In the middle ages, morality would be transmitted in images. Churchgoers would commonly find above the altar a panel of three paintings relating a biblical parable or commandment. Such altarpieces could be found in Buddhist shrines, too, which might be adorned with three scenes from the path of enlightenment. A knack for envisioning moral precepts has seen the triptych translated across many cultures and now, with the UK-based Indian writer Neel Mukherjee’s formally daring new novel, even from image to text.
Composed of three narratives about 21st-century ethical and political dilemmas, Choice has been termed a triptych by its author and, like its visual forebears, the novel needles our moral impulses. The issues in question, from climate change to global poverty, are modern, but the novel’s interest in sin and virtue is redolent of the triptych’s medieval preoccupations. Where Choice differs is that, in its world, there are no unambiguous rights or wrongs. As one character observes of another: “No escape was offered by making what one thought was the correct moral choice.” This is a triptych for a secular age – without hope of salvation, however hard humans try.
