BookwormBy John Andrews
Bookworm has been on an extended sabbatical for several months, but believes that the time has come for a return to the Newsletter. So many people have been asking me what I am reading these days that I thought it only fair to let everyone in on the secret!
For this month, I want to look backwards to 1973 when J G Farrell published his masterpiece The Siege of Krishnapur. Farrell was born in Liverpool in 1935 and spent a good deal of his time abroad, then settled in London where he wrote most of his novels. He later went to live in County Cork where only four months later he was drowned in a freak fishing accident.
In the novel, the year is 1857 and in Krishnapur the British community carries on its serene existence, ignoring rumours of trouble among the native troops elsewhere in Hindustan. Life is hot, humid and dull but the trappings of civilization under the Raj must be preserved. Only the Collector, Mr Hopkins, senses danger.
When the sepoys in the nearby cantonment rise in bloody revolt, the British retreat in shocked confusion to the residency and erect makeshift barricades. Surrounded by the Collector’s mementoes of the Great Exhibition, they set themselves grimly to fight for their lives and for their way of life.
The novel explores brilliantly the varied human reactions and relationships formed when a very mixed social group is forced into cramped and life-threatening conditions, at the height of Empire, and so far from the comforts of home.
Reviewing the novel at the time of publication in 1973, the New Statesman said “for a novel to be witty is one thing, to tell a good story is another, to be serious is yet another, but to be all three is surely enough to make it a masterpiece”.
The novel is still in print and published in paperback by Phoenix. Go to www.orionbooks.co.uk for further details. You will not be disappointed.