Reflecting on religion

The Hound of Gabriel & the Jaguar. Finbarr Corkery. Ragworth Press

INSPIRED by his own extensive journeying through the continent of South America, the first novel by Corkman, Finbarr Corkery, is a dizzying, frenzied and at times almost schizophrenic piece of work.

In simplest terms, The Hound of Gabriel & the Jaguar is a jungle tale that bristles with hallucinogenic fervour but which offers a meaningful reflection both on the constructs and value of organised religion, especially when stacked against indigenous pantheisms, and on the environmental and human havoc wreaked not only by greed but by well-meaning actions.

When we join the story, Tumi, an Amazon tribesman, has been accidentally trapped by Joao, a domesticated Indio. In the settlers’ village, he is tended to by Paolo, a mMissionary, and his sidekick, the loyal and strikingly pious Fernanda. The plan is to repatriate him, and in the process to make contact, ostensibly in the name of God, with his uncivilised Indio tribe, but this goes awry when Tumi escapes.

Added to the mix then, are a pair of tourists: an Irish woman named Laura, a passionate conservationist type who has learned of Tumi through the internet and who has made contact with Paolo in an effort to help, and her American travelling companion, Blaze, a Vietnam veteran in notably poor health. With Joao, in many ways the novel’s most intriguing character, as their guide, the pastors and the tourists set off on a boat into the forbidden deeps of the rainforest’s exclusion zone in search of their lost project.

Mr Corkery is daring in the stylistic risks he takes, though perhaps inevitably, given the epic scope of such an undertaking, his experimentations do not always wholly succeed. The author’s obvious fascination with the towering subjects of theology and myth add an immense density to this novel, and his comparisons and philosophical asides are never less than intelligently presented. Yet the frequency of their impositions frustrate, serving as a distraction from the main plot, and from a deeper development of the characters.

The writing too, in places beautifully descriptive and at its best when keeping a tight focus on the central plot, occasionally meanders into streams of consciousness that veer dangerously close to self-indulgence. But while these meditations can tend towards overkill, the constantly shifting third-person narrative works well, and at times extremely well, as each character contemplates and explores his or her own devout or atheistic heart of darkness.

In the final analysis, The Hound of Gabriel & the Jaguar stands as an intriguing novel, an impressive first offering. It recounts an absorbing story which, for all its flaws, probably needs to be told, and to be read.