The Impressionist

Long flight book 1.

I had a long journey to the UK for family reasons. Direct the flight takes 24 hours, but I was offered the longer 30-hour trip with 2 days in Bangkok on the way home for a significant less quantity of my hard-earned dollars. I took the long journey and the saved cash. But what book to read on this long journey? I selected The Impressionist by Hari Kunzru for the first part of the trip. It seemed a good premise, at least via the blurb, and looked easy to read.

The story is a life story of a boy born in India under the name Pran in the very late 1800's and takes us through to the 1920s. Pran's is a life of change from a high caste born Indian to becoming an Englishman, or does he? The title is significant. Pran the impressionist is as much about seeking as to what he is not as to what he is. His search is a book that is very thematic of race, religion, caste, colonialism and how all this affects identity. There were some very witty moments in this read, the chapter on the buffoonery of the British officer class in one chapter had me laughing out loud. The chapter on a tribe in Africa whose share market instincts was a complete satire on the system that dominates our western world was very very clever.

Many characters appear in Prans life and their backstories are very well told. I really enjoyed the husband and wife McFarlane's who lived in poverty-stricken Bombay, he to preach the Christian bible in as bombastic a way as is the Scottish Protestant way and she to go as native as possible, all this to have interesting consequences as to their relationship and that of their house guest the main protagonist.

Pran is characterised in such a way that I found little to like or dislike about him, he was this strange figure changing impressions of himself in that he attempted to blend into whatever situation came his way. He became all things to all people that he met in his life's journey, even if he wanted to or not..

Recommended as a good read for a long flight as it is readable, thematic and witty enough to while those hours away.