Newsletter

Print

CULTURE

‘Figurehead’ by Patrick Allington

The Monthly | Noted | July 2009 | Add a Comment

“I was beside myself that he’d thanked me for saving his life. Not with rage exactly. Not guilt … grief maybe. It was as if I’d donated bone marrow to him and now I wanted it back.” When the Australian journalist Ted Whittlemore saves the life of Nhem Kiry, he cannot know that this man will become the mouthpiece of the Khmer Rouge leader, Pol Pot, and a leading agent of the bloodiest of contemporary genocides. Tied to Kiry by this single moment, Whittlemore must resume his seat as journalistic voyeur and consider the actions with which he has written himself into history, and the words with which he might erase this mark.

Figurehead is the first novel by the Australian author Patrick Allington. It carves a narrative path through the recent political history of Cambodia, occupying the spaces between the monuments of official history; real events and people merge with their fictional counterparts, and both chronology and geography bend gently to accommodate their sometimes-unexpected encounters. Integrated into the very structure of the novel is the question: how do you tell the true history of people for whom “the truth changes every time the sun rises”?

Allington’s prose is elegantly spare, almost as ascetically lean as that of his mentor, JM Coetzee, as he recounts events in a deceptively dispassionate way. An exiled Cambodian prince playing his favourite Western pop song on the clarinet; an absent cathedral not ruined but “erased” from the landscape; a passing encounter in a restaurant between an elderly man, once a perpetrator of genocide, and two Australian tourists: such episodes accumulate to create a novel that wears its weighty intellectual agenda lightly. Allington’s characters are no straw men; in his hands the political figureheads of the title become inescapably and fleshily human, daring the reader to look them in the eyes.

The question of how to write a “new and true biography” besets Ted Whittlemore in his old age. His answer is 1009 pages of disjointed prose. Allington fares rather better with this wryly self-reflexive and shrewdly executed novel.

 
Print
Read the latest MONTHLY with a subscription — SUBSCRIBE
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Twitter
@THEMONTHLY @SLOWTV

If @latingle says it, it means something: http://t.co/Py3T2QAa
Friday, 3 February 2012 - 4:47pm
Apple Scotland: Having a wee problem with Siri - http://t.co/meocpp9K #fridayafternoon
Friday, 3 February 2012 - 3:43pm
Today's Shortlist (via @TheMonthly): http://t.co/Xr6iZ0CZ
Friday, 3 February 2012 - 3:39pm
Our entire December 2011 – January 2012 Summer Reading Special is now available for free online! http://t.co/I8DS5fIF
Friday, 3 February 2012 - 11:58am
twitter
 

Site Highlights



POLITICS
Human Rights (186)
Racism (92)
Feminism (88)
Australian Politics (87)
Robert Manne (67)
Obama (56)
Islam (52)
American Politics (46)
Censorship (44)
Multiculturalism (39)
Consumerism (36)
Pokies (30)
Stolen Generations (28)
Childcare (26)
Freedom of Speech (26)
Prime Ministers (20)
Political Parties (19)
History of Australia (18)
Liberalism (18)
Social Justice (18)
Waleed Aly (17)
Germaine Greer (17)
Gay Marriage (16)
SOCIETY
Australian History (108)
Travel (98)
Ethics (68)
Asylum Seekers (56)
Lawyers (52)
Gender (51)
Neuroscience (48)
Capitalism (45)
Anthropology (45)
Sexuality (45)
Aboriginal People (41)
Australian Society (30)
Facebook (30)
Scholars (29)
Clive Hamilton (23)
Muslim (23)
Sociology (22)
Homosexuality (22)
Decision-making (22)
Alice Springs (21)
Gambling (21)
Historians (20)
State Library of Victoria (18)
Neuropsychology (16)
CULTURE
Theatre (160)
Literature (145)
Fiction (138)
Hollywood (108)
Memoir (106)
Arts (87)
Biography (86)
Painting (79)
Photography (78)
Humour (76)
Library (64)
Comedy (58)
Musicians (56)
Opera (52)
Football (50)
Dance (47)
Architecture (38)
Short Stories (30)
The Arrival (24)
Autobiography (24)
20 Australian Masterpieces (22)
Cooking (21)
Arts Masterpieces (20)
Aussie Masterpieces (20)
Top 20 Arts Masterpieces (20)
Modern Masterpieces (20)
Australian Film (19)
Art (19)
Jazz (18)
Directors (16)
WORLD
China (198)
Iraq (114)
India (64)
Ireland (62)
Afghanistan (60)
World economy (60)
England (58)
Britain (54)
Middle East (54)
France (53)
Asia (51)
New York City (50)
Africa (46)
Barack Obama (45)
New Zealand (42)
Foreign Policy (41)
Egypt (41)
Pakistan (39)
World War II (38)
Germany (37)
New York Times (36)
Indonesia (34)
Italy (34)
George W Bush (33)
Eurozone (31)
Russia (31)
Terrorism (29)
Iran (29)
California (27)
European Union (27)
Aid (26)
United Nations (26)
East Timor (24)
Taliban (23)
Communism (22)
Israel (22)
Libya (22)
Egyptian revolution (21)
Beijing (19)
Libyan uprising (16)
Nuclear power (16)
Greece (16)
Thailand (16)
American Military (16)
ENVIRONMENT
Climate Change (265)
Nuclear (142)
Energy (115)
Drought (76)
Global Warming (57)
Sustainability (46)
Tasmania (44)
Dogs (42)
ETS (26)
Amazon (24)
Carbon dioxide (24)
Conservation (22)
Emissions trading (20)
Rainforest (20)
Carbon tax (17)
Ecology (16)
Carbon emissions (16)
Horses (16)
Water crisis (16)
Nuclear Energy (16)
ECONOMICS
Business (152)
Australian Economy (77)
The Global Financial Crisis (66)
European debt (40)
Wall Street (38)
Finance (38)
Globalisation (37)
Global Financial Crisis (34)
Global finance (32)
Recession (26)
Unemployment (20)
Food Production (18)
Stock Market (16)
Population growth (16)
MEDIA
ABC (101)
Journalism (87)
Australian Media (54)
Rupert Murdoch (46)
Radio National (40)
Quarterly Essay (37)
Fairfax (32)
News Corporation (31)
Google (29)
Wikileaks (27)
Social Media (25)
News Limited (24)
Twitter (23)
Communications (23)
Assange (22)
Guardian (21)
Phone-hacking scandal (21)
Julian Assange (18)
Crikey (16)
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
Brain (71)
Drugs (55)
Psychology (41)
Evolution (32)
Biology (27)
Genetics (21)
Disease (18)
Flu (17)