In the Shadow of the Banyan - Vaddey Ratner

Simon & Schuster, 2013.

 

Four Stars

 

Ratner’s novel would be better classified as a fictionalized memoir of an overlooked period of history in the western world: Cambodia in the 1970s during the Khmer Rouge revolution. Ratner herself writes that she has “chosen the medium of fiction, of reinventing and imagining where memory alone is inadequate.” (p. 318, author’s note). As a young child during the revolution, it would certainly be hard to differentiate fact from fiction when reporting on the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge regime.

 

The story is ostensibly told from the perspective of a seven-year-old girl, Raami, but with a strong adult slant. The point of view is inconsistent, with Raami sometimes childlike and uncertain, and at other times understanding too much about the world. Because of this, it is more like an adult describing childhood than an actual child’s voice. I didn’t mind this inconsistency at all, because it was clear that Ratner was reflecting back on her former life, putting words into the mouth of her child-self.

 

Raami speaks often of the importance of storytelling: of bearing witness to the crimes of the past. On page 82, when leaving her own past behind, she says, “It was clear to me now that while books could be torn and burned, the stories they held needn’t be lost or forgotten.” When everything seems lost, she can recall her father, her sister, and her old life by telling stories. And isn’t this why we read and write?

 

The novel begins with moment by moment detail of the first days of the revolution, then dissolves into vague swaths of time in the second half of the book. I think this is probably related to how young Raami saw the world – in the beginning, everything was sharp and new and vibrant, but as time passed, she lost her sense of place in the world and the narrative becomes unreliable. Starving and overworked, ten-year-old Raami is a far cry from the sheltered, pampered girl she was before the revolution, the girl who saw the beauty in everything. Her vivid descriptions disintegrate into the monotony of a life passing in internment.

 

Poetry is a major part of Raami’s family life – her father, a prince of Cambodia, is a poet who is targeted for his intellectualism as well as his royal connections. Raami’s voice, as well as Ratner’s narration, is lyrical also, but it does not feel overdone. I got lost in the language, in a foreign country that I have never been to but felt like I could see in front of me.

 

The horror and uncertainty of Raami’s existence during oppression is only made redeemable by the strengthening of connection between her mother and herself. They are bonded in their love for Raami’s father, who was doomed although he continued to believe in the revolution - he never stopped looking for goodness in the people who aimed to destroy him. It takes time for disillusionment to set in, and although Raami (and probably Ratner) did lose her hope for a better life, she regained it through the act of storytelling.