The Cauliflower® by Nicola Barker, #20BOS26, No 3

As previously stated, one of the aims in my 20 Books of Summer this year was to incorporate a few books by Nicola Barker, a contemporary UK author I very much enjoy into my reading. So much so, I’m adding her to my Projects page where I can keep a track on what I read by her. See ‘Barker Books‘.

The Cauliflower® (always with the ® ) comes out of Barker’s interest in the guru Sri Ramakrishna – she was handed a free album about Krishna Consciousness as a child growing up in South Africa and that started it all off! Published in 2016, the novel is not typical Barker at all; it’s definitely a ‘Marmite’ book – some won’t get on with it at all, others will love it, and some – like me – will sit on the fence a bit. For while there are parts I loved, I didn’t really engage with the central character much, but have I intrigued you enough to read on?

For The Cauliflower® can’t really be categorised as a novel as such. Much of it is imagined, but the protagonist is Indian Hindu mystic Ramakrishna who lived from 1836-1886. Although he was devoted to Kali, and followed many Hindu practices, he also embraced Christianity and Sufi Islam, believing in one God to unite all, and he’s regarded as an avatar by many followers. He was known for his parables and trances/visions. Much of the novel is narrated by his nephew, Hriday, who supported him throughout, especially when he started to get ill with cancer, and would go into trances of ecstasy at the drop of a hat. Hriday is long-suffering and totally devoted to his uncle, however frustrating he can be. However, it’s a little more meta than that… for the rest of the novel is narrated by the author of The Cauliflower®. This narrator mainly tells us the stories of those who support and follow Ramakrishna.

So we have our two narrators, but Barker intersperses the main narrative, told vignette style, varying in length from a paragraph to several pages with quotations from the Song of Solomon from the bible, and Ramakrishna’s sayings in haiku form. The haiku device does seem rather odd, given the origins of haiku in Japan, but as a way of expressing aphorisms, they work strangely.

Always speak the truth
The tusks of an elephant
Cannot be retracted.

Bite on a chilli –
By accident or design,
Your tongue will still burn

There are also chapters composed of lists of questions and answers, or facts. In one entitled ‘Twelve attempted answers to the twelve slightly impertinent questions about Ma Kali’, The Cauliflower® narrator shows us the contemporary nature of their project:

7) Kali’s hair is in disarray because she is wild. She is an all-singing, dervish-dancing, ecstatically stomping, bloody-sword-wielding Beyoncé Knowles. She sings to her own crazy tune. She is utterly unfettered. She is fearless. She is free.

We begin by meeting Rani, a wealthy widow who will fund and have built the Dakshineswar temple to Kali on the banks of the Hooghly river in Kolkata. Despite being rich, she was not high caste, and the brahmins wouldn’t allow her to make food offerings to the goddess herself. But she wouldn’t be stopped until she found a work around – which involved writing to Ramakrishna, and getting his advice – and subsequently embedding his brother, and later him there as priests. I liked Rani very much, a strong woman, who used her riches well to help others too. (I keep on wanting to call her ‘The Rani’ but she’s a villainess in Dr Who! (played by Kate O’Mara))

I really enjoyed the parts with Rani in particular, also the haiku, the Q&As and lists; but I found it harder to engage with Hriday’s narration about his uncle. As much as his uncle can be frustrating, Hriday is himself a frustrated man, having protected and taken care of his uncle for so many years, missing having a normal life for the most part, and Barker’s interpretation of him shows that precisely. We’re only getting his biased version of his uncle, who remains almost childlike in manner.

The Cauliflower® is an ambitious novel that for me mostly pulled it off, marking Barker’s transition from more straight-forward narratives towards the structural innovation in the novels that follow. A comprehensive reading (and listening) list follow Barker’s afterword at the end. As for where the cauliflower comes into the story, you’ll just have to read it for yourself!

Source: Own copy. William Heinemann hardback, 328 pages.

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