Verbal Magazine

The Orientalist and the Ghost

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Set in the Malayan jungle, The Orientalist and the Ghost recalls the memories of Christopher Milnar, a British officer posted to a Chinese resettlement camp in the 1950’s. While presiding over their crippling poverty and racial segregation, he is targeted by local Communist guerrillas. His respite lies in an intense love affair with Chinese camp nurse Evangeline, until betrayed and left for dead by the woman he loves.

Fifty years on, following his return to a England, he is tormented by visitations of ghosts from his past but never by the love he still pines for or a dead daughter he yearns to connect with. When, in his old age, he becomes the guardian of her two children, Milnar, for the first time, must now face the consequences of his previous life through the realm of the living.
The Orientalist and the Ghost powerfully reflects the racial prejudice experienced by the Chinese community in Kuala Lumpur through the colonial eyes of Milnar. His subsequent torment at the hands of the spirits of his past evocatively introduces the people, places and associations that haunt his memories illuminating our understanding. While possible mental illness is suggested, Barker manages to discard the maladjusted stereotype by portraying, instead, the human struggle with guilt and regret for past actions.
Barker’s narrative flows naturally with beautifully vivid descriptions of flawed and honest characters who engender a depth and realism that is, at times, both deeply engaging and moving. She writes with a freedom and a clear rejection of predetermined happy endings opting, instead, for more open, unresolved truths and, as a result, her work feels authentic.
While The Orientalist and the Ghost spans from East to West over a fifty year timeframe its scope is not overly ambitious. Portraying the social disintegration caused by fierce political insurrection, Barker reflects the personal impact through a ‘slash and burn’ of Milnar’s family tree. The burning embers of which powerfully resonate with issues of dysfunction in contemporary family life, thus making these themes universal and timeless.
This novel is excellently researched, effortlessly binding fact and fiction and therein lies its power. Barker has crucially, but subtly, salvaged an inconvenient truth from the dusty shelves of revisionist history. By placing her characters in the firing line of politics, Barker ensures political injustice does not simply become the backdrop to this story but, true to life, stains the brushes and colours we use to paint our perception of the lives we lead.

Claire McCauley

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