Lantern Dazzles Like A Kaleidoscope

The Age

Saturday April 12, 2008

Thuy On

The Solemn Lantern Maker

By Merlinda Bobis

Murdoch Books, $26.95

Merlinda Bobis conjures up a dazzling kaleidoscopic effect, writes Thuy On.

THE SOLEMN LANTERN MAKER IS a mute 10-year-old called Noland who has a face "like those of plaster saints who endure years of silent watching". Noland lives with his crippled mother, Nena, in the seedy slums of Manila. He also hangs out with his best friend, Elvis, a slightly older boy and an artful dodger to Noland's Oliver Twist. One day when out plying his multicoloured wares, the lantern maker becomes improbably involved in the life of an American tourist who is caught up in a murder of a controversial journalist. Somehow, in this post-9/11 climate, gossip and national hysteria transform the disappearance of the American into a terrorist conspiracy.

Merlinda Bobis' second novel is a beguiling mix of polarities: of the holy and the profane, of Third-World Asian poverty and white Western affluence. It tackles child prostitution, government corruption and international politics, which all sound heavy going, but Bobis is also known for her poetry and the book is suffused with gorgeous imagery. The lanterns twirl like "stained glass on speed"; to Noland, they're stars and the American woman is a fallen angel. He papers his decrepit home with shimmery religious icons, creating beauty and joy in an otherwise bleak existence.

Bobis knows the power of silences and the unspeaking, all-knowing Noland is finely drawn, an innocent foil to the more worldly street urchin Elvis. Though the drive-by shooting mystery isn't resolved all that satisfactorily, the novel nonetheless dazzles like a kaleidoscope.

© 2008 The Age

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