When Ian Ballard's grandfather sends him to Christchurch, he knows he'll be heading into trouble - he hasn't been back to the small mining town of Hukahoronui since he was a child, not long after his grandfather sold land (but not the mineral rights) to a local family, then used the Ballard corporation to mine the land. Concerned by the changed wrought on the landscape, and fearful of avalanches, Ian sends for a geologist friend he met while skiing in Switzerland. Mike McGill expresses concern as soon as he enters Huka, and the men try to warn the town but to no avail.
The format of The Snow Tiger is something of a departure for Bagley - following a prologue that sets up Ballard and McGill's friendship, and gives the reader a taste of avalanche behaviour, he launches straight into the conveneing of an investigative commission, and the novel is told primarily in the form of flashback narrative in response to the hearing. The judge presiding over the investigation has structured testimony chronologically, allowing the story to unfurl from the perspectives of multiple survivors, who report as required. Bagley adds some omniscient details into the flashbacks, which contribute to the shape and depth of the narrative. This is particularly effective in the scenes set after the avalanche, as victims perish and initial survivors try to escape being trapped.
This is my favourite of Bagley's novels, and I've held off rereading it for some time. Like all his work, The Snow Tiger is well researched, and the detail about geology, snow and avalanche behaviour is unobtrusively woven into the text. Surprisingly, knowing almost from the beginning not only that the tragedy will happen despite Ballard's best efforts, and even who some of the victims are, the suspence is successfully maintained throughout the text. This is in part to the combination of tight writing and vivid flashback scenes, and partly due to a secondary plot taking place during the inquest. - Alex
No comments:
Post a Comment