The Question

by Austin Clarke

By the Giller Prize-winning author of The Polished Hoe
A finalist for the Governor General’s Award


When a man and a woman meet on a summer day, they begin a conversation that will change both their lives. As their words weave a web of intimacy, the man finds himself drawn into recollections of his childhood on an island in the Caribbean, and to reflections on his life in Toronto. But who is she, this woman he meets at a party? What is behind her dark secrets? What can anyone know about another – really? As their relationship hurtles forward, he gradually finds himself part of a strange triangle of affections, until events escalate, leading to the novel’s dramatic final scenes. The Question is a brilliant, devastating foray into the mysterious and highly charged realm of relationships and colliding cultures.

Genres: Fiction

243 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Austin Ardinel Chesterfield Clarke was a Canadian novelist, essayist and short story writer who lives in Toronto, Ontario. He has been called "Canada's first multicultural writer".

Clarke had his early education in Barbados and taught at a rural school for three years. In 1955 he moved to Canada to attend the University of Toronto but after two years turned his hand to journalism and broadcasting. He was a reporter in the Ontario communities of Timmins and Kirkland Lake, before joining the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation as a freelance journalist. He subsequently taught at several American universities, including Yale, Duke and the University of Texas.

In 1973 he was designated cultural attaché at the Barbadian embassy in Washington, DC. He was later General Manager of the Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation in Barbados (1975-1977).

Returning to Canada, in 1977 he ran as a Progressive Conservative candidate in the Ontario election. He was writer in residence at Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec and at University of Western Ontario.From 1988 to 1993 he served on the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada.

Reviews

[Yasmin · Rating 3 out of 5]

What manner of book is this? Two stars or five stars? One star or three? It's not easily placed for what is the story about? The synopsis on the back of this edition makes for images that are not worthy. Her life is unchange, this nameless woman, with her marriage to Malcolm. She stayed the same. But it's not about her. It's about him. His inability to have a relationship with a woman. His own dark secrets. No collision of cultures, but backgrounds, collisions of personality, or lack thereof. From the start the nameless woman says who she is, she tells him everything. He listens to snatches and absorbs nothing. He is wrapped up, tightly within himself and allows no one, not even himself in. He hides, he punishes and demonizes everything connected to his intimate self. He thinks of snatches of sensual pleasure but to be done with it. He left his childhood home but fled the island like a refugee, an emotional refugee. We don't have to know every detail, that is what said when he is a Judge. By not knowing all the details of self comes calamity. To me what is the Question is not the question of knowing each other in a relationship but the Question of who is self? What did the man want from himself and what did the nameless wife want from herself? Did they know. The monotony of routine of set meals day of the week, which Friday would have sex, no talking, no affection outside of sexual acts, the need or not need for Eireene. The women left him out of their affairs. They had a quiet acceptance, a known way of things fitting in, without him. He couldn't accept that. He couldn't accept much of self. At the end pages who was really lashed out at? Her or him? A question of living with your own demons and not allowing them to destroy everything. The picture of destruction is not frightening, chilling or harrowing. It reads as a liberation. Destroy the false picture of contentment and normalcy. Force into the open the real harm but recognize it and understand it so that it doesn't drag you into a bottomless pit. Reach the edge, fall off and get back up again. We make our scars last longer. We can wear our sorrow like a badge of honour because it is. The acceptance of things simply being with no reason other than we know numbers last into infinity and we accept this. It simply is without a doubt. Birth and death is. With no logic. It is. We are who we are. We have to recognize what we are before we spend years trying to recognise and realise who another is in conjunction with ourselves. A well written book.

[Kelly Greaves · Rating 2 out of 5]

I do not know what I just read. It was horrible.

The first 100 pages made me questioned whether it is the writer himself that is a pervert or mainly the character that he has created. The reason why my question surpassed the character, is that he focused so much (and creepily at that) on the female body, and not in a worshipping way, just full on creepy, over and over.

Moreover, the writer overly described every single thing in this book which was extremely annoying, and to think that wasn’t enough, he repeated nearly every single description he had made throughout the book.

I have rated this 2 stars as the last 20-25 pages were a slight change of tone and mystery, but it still ended horribly cause I still do not know what I have just read. Sigh.

[Rabea · Rating 3 out of 5]

I guess someone has to write from the perspective of an emotionally stunted man for whom women are objects, a man of color overly swayed by whiteness and wealth. I suppose it was valuable to see from that perspective for a few hundred pages but it wasn't hugely pleasant and I didn't gain much empathy. The protagonist is unsympathetic. I thought it was interesting to see how you can portray someone mentally checked out of their life, by writing how their mental narrative turns on a dime to replaying memories from back home, or how things could have gone, or how they 'should' have gone. Not every book worth reading is going to result in an epiphany or a transcendent experience.

[Glen · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the second novel by Clarke that I have read. It will be my last. There is nothing redeeming in this story of a man who inexplicably abandons a woman he appears to love for a woman he has just met at a party, nothing in the latter woman's revelations of sexual abuse at the hands of an uncle that helps make sense of what ensues after a fateful Christmastime evening at a performance of Handel's Messiah, nothing in this novel that answers the question, "why should I care about these characters?" If you like novels about erotic dysfunction and misdirected anger on the part of people incapable of forging lasting partnerships, have at. Me, I'm done.

[Tiffany · Rating 1 out of 5]

I honestly thought that some of the books I read in the past were bad but after reading this realized they are nothing compared to this book.
The question dipicts the life of an un-named man who has immigrated to Canada from an island in the caribbean. This man at a party one night meets a woman, (who is also left un-named) and starts a conversation. This conversation leads to an eventual relationship and the story of two people living together.
This may not sound so bad right? At least that's what i thought, but from the minute I started I knew it was going to be terrible.
The novel literally consists of no more than 5 characters -the protagonist included, most of whom we know little to no details about. There is no plot and the protagonist jumps around in his thoughts. Going from refelctions in Toronto to his childhood in the caribbean and back to the present at different points. Sometimes these reflections and thoughts have mere paragraphs seperating them with nothing connecting one to another. Add to this the fact that the novel ends abrubtly with no conclusion leaving the reader confused and dazed and i think you have the makings of a book not worth reading. This, is by far one of the worst books i've read and I, in no way, recommend anyone read it.

[Wendy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel explores the question of why we love whom we love, even when it's illogical. That's certainly the question the protagonist must answer when he leaves his loyal and loving girlfriend for a volatile, eccentric woman he meets at a party and who eventually becomes his wife.

I felt that neither the protagonist nor the narrator ever offered a satisfactory foundation that afforded me an opportunity to answer this question. Each characters' motivations seemed concealed for the duration of the book. That is, there is detail to help the reader ascertain the initial reasons for attraction, yet not for how that attraction was sustained into matrimony and a union that endured. Moreover, although the language was carefully crafted and poetic, I felt, at times, that the plot and characters became overshadowed by Clarke's style. As a result, every page became something to be studied and reflected upon in detail, something to be critiqued and constantly analyzed.

Perhaps the point is that love is itself a question, something that cannot be explained at times, even by those closest to us.

[Dawn · Rating 1 out of 5]

By the end of this book, I utterly hated every single character. The story jumped around between current observations and past memories so much it was difficult to keep the story line straight. And I'm pretty sure the main character was mute.

Yeah, I didn't like it.