The Impressionist by Hari KunzruAt once fascinating and disturbing. One person is traced through several personages but no matter how hard he tries to integrate into his new world, he remains an outsider. This is a gripping study of mixed race set in colonial India and class-drenched England where acceptance is tantalizingly near yet never actually achieved. The characters are finely drawn and eminently believable with echoes of Kipling, Waugh and Conrad. It is the Conradian ending that is the most disturbing and, to an extent, inspiring. Fortunately. the story never quite descends into magic realism but this reader frequently worried that it might. Well worth reading in spite of its density.
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