Rufus Who?

Unexpectedly, this delicious novel bears two basic Kafkaesque marks: an initial and a terminal analogy to The Trial. The first one is that the plot begins in a maze of procedural absurdity. As for the second mark, let me say cryptically (using a riddle so as not to give away the denouement) that, zoologically speaking, Rufus in a sense terminally outdoes Joseph K. (The blank in the names of both characters is intriguing too. These signal similarities are probably a surprise even to Rufus's literary father, Branford.)Between these two end-points, Branford's narrative tangibility transposes you persuasively to Trinidad and Tobago and thus contrasts sharply with Kafka's evanescent meandering in a European no-man's-land. The two poetries (and sociologies) differ, but may harbour a common essential mystery. Much could be said (or left "inexprimé") about that. Future readers of the book, have a good time.

Could "Rufus Who?" be a roman à clef? Clearly there was an Auntie Mavis, i.e., an intelligent, competent, professional woman with compassion for children, and perhaps someone else who had the strange habit of attending ritually the 5 a.m. mass! Some characters seem to be composites of people the author knew ... The word pictures are smooth and naturalistic, including the habit of educated people to lapse into dialect. Branford achieves a splendid balance between narration, description and dialogue, with each enriching the other without overwhelming it. The flashbacks too are nicely inserted, and the reader is brought back to the narrative before losing the thread. The style combines gentle humor, compassion and irony. There are many concise and descriptive turns of phrase, and description never slows the brisk pace of the narrative. This is closer to a folk tale than to a grand epic full of pageantry. Readers are brought smoothly into a world not their own and can identify easily with the characters. Wonderful descriptive details flesh out and delineate the characters. The mindset of cricket fans, the challenge of eating mangoes, the improbable possibilities of Angostura bitters, medicinal herbs, and even worms are delightfully evocative without cluttering the narrative. And who ever thought of asking how a solemn church service must look in the eyes of a six-year-old?FTC