Review: Eclipse
Eclipse, Richard North Patterson. Thriller
By coincidence, I was reading this one the week that Shell agreed to pay $15.5m in settlement of a legal action in which it was accused of having collaborated in the execution of the writer Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other leaders of the Ogoni tribe of southern Nigeria. That legal action has been running since 1996.
I was struck with the similarities of Patterson's story, set in a fictional West Africa oil-rich country, to the Shell saga. It was at the end of the book that he revealed the real story had triggered his fictional version, which was finished in January of last year.
It is a time-honoured way of trying to make sense of a factual mystery or situation. Take the surrounding story and write in characters and see how they might have reacted to what was going on around them. Patterson researches avidly when he does this. So 'Eclipse' is a strong story. A hard story. And with savage passages that make the reader wince. Africa today is still a place of corruption, dictatorship, and cruelty. But all of those are supported by the needs, greeds, and manipulations of the rest of us in the so-called 'developed' world.
'Eclipse' is a work of fiction that veneers an uncomfortable truth, which most of the time none of us want to think about. That much of our lifestyle, what we eat and use, and our comfort, is built on the suffering, and indeed the very lives of others.
The story shows the other uncomfortable truth that good does not always win in these situations. Or, if it does, it is likely an impaired victory at best.
The key characters include an African writer educated in America but who went back to try and help his country. Then there's his American wife, and their college days best friend who comes to help them out of a terrible situation in the country that is a euphemism for Nigeria.
There's the classic African dictator and his evil henchmen. There are a couple of village massacres. There's rape, pillage and murder. There is travesty of law. There is the diplomat with a conscience, and several oil executives with none. And there are ordinary people suffering from the activities of all these.
It's a witchdoctor's brew. Patterson lets it simmer, and boils it over a couple of times. The end is predictable, particularly if the current Shell story is in the background of the reader's mind. But how it happens is not, and Patterson's skill is in taking us down the side lanes and back again, and while we're down there giving us a shock or two.
At the end, though, the story is plausible, which is the mark of a good writer of fiction. It's the facts behind them that leave us uncomfortable.
Or they should.
Brian Byrne.
By coincidence, I was reading this one the week that Shell agreed to pay $15.5m in settlement of a legal action in which it was accused of having collaborated in the execution of the writer Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other leaders of the Ogoni tribe of southern Nigeria. That legal action has been running since 1996.I was struck with the similarities of Patterson's story, set in a fictional West Africa oil-rich country, to the Shell saga. It was at the end of the book that he revealed the real story had triggered his fictional version, which was finished in January of last year.
It is a time-honoured way of trying to make sense of a factual mystery or situation. Take the surrounding story and write in characters and see how they might have reacted to what was going on around them. Patterson researches avidly when he does this. So 'Eclipse' is a strong story. A hard story. And with savage passages that make the reader wince. Africa today is still a place of corruption, dictatorship, and cruelty. But all of those are supported by the needs, greeds, and manipulations of the rest of us in the so-called 'developed' world.
'Eclipse' is a work of fiction that veneers an uncomfortable truth, which most of the time none of us want to think about. That much of our lifestyle, what we eat and use, and our comfort, is built on the suffering, and indeed the very lives of others.
The story shows the other uncomfortable truth that good does not always win in these situations. Or, if it does, it is likely an impaired victory at best.
The key characters include an African writer educated in America but who went back to try and help his country. Then there's his American wife, and their college days best friend who comes to help them out of a terrible situation in the country that is a euphemism for Nigeria.
There's the classic African dictator and his evil henchmen. There are a couple of village massacres. There's rape, pillage and murder. There is travesty of law. There is the diplomat with a conscience, and several oil executives with none. And there are ordinary people suffering from the activities of all these.
It's a witchdoctor's brew. Patterson lets it simmer, and boils it over a couple of times. The end is predictable, particularly if the current Shell story is in the background of the reader's mind. But how it happens is not, and Patterson's skill is in taking us down the side lanes and back again, and while we're down there giving us a shock or two.
At the end, though, the story is plausible, which is the mark of a good writer of fiction. It's the facts behind them that leave us uncomfortable.
Or they should.
