Humanity in a time of brutality

FICTION: The Lieutenant By Kate GrenvilleCanongate, 307pp. £12.99

LIEUTENANT ROOKE IS a man of few words. Silence and the unspoken are what matters. And the space between words, he believes, is where the real discoveries are to be made.

The quiet, thoughtful protagonist of this fascinating new book by Australian author Kate Grenville considers the many and complex ways in which we communicate. Posted in New South Wales in the late 18th century, the lieutenant befriends some of “the natives” and discovers that learning a language is not about collecting a list of names and verbs but the slow mapping of a relationship with the people you speak it with.

Like Grenville's previous novel, The Secret River, this is historical fiction, inspired by the life of William Dawes, a young lieutenant on board the First Fleet who brought convicts to Australia in 1788. A scholar in astronomy and mathematics, Dawes made a record of the language of the indigenous people he met, in particular a young girl, and later worked in a movement for the abolition of slavery.

The young Daniel Rooke struggles to find his place as a bright, solitary soul in a world that seems to have little time, or interest, in maths or stars. From an early age he is tuned into the existential, aware he is just part of a greater whole, “one insignificant note within the great fugue of being”.

When school finishes, and Rooke fails to secure a position to study astronomy, he becomes a “soldier of the sea” and is sent off to defend the American colonies. On board ship, Lt Rooke ekes out a solitary existence and discovers the delights of latitude and longitude.

Not long after his return, the lieutenant is sent to New South Wales where, to his delight, he is granted permission to set up a small hut to observe the stars and wait, as instructed, for a sighting of a comet.

It is here in this lonely environment, away from the prisoners and rowdy soldiers, that Rooke finally begins to feel like he has found his place in the world. He is happy to sleep during the day and at night watch the moon and the millions of stars stretching out above him.

But Rooke is not alone for long. Soon “the natives” grow curious and he befriends a young girl called Tagaran, who shows a particular interest in his way of life – the telescope, his scratchy blankets, how he shaves. Rooke takes notes and slowly begins to learn the language. But as he does so, he discovers the difficulty in accurately describing his exchanges with Tagaran.

When his soldier friend Silk comes to visit, and flicks through the pages of Rooke’s notebooks, he totally misconstrues a description of the young girl standing at the fire. What Silk cannot understand is that these are not just lists of vocabulary with which to conquer and win over the indigenous population, but the complex construction of a relationship between two people.

This is an enchanting, quietly brilliant novel about humanity in a time of colonial brutality. Enhanced by Grenville's simple but provocative use of language, The Lieutenantis the story of a thoughtful, humble character, a man "nothing more or less than the person he was".

Sorcha Hamilton is an Irish Timesjournalist