Secret Histories by Emma Larkin

From The Week of July 11, 2010

Still buzzing from Everything Is Broken's literary high, I was thrilled to have located Emma Larkin's other published novel in my local library. And that this, her first effort, even comes close in quality to her devastating account of Burma through the lens of cyclone Nargis is a credit to her sharp mind, keen eye, and diligent pursuit of the obscure.

Secret Histories adopts the same narrative construct as Everything Is Broken, but while Burma and its culture remain the informative backdrop, the lens of this story is, fascinatingly, George Orwell and the time he spent in Burma as a youthful police officer in British, imperial law-enforcement from 1922 to 1927. Ms. Larkin appears quite startled to learn that one of the 20th century's most famous critics of authoritarianism not only spent time in Burma, but did so as part of a ruthless and cynical imperialist machine. Actually, this is often the way of human nature. Injustice does not make itself manifest to us; it has to be found, to be experienced, before the fullness of its abhorrence can be understood by those of us lucky enough to be reared beyond its shadow. Ms. Larkin discovers that this was precisely the lesson Mr. Orwell learned as, after being churned out of good British schools with good, British reputations, he went to Burma and saw, first-hand, the incalculable damage imperialism was doing to that country. Ms. Larkin chronicles how what Mr. Orwell saw changed his outlook on the world which would inform his later work, work cherished by all those who appreciate freedom. Secret Histories is, then, an amalgam of Ms. Larkin's many adventures in Burma, attempting to chronicle where Mr. Orwell went, what he saw, who he talked to, and how that poor, torn nation changed him into the man remembered by history.

Secret Histories is archaeological in tone, an exploration of an old event in a modern time, the composite of an author's attempts to piece together a myriad of informational scraps and forming from them an informative portrait. Though Ms. Larkin's efforts are often thwarted, Burma itself, its monuments, its talking teahouses, its people, shines. The resilience of the people is remarkable when one considers that the junta, which has ruled that nation since 1962, is a vision of Orwellian authoritarianism; a well-oiled machine, practiced in lying, shameless in deed, and relentlessly cruel in rule. That Mr. Orwell's nightmare has animated out of the pages of 1984 and into reality, today, in our world, is eerie, astonishing and endlessly sad. This is a wonderful book which tackles events both macro and micro and is, admirably, equally successful at both. (4/5 Stars)