Out-of-placeness
The author writes about his feelings of otherness upon coming to the English estate, an estate filled with history and very little connections to the present time. Despite his interest, even love, for the English literature and culture, those feelings of out-of-placeness he could not avoid.
“The idea of ruin and dereliction, of out-of-placeness, was something I felt about myself, attached to myself: a man from another hemisphere…”
Irony of Jack and his garden
The first chapter of the novel is dedicated to a man and the garden that the author found fascinating upon his arrival in the English estate. This fascination sparks ruminations about decay and death, past and present, and life in general. To the author, Jack was just a part of the unchanging landscape at first, but as the time goes by and after Jack’s death and disappearance of the garden, he realizes that Jack was also a fleeting presence in the enormous scale of history, that he also came upon someone else’s past and created his own in its place.
Irony of getting what you desire
The author dreamed of coming to England, to leave Trinidad in search of a better life, a life he read about in books. Arriving and making a life in England, he started dreaming of going back to his home. This irony of getting what he wanted is also strengthened with his feelings of otherness.
“And just as once at home I had dreamed of being in England, so for years in England I had dreamed of leaving England.”
Irony of Alan
At the estate, the author befriends a man called Alan, a radio-host and up and coming writer. Alan is an outspoken and bashful character, who seems to have everything figured out. His death comes as a surprise, but it also reveals the true nature of his friendships and connections.
“…these people paid tribute to themselves for having known and befriended Alan, for having spotted his talent and sensibility, having been singled out by him for his confidences, his confessions of sadness. No one spoke of his flattery. And more than one person, it turned out, had been telephoned by Alan in distress just a few days before he had died.”
