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Article: FICTION Neel Mukherjee counts the number of themes squeezed into this satirical story
- Article from:
- The Sunday Telegraph London
- Article date:
- July 12, 2009
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2009 The Sunday Telegraph London. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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Jerusalem
By Patrick Neate
PENGUIN, pounds 12.99, 405 pp
With Jerusalem, Patrick Neate completes the 'Zambawi' trilogy
that began with Musungu Jim and the Great Chief Tuloko and continued
with Twelve Bar Blues. While it is desirable that a reader comes to
Jerusalem with the knowledge of the previous two books - the
crosshatching between them and the elaborately created contexts lend
greater depth of field and meaning to Neate's project - it is not
strictly necessary as this final instalment can be read as a stand-
alone piece.
The novel weaves together a dizzying number of strands, some of
them alluding to the first two books, some altogether new, all of
them twisting and untwisting ...