Interesting, but a bit depressing. ( )

Set in colonial Ceylon, this novel is vivid and readable. While the author clearly illustrates a particular culture and time, that of a rural family in the "dry" forest area, where life is particularly hard and short, the psychological and social effects of poverty have universal qualities. While the colonial administration system is clearly one of the villains of the book, the gentle innocence of the main characters clearly would be a disadvantage under any system, at least as the world is portrayed in this novel. Dark and haunting, with compelling plot and fascinating characters, this book deserves to be more widely read. ( )

Dear me but this is a depressing book. Everything that can go wrong does go wrong for the main characters. Written from the point of view of impoverished, uneducated jungle dwellers in Sri Lanka by the ex-colonial civil servant Leonard Woolf. It is more interesting as an imaginative exercise in writing than a tale of the jungle. A privileged colonial governor trying to put himself in the mind of the governed. Who knows if he succeeded but he certainly does portray the misery and boredom of peasant life. ( )

"Always evil is coming into this house from the jungle", August 31, 2014

This review is from: The Village in the Jungle (Paperback)
An engrossing tale, inspired by the author's time as assistant governor in the east of Sri Lanka. Set in a small village, it concerns the taciturn loner, Silindu, and his motherless twin daughters. Silindu is an outsider in his village, and prefers to spend his time away hunting in the jungle. But life is hard and desperately poor, and he finds himself at odds with the village headman, who has the power to make his life difficult...
Love, hatred, greed, plotting, religion, superstition all come into this tale; and over it all the British administration, whose taxes and permits make life that bit harder for the peasants.
Having recently visited this area of Sri Lanka, I really felt Woolf's writing brought the area to life ;
'The jungle surged forward over and blotted out the village up to the very walls of her hut...Its breath was hot and heavy...it closed with its shrubs and bushes and trees, with the impenetrable disorder of its thorns and its creepers, over the rice-fields and the tanks.'

In a short story, 'Pearls and Swine' which appears in my (Eland) edition, Woolf expresses some of his opinions on the shortcomings of colonial rule. ( )

At first I thought Leonard Woolf was just riding the coat tails of his wife, Virginia, when it came to his writing a book - well low and behold - I found it to be a magnificent piece of work. It opens your eyes to how ignorance can affect people and society as a whole. I highly recommend reading this book if you are Woolf fans and even if you're not. ( )