Orpheus Lost

This novel by Janette Turner Hospital follows the lives of three different people; Leela, an American mathematician, Cobb, her childhood friend who is a mercenary, and Mishka, her Australian lover. It’s set now, or a bit in the future, in America. More bombings are happening. Leela’s brought in for questioning, and it turns out that Mishka actually knows the guy who blew himself up the previous day. And the guy questioning her is Cobb.

This story races along, with plenty of action interspersed with childhood flashbacks and description. All the fundamentals (such as mathematics) turn out to be false, nothing is quite what it seems. It’s about as subtle as a sledge-hammer, although there’s some disturbing undercurrents which are never resolved – like Leela being punished for her sexuality (cast out by her family, interrogated by a jealous Cobb, harassed by her professor, hassled by her secretive boyfriend). In the end the dark side redeems itself, while the real evil remains murky and unnamed, or is simply “America” or “the current political regime”.

Apparently some of this novel was published earlier as short pieces, which explains why it feels a bit piecemeal. There is something too ordinary about this novel to be powerful, too obvious, “torture is bad, terrorism is bad, people must stand up for what they believe in”. It’s powerful because it’s immediate, it’s taking the situation as is and just taking it to a new level, but without the complexity which most thinking people know are inherent. I liked this, but the way Leela was written disturbs me more than the violence, and I don’t know whether that was in any way intentional, or whether it’s actually the whole point.