The Siege of Krishnapur

Let me begin by saying this is one of the best books I have ever read. It is cinematic, epic, brilliant, totally entertaining, horrifying, funny, shocking, infuriating, and a masterpiece. Based on a real mutiny in India in 1857 against the East India Company, this utterly amazing book is packed from cover to cover with scrupulously well-researched details that are brilliantly presented to the reader through the eyes of its engaging and deluded British characters. One feels thoroughly engrossed in every aspect of this work: its characters, its actions, its historical setting, its philosophical ruminations, and its detailed descriptions of cholera, furniture, art, buildings, villages, natives, disease, landscapes, death, starvation, and war. In fact, whatever Farrell chooses to write about, he does it in completely convincing fashion. One can envision this work on a huge screen, in bright color, acted out by the world's greatest actors. What's also brilliant about it is its complete relevance to today's world politics. What we have here (and in today's world) is a massive head-on collision of two worlds, two cultures, two religious views, two planets, and the disastrous consequences of that encounter as they play out across a vast stage. Farrell understood how misguided the British were in India as they willfully exploited the landscape and its people. Yet he empathized enough with the British to create the memorable character of the Collector, who sincerely believes at the outset that the "idea" of bringing "civilization" and "progress" to India outweighed any difficulties it caused. But in the end, the uprising he alone knew was coming throws all his notions away, and in the end he is a changed man, stripped bare of all his values and cares and left to think only about love and the past. This transformation also brings the reader to transform his vision of what the British Empire and its presence in India was all about. One is also left wondering what we in the West are all about as we blunder our way into the Islamic world, crashing into a different culture and mind set in our efforts to bring "democracy" to places it has never been.

I had never heard of J.G. Farrell or The Siege of Krishnapur until one day I was scanning a list of winner of England's Booker Prize and I noticed that Siege was out-of-print in America. I was so intrigued I sent off to England for it, but it is now also available in the U.S. The novel narrates the story of the British community at Krishnapur during the Indian Mutiny of 1857, when the entire community holed up in the Residency (like a governor's palace) for months under siege. Farrell's style is highly cinematic, reminiscent of great movie epics about that era, such as "The Man Who Would Be King," - lots of scope, majesty, explosions, and bright-red uniforms, added to the day-to-day domestic squabbles of the community. Farrell's take is not a shallow war novel though; he is witty, ironic, inspired, and sad in turn. The book features remarkable turns of fortune and engaging details on every page, all of which were dramatically motivated and apt. (Examples: When the besieged run out of ammunition, they create canister shot by stuffing ladies' stockings with silverware. There's a sudden infestation of flying bugs that will make you jump right out of your chair. Two doctors have an argument about the cause of cholera with dramatic consequences. A lucky shot by a Lieutenant....well I won't spoil it for you.) The main character, the Collector, seems to stand in for all of Britain as he is transformed by his Indian experience: first arrogance and a passion for bringing British `civilization' to the uncivilized, then bravado as he stands up to the initial assaults, then despair as he watches the failure of mere ingenuity to overcome the natives. In a wonderful little coda at the end of the book you can see how he has been utterly transformed by the experience. A wonderful find, a 'must read'! I'm off to read the rest of Farrell's novels!

I had never heard of J.G. Farrell or The Siege of Krishnapur until one day I was scanning a list of winner of England's Booker Prize and I noticed that Siege was out-of-print in America. I was so intrigued I sent off to England for it, but it is now also available in the U.S.The novel narrates the story of the British community at Krishnapur during the Indian Mutiny of 1857, when the entire community holed up in the Residency (like a governor's palace) for months under siege. Farrell's style is highly cinematic, reminiscent of great movie epics about that era, such as "The Man Who Would Be King," - lots of scope, majesty, explosions, and bright-red uniforms, added to the day-to-day domestic squabbles of the community. Farrell's take is not a shallow war novel though; he is witty, ironic, inspired, and sad in turn. The book features remarkable turns of fortune and engaging details on every page, all of which were dramatically motivated and apt. (Examples: When the besieged run out of ammunition, they create canister shot by stuffing ladies' stockings with silverware. There's a sudden infestation of flying bugs that will make you jump right out of your chair. Two doctors have an argument about the cause of cholera with dramatic consequences. A lucky shot by a Lieutenant....well I won't spoil it for you.)The main character, the Collector, seems to stand in for all of Britain as he is transformed by his Indian experience: first arrogance and a passion for bringing British `civilization' to the uncivilized, then bravado as he stands up to the initial assaults, then despair as he watches the failure of mere ingenuity to overcome the natives. In a wonderful little coda at the end of the book you can see how he has been utterly transformed by the experience.A wonderful find, a 'must read'! I'm off to read the rest of Farrell's novels!

For those seeking greater insights into Britain's imperial ethos, I urge you to read THE SIEGE OF KRISHNAPUR, by the late(and great)Anglo-Irish writer J.G. Farrell. It's about the Sepoy Rebellion of 1857, when thousands of native Indian Army troops (know as Sepoys) rose up against their English masters. The bloody mutiny began in Meerut barracks in May of '57 and quickly spread along a 500-mile string of cities and villages in northern India. It was finally put down five months later. Marked by appalling atrocities on both sides, thousands of Indians and hundreds of Europeans were slaughtered. The proximal cause of the uprising was the introduction of rifle cartridges greased with animal fat, which was unacceptable on religious grounds to both Hindus and Muslims. The underlying (if at the time unarticulated) cause of course rested in dissatisfaction on the part of Indians, the inhabitants of an ancient and sophisticated civilization, over their subjugation by foreigners. In the 18th century, the presence of the British in India, most of whom were men, was generally benign and not much noticed. By the mid-nineteenth century, however, the behavior of the British toward Indians had become increasingly oppressive and arrogant, in large part due to the presence of English wives, who ghettoized the English communities and regarded all native Indians with fear and contempt. After the rebellion, such attitudes hardened and became pervasive; this in turn fed the resolve of Indians to expel the British from their country - which they did 92 years later. Although there is no record of it, at the time, a few thoughtful Englishmen must have recognized that the rebellion was an indelible sign of what would inevitably follow.The centerpiece, if you will, of the Sepoy Rebellion was the four-month siege by the rebels of the Residency at Lucknow. The "residency" was in fact a large, walled compound which served as the British administrative center of an area consisting of thousand of square miles and millions of inhabitants. It was also the social center of the British community and the home of the "Collector", the region's chief administrative officer. THE SIEGE OF KRISHNAPUR, first published in 1973 and winner of the Booker Prize that year, is a fictionalized account of the Lucknow siege - although most of the incidents related in the book actually occurred and most of the characters are based on real people. THE SIEGE OF KRISHNAPUR is, bar none, my favorite 20th century novel. It is a sublime book that has everything - elegant, crystalline writing, vividness, tight novelistic structure, tremendous scope and depth, action, excitement, moving, convincing sentiment, comedy and tragedy, uproarious savage satire and searing irony. Supporting these virtues is a serious philosophical discourse about the nature of human progress as it is reflected in the efforts of Westerners to "civilize" the rest of the world. For all of that, although KRISHNAPUR demands close atten