Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey

 Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey

Oscar and Lucinda is an outstanding, magnificent, flamboyant, mesmerizing, stupendous chef d'oeuvre.

We could use an expression from another masterpiece by the same author, The True History of the Kelly Gang and say that this novel is "adjectival".

Not that it is so clear to anyone from the first chapter and that this is an easy read, without depth and many layers of suggestions, knowledge, truth and revelation.

This reader had abandoned the reading after finding it somewhat cumbersome and concerned with religious aspects and beliefs that are not of extreme interest to everyone.

It was a terrible mistake, corrected Alhamdullilah after a second try that proved to be such an extreme joy as to be compared with some of the moments of jubilation felt by one of the heroes.

Oscar tries to determine what denomination is best for him, if he should follow in the footsteps of his awkward, rather possessed father, join the Anglican Church or else find God in another doctrine.

He has some marks for each creed and throws a stone which he is sure it would reveal the Truth, the real, noble, divine path that he has to take.

The answer is the Anglican faith and this means he abandons his home and his only living parent, an act he will regret with so much else in the future.

Both Oscar and Lucinda are such extraordinary, outlandish, challenging, outre, provoking, complex, at times annoying characters that one reads their story sitting on the edge...at least in some chapters.

Oscar can be seen as an archangel-indeed, Lucinda calls him her archangel at one stage- a man destined for redemption, purity, dedication, absolute love, tenderness, kindness or in short- an Ubermensch, a Superman and the quintessential role model.

For barbarians, savages and characters he meets, he is often a figure of contempt, they laugh at him and despise the clergy man they do not understand.

It is also true that the saintly superman gambles to an extreme, a sin that he feels so much remorse for and he has other passions, desires that make him feel humility, traumatized him, even when his love for Lucinda is actually a reason to cherish, to rejoice, give praise, sing and be merry, ecstatic in fact.

The game the writer is playing with the reader can be excruciating, for one wishes for Lucinda and Oscar to finally express their love clearly, marry and live happily for ever after.

Only this is much more sophisticated than that, not being a Cinderella or Snow White story, it involves a complicated dance, a rapprochement of the protagonists, followed soon after by some act, gesture, misinterpretation that pulls them apart, again and again.

Even at moments that look like zeniths, something happens and they just continue their parallel lives, yet so intertwined, that at one stage, the undersigned was wondering - are they ever going to become a real couple?

Indications can be misleading, for the first parts refer to Oscar as great grandfather, which should mean that the two splendid human beings would have to become intimate, or else there would be no descendants.

Only as the hero ventures into the unexplored Australian territory, with a glass church packed in wagons, and he encounters all sorts of adversities, culminating in the violence, brutish and heinous behavior of the man they had employed to guide them through the wild, one is afraid that the hero might eventually die and one alternative considered before this possible outcome would be that Lucinda has his child just before her Romeo leaves this world.

This is not what happens, thrown here without a spoiler alert, it is just a worry that the two will not in the end find Bliss and the Earthly Heaven that they deserve and we, the readers hope that they achieve, seeing as they are so strange, different, incompatible with ordinary people, but love each other so much and in some way are so well suited with each other that they will have to become one...at least at the very end.

Wishful thinking?

Maybe

There are so many obstacles, from the difficult terrain to the sensitivity of the hero, from an invented story of a love for a different man, to a deadly passion for gambling.

At times it feels bizarre, from the perspective of people from this day and age of speed, transparency and perhaps too much exposure, to see that neither of them, especially Oscar, has the audacity, openness, craziness to ask the other...look, I love you, what do you feel about me?

This happens in fact, in some other manner, but the message is misunderstood by Lucinda, seeing as it is placed in the context of the outrage expressed by the community in regards to what they see as sin and unacceptable behavior.

Besides, the formulation chosen by helpless, out of this world Oscar is not a happy one.