The Hamilton Case

Pater loved parties 
Champagne and horses 
A giver to those who craved 
 While Mater was a smasher 
A beauty 
Favouring
The giving of 
 Flying crystal 

 But 
 What Sam remembered most about his parents in 
This monsoon 
 Colonial world of 
 Befuddled Ceylon was 

His parents 
Weren't there 

 A whirlwind of faces and spaces 
Greed and need 
Spin by 

Until 
 The Hamilton Case 
Embroiling white and dark tensions 
Test Sam's legal powers 
But his insights are coloured 
Textured 
Not clear 

And Sam was not married
Yet

 Beyond the Hamilton question 
Life bumbles on 
Cramped with jungle fever and 
Tangled insanities 
Maud his mother 
Ekes out her time in 
The refuse of tattered glamour and
The ghosts of  her son Leo

Until 
Shivanathan
(The one who plods) 
Emerges from Sam's old "Neddy" school world 
And
Like some quasi-spiritual seer
Writes
 Parts 
Imparts 
 Some mysteries for Sam's son 

 So many 
Rich glimpses of 
A colonial 
Monsoon world where a 
Coherent 
Social fabric is 

Not there 



 The Hamilton Case (2003) ~ Michelle de Kretser

GOODREADS REVIEW

The Hamilton Case by Michelle de Kretser
If you are seeking an intriguing crime mystery, (implied by the title) warped with a few red herrings along a linear narrative of progress, "The Hamilton Case" does not deliver. Instead, the novel explores colonial worlds of old Ceylon - embedded with character detail, past and present lives, driven by 1st and 3rd person speakers and all in a pendulum motion defying time sequence. A glorious tropical world becomes matted with fevered images, irritatingly vague but always intriguing. Finally the novel unveils the last version of Maud, strung with out of date glamour. Then the multitude of previous detours tumble in, tying up threads, like a cascade of relief. And the Hamilton Case, not mentioned till one third of the way through the novel, (then left swinging), returns, like a re-incarnation, with some answers and new questions. The Hamilton Case becomes a symbol for so many other crimes lurking insidiously beneath the social masks. Ultimately, the novel is a paradox, offering bizarre glimpses of a dysfunctional, colonial society in a sweltering conglomeration of personalities.
I still don't know if I love this novel.
And yet, I still don't know if I don't.
 My rating: 3 of 5 stars

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