks for a house that will then be used by his associates. Once inside he notices that the house is not empty. An old man, locked out when the wind slammed the door shut, has been asleep in the garden.

It is a taut, exciting passage, understated and effective. But Farah is on a mission that takes him far beyond his fictional narrative. Not only is he concerned with the experiences of a small number of friends and family; he also wants to expose the madness tearing Somalia apart. To do this he must balance the public and the personal. Ahl’s quest is relatively believable: here is a man, fearful of his wife’s hysteria, alone in a country he does not know and aware that his only hope of tracking down his stepson, Taxliil, is through engaging with criminals.

The Somalia Farah describes is a nightmare of lies and betrayals. Running parallel with Ahl’s quest is Malik’s journalistic project. He storms about, ready to write a dozen articles at once. If there is one abiding flaw in this important book – which is never more than an average novel – it is the portrayal of journalists as selfless martyrs. It is difficult to understand how a reporter as experienced as Malik appears to be could get into a situation such as this without a brief, or a publication to back him up, and petulantly expect everyone to co-operate with him as he fires off instant articles inspired by the first thing he sees or by passing comments he overhears. The only thing that convinces is his response to a visit to a black-market computer store.

Subtle Malik is not; nor is he particularly discreet. When asked for his opinion of the local journalists he pronounces that their “writing is composed of ramshackle paragraphs sloppily conceived and shakily held together by a myriad of prejudices . . . I suspect not one of them has done the background research . . . Moreover, the proofreading is atrocious.” He then adds, grudgingly: “Still I admire their courage, despite their lack of training or analytical acumen.”

Far too often in a novel that itself reads like a thinly disguised opinion piece, Malik engages in rhetoric or reveals his vision of himself as an oracle:

Speaking to Qasir’s mother does him good, helping him remember his responsibility as a journalist and as a friend to Dajaal and men like him, who are often murdered for the views they hold, risking their lives for their stands against tyranny. Dajaal loved the country, and has been killed by men who cannot love Somalia until they turn it into a different country, in which they prosper and their opponents perish. He will pen a piece about the tragic eradication of a generation of Somali professionals, of whom Dajaal was a prime example. He gets down to doing just that.

Farah’s stately prose, written in English, often falters in clunky imagery – Ahl “walks with the slowness of a hippo after a fight” – and irritating jargon and slang surface throughout the third-person narrative. Information is “under wraps”, a character “keeps tabs on” others, behaviour is “par for the course” or “out of line”.

Despite the banal exchanges, the narrative tension almost prevails: a knock at the door may mean an assassin awaits, or a car journey may be ended by a bomb.

At no point does Crossbones match the beauty of Farah’s early novel Maps (1986), the first part of his Blood in the Sun trilogy, which continued with Gifts (1992) and Secrets (1998). Crossbones is an urgent, somewhat rushed polemic, weighty and passionate. Wodges of historical and political detail fill out the text. Farah’s characters are often ambivalent about his countrymen, as when Jeebleh observes: “Somalis are incestuous by nature, inseparable by temperament and murderous by inclination; and such is their internecine closeness that quarrelling is the norm – like twins fighting.”

Perhaps it is Farah’s closeness to the material, as well as his having embraced the role of explaining his country to the world, that has overwhelmed this book. It is as if the narrative voice has insufficient faith in the characters to allow the story to evolve without extensive authorial interventions.

Farah visited Somalia in 1996 after a 20-year absence; he is based now in the US and South Africa. He is a major figure, a potential Nobel laureate, and Maps remains an eloquent, powerful work. The Somalia of this loosely conceived new novel is a theatrical place of computers, mobile phones and cardboard villains, as well as rampaging corruption and violence.

At times overwritten and marred by poor dialogue, the narrative is too often obscured by Farah’s rhetorical didacticism. No, not a great novel, yet this candid overview offers valid insights into the upheaval of a country caught between cultures and mired in corrupt politics and self-interest, delusion and menace. Farah may have failed to shape a compelling narrative, but he paints a picture of a very specific kind of hell.

Eileen Battersby is Literary Correspondent