Beneath a Marble Sky: A Love Story

John Shors has the gift. It is as simple as that. In BENEATH A MARBLE SKY he has created a stunning love story woven through the interstices of the 16th century Hindustani building of the Taj Mahal, one of the Seven Wonders of the world, a place on earth where Paradise touches mortals in a magnificent mausoleum for the beloved wife of the Emperor. Not only is this a symphonic novel of surpassing craftsmanship and beauty, it is also a book that informs the reader about the differences between Muslim and Hindu religions, about the Persian Empire, about customs of caste, of worldviews, of architecture, and of the myriad flavors of a land too few of us understand. Told in the words of one Princess Jahanara, the beautiful daughter of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan whose grief for the loss of his wife Arjumand - the Mumtaz ('taz' becoming 'Taj') Mahal - during childbirth results in his pledge to create the most beautiful mausoleum for his beloved's rest, the story unravels the many tangles of the royal family including the disparate brothers Dara and Aurangzeb, and eventually leads to a dangerous liaison between Jahanara (married to a loathsome beast) and Isa, the architect for the Taj Mahal. Shors paces this complex story so well that it seems far shorter than the near 350 pages - and it impossible to put the book down once begun. Part of the glory of Shors' writing is his obvious research into the history, the customs, the idiosyncrasies of royalty, the social systems of the times, and even the flavors of the spices and foods and the colors and types of clothing that drape this novel in unforgettable tapestry. His characters are painted with vibrant tones and his narration breathes the exotic tenor of the times about which he writes. Few authors have been able to describe the mysteries of the actual Taj Mahal with the accuracy Shors is capable of producing. Yet the overwhelming effect of this novel is not that it recreates history: this novel transports the reader to a time when life was much different - and yet much the same as today! There are many reasons to select books to read. Selecting BENEATH A MARBLE SKY celebrates our intellect, our passion, our need for knowledge of the past, and our luxuriating in brilliant prose. Highly recommended on every level. Grady Harp, September 06

A historical fiction based on the legend of the Taj Mahal, the marble mausoleum built by a widowed emperor in India in honor of his wife, Beneath a Marble Sky creates a kingdom of poetry lost to a warmongering extremist. But the tale centers on the emperor's daughter, Jahanara, as she narrates her story of love and exile to her granddaughters. Be warned: once you pick up this book, you will be captivated. My sleepy late night eyes were riveted to the page. I highly recommend this book. The luxurious use of metaphors at first seems forced and formal, but it lends itself to the Indian world. The reader adapts to this sing-song language and consequently is drawn in to the culture. I was lost in the land of Hindustan. I found myself caught up in Princess Jahanara's dilemmas as she weighed the place of love, duty, and devotion. The author, John Shors, was able to portray a woman's heart, longing for security and affirmation from her parents and her burgeoning family. She is a woman full of ambition for herself and her kingdom, a woman of charitable sensitivity, and a woman longing for passionate love. Jahanara was given to a wealthy man in her father's kingdom in marriage. She struggles with feelings of betrayal from her parents for betrothing her to a churlish lout while still maintaining her duty to her father, the emperor. She finds sanctuary in her parents' household as often as possible until her mother's death requires her to find indefinite harbor there as she oversees the creation of the Taj Mahal. There she finds the passionate love she of which she had long dreamed but with it discovers a new set of quandaries. I alternately fought Jahanara's decisions and cried with her tragedies. While I would not have made the choices Jahanara made, I felt tied to her and sympathetic with her. In the same way we try to stop the character from entering a dark room while the suspenseful music is playing, I tried to stop Jahanara from turns and paths. At the end of the day, I have very few questions, but still, weeks after finishing the book, they turn in my mind. I question how Jahanara told the story to her granddaughters: the descriptions of her love-making sessions with both her husband and her lover heightened the disparity between the brute and the tender, but I cannot help but wonder if Jahanara would truly describe these in such detail to her young granddaughters. I question some of her choices of her commitment to her father versus her commitment as a mother. Is my questioning a result of my Western heritage or universal? Was her choice made from insecurity or honor? But these minor questions did not take away from my enjoyment of the book or compassion with the character. I had been emotionally held hostage and for days after felt despondent at both the loss of the characters from my life and the beauty of the story itself. This paperback is more than worth the buy for rereads and re-entering the lost kingdom.

