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Austin Clarke is well known as one of Canada's foremost political novelists, an intelligent and sensitive inquisitor into struggles of race, gender, and class.
The Question, winner of the W.O. Mitchell Literary Prize, continues in this vein, recounting a politically explosive tale of love, friendship, and psychological violence.
Clarke's narrator is an unnamed man, a judge at the Immigration and Refugee Board in Toronto and an immigrant from an unnamed Caribbean island. A content but unadventurous man, he has a handful of friends and a devoted lover, a Filipino woman named Room. At a suburban party, the narrator meets an unnamed white woman, who quickly seduces him, and for whom he abandons Room. Soon, the narrator finds that his new lover (and eventual wife) comes with some deeply trying accessories. Clarke's narrator tells his story in a profoundly intimate style, retreating into flights of memory through his Caribbean childhood and his experiences at court, and passing judgment on would-be Canadians.
The Question is a fascinating novel, but it suffers from a curious malaise. Unlike many political novels that fail because of their ideological clarity and tendency to offer types rather than characters, The Question suffers from its originality and liberal avoidance of blunt didacticism. Clarke's fiction has always been graced by a rare political sophistication, back to his early success in The Meeting Point. Here, his desire for originality results in characters who, though unfamiliar and complex, sometimes strain the limits of credibility. Having said that, The Question is still an intriguing examination of the political tumult that rages inside the private lives of ordinary Canadians. --Jack Illingworth
Review
“A seductively intriguing psychological novel about male-female relationships.… Treats the sense, the intuition and the intellect.”
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Hamilton Spectator
“Haunting and provocative.…Clarke strips back the day-to-day quality of ordinary marriage, and reveals the clumsy iridescence of raw human want.”
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Globe and Mail“Austin Clarke is a man who understands the power of language: the force of a few words that can make or break an argument: words that traverse the shaky narrative terrain between truth and lies.”
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Ottawa Citizen
“A gem.…
The Question is mesmerizing in the best sense; it is poignant, and at times wonderfully funny.”
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Winnipeg Free Press
“There is a rare kind of psychological novel that focuses tightly on the relationship between two or three characters.…The most successful of these, such as Graham Greene’s
The End of the Affair and Ian McEwan’s
Enduring Love, are notable for their intensity and their uncanny ability to capture the essence of a time and place.… [
The Question] belongs perfectly in this company.… Clarke’s language is unstintingly sensual, the unveiling wandering voice of a poet lost in the body of a judge.”
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Globe and Mail“Austin Clarke’s
The Question is a powerful portrait of a complex and enigmatic character caught up in the politics of race, dislocation and gender. His mastery of dialogue and dialect and his humorous insights into the vicissitudes of human experience make this novel unforgettable.”
–Jury citation, Governor General’s Award
“[Clarke is] a consummate storyteller…”
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Quill & Quire
“While many first- and second-generation immigrant writers lucidly describe the alienation and confusion of cultural dislocation, few also tell poignant stories about human relationships that, without the force of their multicultural themes, would stand on their own literary merits.
The Question does. It leaves the reader with unforgettable images of urban alienation and failed romance.… A moving read.…”
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National Post
“This novel is very rich and will enrich those who choose to read it.
The Question challenges us to think about personal, familial and national identity; cross-cultural relationships; immigration and citizenship; Canadian culture. About creating family and culture where we live, integrating what we bring with us into the place where we land. About making ourselves at home.”
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January Magazine
“What Clarke achieves in
The Question is something akin to Ford Maddox Ford’s brilliant characterization of the unreliable narrator in
The Good Soldier.”
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Vancouver Sun
