The Landscape Painter
by Craig Higginson
(Picador, R195)
The thing about Higginson as an author is that he has such a singular voice. If you’ve read one of his books, it won’t necessarily lead you into the next one. What you will recognise is an evocative use of language and an ability to tell a story that grabs you from the point of entry until you let the last character go.
The London setting bookends the tale while most of the centre is dominated by the Johannesburg landscape and the three central characters – Arthur Bailey, Carwyn Phillips and her enigmatic brother Christian.
It’s about obsession as the young landscape painter follows his friend from London to Johannesburg, more than anything to court the alluring Carwyn who made a brief visit to London where she entrapped the young painter.
He’s willing to cross the world on this romantic whim, but what he finds in this new world is not only a landscape that’s alien to all his sensibilities, but also people that might look recognisable but don’t seem familiar in any other way.
It’s the way Higginson uses his paintbrush to sketch this epic tale of people and their emotions, what they’re willing to do to follow their particular dream even if it turns out to be unobtainable, that is so captivating as he pulls his reader into a tale that’s as addictive as the strange story that unfolds.
On the surface he deals with the people and their feelings, the way they play with the lives of others and discard those lives as easily as they would an unpleasant thought. But there’s a much bigger picture at play as well as he climbs into the Colonial invasion of the continent: how people simply skimmed the surface of what they knew without regard for those living there, and how this resulted in both physical and emotional chaos for both the perpetrators and those affected.
Higginson’s quest is never to repeat himself and to write something that no one has done before. He easily manages that, but what grabs you the most is his rich, effortless use of language. It’s rare that someone can write so beauti-fully without the beauty rather than the story taking precedence.
But that’s exactly what he achieves. That and a story that takes you on an emotional adventure that’s totally unpredictable yet mesmerising.