Before I say anything else my strong recommendation is to resist the impulse to look at any history of the building of the Taj Mahal. I made the mistake of going on line to find some pictures of the Taj Mahal once I got to the point in John Shors' "Beneath a Marble Sky" where the grand mausoleum had been completed and instead of stopping at the photographs I glanced at what was known about the historical figures at the center of the novel and it gave away a major development. So do as I say and not as I do. Afterwards you can find the true events that weave their way through this exquisite first novel. All that really matters when you pick up this novel is that you have seen a picture of the Taj Mahal (it is not like there is a bad one). It does not matter whether or not you know that it is a mausoleum or that it honors the Mughal Empress Mumtaz Mahal, because what is important is that if you have seen it you know the Taj Mahal is one of the most beautiful buildings on the planet, a sublime mix of architectural magnificence and aesthetic beauty, and this historical romance is about how it came to be built. When the Taj Mahal is a tomb, then the great pyramids of Giza are reduced to just being piles of big blocks. The narrator of "Beneath a Marble Sky" is Jahanara, the daughter of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan and because Jahanara his wife Mumtaz Mahal, who tells her story and that of her family to her granddaughters, who are visiting the Taj Mahal for the first time. The tale begins when she was thirteen and beginning to appreciate how difficult it is to be a woman in a man's world. It seems she will be a spectator to both the great love between her parents and the contention between two of her brothers for her father's throne. Dara is a student of philosophy and religion believes that Muslims and Hindus can life together in harmony, while Aurangzeb is a ruthless warrior and puritanical zealot who wants to extend the borders of the Empire in all directions and send unbelievers to their richly deserved deaths. When his beloved wife dies the emperor hires a talented young architect, Ustad Isa, to build her a beautiful memorial, the Rauza-I Munavvara ("Tomb of Light"). As the Taj Mahal rises, the conflict between the two brothers comes to a head, but the fate of the empire comes second to that of Jahanara and who has her own love story. When you get to the heart of this novel and why it works it is because Shors comes up with an elegant explanation for why a man would be inspired by a dead woman he has never seen to create the most beautiful building on earth. At the same time Shors remains faithful to the cultures and the poetic rhythms of the languages they speak. A key part of what makes this novel work is that it is really another tale from the Arabian Nights. Those fabled 1001 tales came from three cultures, Arabic, Persian, and Indian, while this novel set in Hindustan represents a culture clash between two of those

Writing historical fiction is a challenging endeavor. Not only does the author need to know how to do historical research-and actually do it-they must then construct an engaging story that will grab a reader who knows little about the era the story is set in. I once knew a fellow student who took an undergraduate historical research seminar with me just because she wanted to write historical fiction. She simultaneously was working on a master's degree in English. I couldn't understand why someone would think they needed so many classes just to write novels. Fortunately, writer John Shors seems to have conquered the techniques of this genre, as evidenced by his fascinating book "Beneath a Marble Sky: A Novel of the Taj Mahal." I cannot say I am an expert on Mughal India, having only covered it superficially in a couple of World Civilizations courses during my undergraduate career, but the story does jibe with what I remember about sixteenth and seventeenth century India. Obviously, Shors took substantial liberties with the finer points of his story, inventing many incidents and moving some of the places around, but the background information seems solid."Beneath a Marble Sky" is a story told in flashback by Jahanara, the favorite daughter of the Mughal leader Shah Jahan (ruled 1628-1658) and his wife Mumtaz Mahal. Her early life is one of luxury and play tempered by a burgeoning sense of responsibility about her future role as a representative of a Muslim emperor ruling over a majority Hindu state. Even as she swims in the river with her brothers Dara and Aurangzeb, or gossips with her Hindu friend Ladli, Jahanara knows that one day she will marry someone of importance to the empire. In the meantime she spends a large amount of time with her beautiful mother, learning how to overcome the obstacles placed in the way of women in a Muslim dominated court. She also begins to see the strains between her brother Aurangzeb and the rest of the family, strains that will one day explode into a series of disasters for the Mughal Empire. Still, Jahanara is content in her youth, enjoying the world around her through the innocent eyes of a child.As Jahanara grows into a beautiful young woman resembling in no small way her mother, storm clouds appear on the horizon. Her parents marry her off to the sleazy Khondamir, a wealthy silver merchant who only wants Jahanara as a wife to increase his power with the court. This marriage removes the young princess from the day-to-day activities of the court, where the power struggles to succeed Shah Jahan begin in earnest. Aurangzeb, his hatred for the family growing by leaps and bounds, has been spending an enormous amount of time leading the military in campaigns against the Persians in the North and the Deccans in the South. His brother Dara, on the other hand, remains at home studying philosophy and religion. Jahanara worries about Dara's indifference to all things relating to the throne, and tries to warn her brother a