Published in Incorporating Writing, January 2009

Ashes of the Amazon
Milton Hatoum
Bloomsbury, 2008
17.99
ISBN 978 0 7475 8802 3
278pp

At times, Ashes of the Amazon soars in scope, style and storytelling but on occasion Milton Hatoum's new work also leaves you feeling a little short changed.

The novel has the elegant lyricism found in novels skilfully translated from their Brazilian roots, and with this is a robust humour and a light-filled, honeyed hue. The author's occasional uses of clichéd literary devices are a stark contrast to this background; puncturing the well paced and engrossing plot.

Ashes of the Amazon establishes itself quickly with a rapid merging between characters. Dreamlike and fleeting, the reader is introduced to the interconnecting main characters with a simplified differentiation of good and bad. This gushing narrative quickly relaxes into an anecdotal tone that permeates the novel.

As we become more aware of the characters the long time scale of the book is unveiled, and with it the impact of its narrator, Lavo, on the speed and tone of the novel. As Lavo grows up through the course of Ashes of the Amazon, he becomes increasingly prominent within the narrative; with increasing consequence within the plot as he learns more about the characters and becomes more worldly. Although, in one sense, this could be considered a coming of age novel for its narrator, Lavo's friend Mundo is the real protagonist. This is the story of his artistic rebellion, and the mysteries surrounding his family.

Set in the city of Manaus, we watch as the city shifts with a new generation that moves away from the tradition (prized by their parents) to become a shifting, urban landscape. Manaus' residents are from old families, constant in the area and making up a very tight-knit community that is almost incestuous. Mundo's father, Jano, has established himself and his Jute plantation (Vila Amazonia) in the community and is betrayed by his son's wish not to join in the family business. This is a time of societal and cultural shifts, with the forest giving way to the city and the old families being dispersed.

Despite the novel being set in a city, the tight and inherited community is intimate, somewhat claustrophobic and increasingly irrelevant to the new generation. This intimacy often exaggerates an isolation of the characters, exaggerating relationships. Ashes of the Amazon maps the scope of emotion; violence saturates Mundo's adolescence and each character exhibits different forms of love that are original and unique, yet the novel carefully sketches the universality of basic emotional needs.

The scope of the novel opens up with Mundo's travels to Europe, which shifts Ashes of the Amazon to a very different, contextually defined landscape much more relevant to a readership outside of the South Americas. As Vila Amazonia and Jano's mansion are lost, and with them their history and culture, Manaus becomes much more consistent with a contemporary idea of a 'city', commenting comprehensively upon Globalisation and the loss of habitat often associated with it. The developing landscape provides a parallel timescale to the characters, adding depth to the understanding of pace within the novel and to the characters relevance to their surroundings and their family history.

Commercialism, synonymous with globalisation, affects Mundo deeply; the tension between business and making art, in parallel to Aranas' (Mundo’s mentor) move from art to selling furniture, fuels his rebellion and underpins his splurging of his inheritance from the estate. As destruction breeds creation, it is necessary for Mundo to leave the old family traditions behind, and for Jano's richly decorated, art laden mansion to be cleared to make way for the new.

Ashes of the Amazon is a novel of smoke and mirrors; it is layered with façade, and with symbolic burning (with the burning of art and burning passions). As the characters' passions and preoccupations cool towards the end of the novel, so too does our empathy for the narrator.

This novel could have wisely and tenderly imparted a contemporary and neatly contextualised moral debate if more finely structured. Instead, the starry-eyed eloquence in some sections of the narrative descended into a cheap thrill as Hatoum lost confidence and favoured a tacky and immature resolution to the novel. A disappointing end to a promising and intriguing novel.