The Conjunction

by Terence Wheeler

"This Terence Wheeler novel is a speculation on how power passes from one generation to the next and how one buries the other.

In India in 1962, the Year of the Conjunction began triumphantly with the liberation of Goa, the fragment of territory under foreign rule, and ended in the nation’s degradation at the hands of Red Chinese forces in the Himalayas. Ultimately, the astrologers were proved right. The conjunction of all the planets brought disaster."

192 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1969

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I hoped that I could report here that Terence Wheeler's The Conjunction was an unjustly forgotten gem. Despite its hefty price on the used book sites, I wanted to read and then breathlessly recommend it to you. Although I'm usually loath to harshly assess novels, I feel confident in telling you that The Conjunction is best read for historical interest only: read only if you're a Booker completist and want to understand what the Booker judges were dealing with way back at the beginning of the Booker era of literary prizes. If you do go to the bother and excessive expense of borrowing or purchasing The Conjunction, you may find that it feels dated in its portrayals of India and Indians. Dated not because it was published fifty years ago, but dated because Jobwal and Nayyar, the two main characters, seem curiously cartoonish. Of course, an historically dated novel can still be relevant in its portrayals of emotions, relationships, places, and events, and lovely language in an historically dated novel can still make it worthwhile to read. But no such luck with The Conjunction: I regret to say that I found it confusing and tiresome.

[George · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. An interesting, easy to read novel set in India in 1962. Jobwal is an old school master, a Brahmin, unmarried and set in his ways. His ambition had been to set up an ‘Oxford’ type college in Northern India. Unfortunately events and people begin to disrupt Jobwal’s way of life. A bauxite mine is about to cause a change the college’s curriculum to focus of geology. The threat of war with China has many of the students wanting to join the Indian army. Jobwal refuses to allow his students to quit their studies.

Mr. Nayyar joins the college as second in charge. He has different views to the aging and sick Jobwal. Mr. Nayyar is from Madras and is married.

This book was shortlisted for the 1970 Booker Prize.

[Colin Davison · Rating 2 out of 5]

A dyspeptic and cynical view of life at a college in rural India c1962, presumably similar to one where the author had taught before returning to England. "What happened," he writes of a late disturbance, "was one of those outbursts so often seen in Indian colleges when a pretext is found for the venting of a much deeper grievance."
The plot, not always easy to follow due partly to my ignorance of Indian references, concerns the hostility between the ageing racist, obscurantist, Hitler-admiring principal and his younger generation, rationalist but still fascist, immoral deputy set against questions of national identity. It is at the time of Chinese incursions, although these are referred to only in the background.
Other Indian characters are without exception corrupt, conniving, or compliant, and stand condemned by sweeping statements about their stereotypes. As an image of the new India, the college, which the principal envisaged as an emerging university, is eventually to be reduced to one to serve its sponsoring mining corporation, which will also take much of its land.
The only virtuous individuals are white Westerners - a self-sacrificing German doctor and the deputy's neglected English wife, for whose intervention on behalf of workers two innocent trade unionists are wrongly imprisoned and killed.
The writing style is somewhat dated ("As the reader will observe .."), the metaphors not always apposite, but there is a feeling for a landscape, admittedly as unattractive as those inhabiting it, eg palms with "heavy purple fruits like apes' arses."
Although short-listed for the Booker prize in 1970, the year after its publication, as was then the case, the book never entered a second edition. According to Wikipedia, Wheeler's Australian publisher was taken over in the same year and started to concentrate on more commercial titles, and many staff left. But perhaps reassessment of the title's worth also led to its non re-issue.
As a result, the cheapest copy available via online sellers is now £500 (mine came through inter-library loan.) A case that price does not equal value.

[Krista · Rating 3 out of 5]

A strange novel set in India, featuring power plays, pride, wrath, greed, envy, and corruption. (The Sino-Indian War in 1967 is the backdrop.) Oh and let's not forget adultery. Five of the seven deadlies, no less! Read as part of my Booker Prize 1970 project. Very lucky to have found a copy of this book available for inter-library loan at the University of British Columbia!