The Cauliflower by Nicola Barker review – unclassifiable genius

In her latest imaginative tour de force, the tale of a 19th-century guru, Barker lobs a literary hand grenade at the historical novel

There is only one guarantee for anyone picking up a new novel by Nicola Barker: her previous work will give you no indication where you might be going next. Her career has ricocheted between the gothic and the zany, the gracious and the macabre, the indignant and the cute, the tender and the terrible. That said, there might be a creeping realisation that her formidable comic gifts seem more and more directed towards questions of the sublime, the unreal and the holy, rather than the spiritual. From the misunderstood asceticism of Clear to the shamanic violence of Wide Open, the ghostly and ghastly jester of Darkmans to the fey and fairy barmaid in The Yips, Barker seems drawn to the hazy edges of things, the point where reason huffs off and rationality sighs in exasperation. The Cauliflower is certainly in keeping with that trajectory. It is also a kind of mild mugging of a whole form of literature.

The Cauliflower is concerned with Sri Ramakrishna, a 19th-century Indian mystic, the kind of guru who hates being called a guru. A significant part of the narrative is told by his put-upon nephew Hriday, who has to deal with the day-to-day while uncle wrangles with the ineffable. It is a tug-of-war between epiphany and catastrophe, as Hriday tries to placate his uncle’s benefactors, while protecting him from various enthusiasts, just as his uncle decides to glean more of the goddess Kali’s wisdom by trying to live as a monkey, or converting to Islam, or eating semolina puddings.

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