Vikram Lall is, by his own admission, among the most corrupt men in Africa, “a cheat of monstrous and reptilian cunning.” And so it is bizarre, after more than 400 pages, to feel compassion for the title character of M.G. Vassanji’s latest novel, The In-Between World of Vikram Lall. It’s a difficult book to approach-the buzz surrounding it is major and there’s that little matter of it making the shortlist for the Giller Prize. It seemed almost like no one had anything bad to say about it, which is always rather a scary prospect.
Lall’s first-person confession is the novel’s opening paragraph, but it’s actually just a red herring to draw you off the trail. The In-Between World of Vikram Lall is really a book about family, racial tension, forbidden love, and idealism in the face of political turmoil. And its cleverness lies in the fact that you don’t even realize that until it is too late.
The book is divided into three parts, corresponding neatly to three time periods in the history of Kenya’s struggle for political independence. The first part rides swiftly through Lall’s childhood, where tension is thick and recollections are vivid. The Lall family, Indians living in Africa, sits in an awkward place between the Africans and the British (the ‘in-between’ of the title). The pressures there are drawn out as Vikram and his sister Deepa befriend a pair of British children, Bill and Annie, and the grandson of their African gardener, Njoroge. During playtime, the five children perform a frightening mimicry of the more adult political tensions around them. Outside the shelter of childhood, the Lall family is subject to the fear and propaganda of the British Empire’s military police, and the rebel movement of the Mau Mau, a clandestine group of African freedom fighters.
The second section of the novel maps the forbidden love of Deepa and Njoroge, and their heady struggle to overcome the barriers to their interracial relationship in the newly liberated and idealistic Kenya. The final part of the book drags a little as it maps Vikram’s increasing cynicism as he rises through the ranks of the new government, and eventually his (and thus Kenya’s) descent into corruption and renewed political turmoil.
Dividing the novel into parts serves almost like acts in a play, with the first two acts setting the stage and accomplishing what the preface belies: Vikram Lall, despite his seemingly repugnant personality, is a human being just like you and me. Kenya is a place not unlike here. We are all tied together by our pasts, our families, our prejudices, and our traditions. But that’s not all-The In-Between World of Vikram Lall is also the story of colonialism, de-colonialization, and rebuilding. In very compelling fashion, Vassanji provides us with a vivid and moving allegory to help us understand it. In the end, readers are left to wonder: If Vikram Lall is a bad man, then why does he seem just like us?
