A good and faithful but critical servant

As one who has always been a bit afraid of Virginia Woolf and daunted by heavy tomes on the Bloomsbury group, I opened this book cautiously. I soon found that I was wrong to be nervous as I became caught up in a fascinating story. Leonard Woolf was Virginia’s husband and his life was far more interesting than hers.

The author, Sir Christopher Ondaatje, is one of the most remarkable men of our times. Now one of Britain’s leading philanthropists, his life, as he says himself, has been in some ways an echo of Woolf’s. Skilfully, he interweaves his own childhood memories and experiences of the Ceylon of 50 years ago with the modern, ongoing conflict between Hindu Tamils and Buddhist Sinhalese. And he does this without ever losing the main thread of his story: the life led by Leonard Woolf during his seven years in the Ceylon civil service. The many sepia pictures help to blur past and present.