Islands of Mercy by Rose Tremain, review: a gratifying story spanning Victorian Bath and the jungles of Borneo

Rose Tremain’s novels, from the melancholic migrant story The Road Home to the immensely recommendable Restoration, set at Charles II’s court, vary hugely in subject but are united by her elegance as a writer. Her 15th, Islands of Mercy, is another gratifyingly well-put-together work, this time set between Bath and Borneo in 1856.

It’s an old-fashioned sort of novel, the kind that dwells on human nature and above all human weakness, through the interconnected stories of a set of dreamers. There’s Jane Adeane, six foot two and proud, an almost mythically gifted nurse known in Bath as the “White Angel”, torn between love for another woman and marriage to a doctor, Valentine Ross. Ross’s brother is a naturalist lost in the jungle of Borneo, saved by the “white rajah”, the deluded philanthropist Sir Ralph Savage – responsible for a road through the forest that leads nowhere. There’s also Jane’s bohemian artist aunt, determined to get to the “core” of Jane by painting her; Sir Ralph’s Malay lover and his doomed schemes for a “future of glittering power”; and an Irish teashop owner.

All strive towards something nebulous, Jane especially, who believes “she and her magnificent inches would accomplish something the world might find extraordinary”; and all are shaken in their self-perception. Sir Ralph’s not so subtly named “Savage Road” becomes a central motif, “a man-made entity of beauty and purpose”, a celebration of endeavour over achievement.

Though the jungly exoticism of the Borneo sections is, perhaps, not as captivating as the narrative set in England, there’s much to praise here. Tremain’s long sentences brim with a poised positivity; ironic italics add lightness to her fond depictions of these imperfect strivers, as they come to realise “this is how life is: we are overtaken by flashes of lightning and brilliant storms, and we can only submit”.