A short review here and I must admit I’m slightly embarrassed
that it took me 39 years to discover this novel (well I couldn’t have read it
when I was 10 years old but you get what I mean). Straight into the top 10 list of my favourite
Booker Winners, and would sit very high on that list.
My edition has a quote from a New Statesman review on the
back cover “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.” I couldn’t put it better myself.
The very readable, story basically tells the tale of a
British community in Krishnapur (India) in the mid 1850’s. Part one developing
the core characters of our tale, The Collector, the Magistrate, Harry, Fleury,
Louise and Miriam; and parts two and three covering the siege itself and part
four the consequential events.
There are magnificent passages and quotes that illuminate
your thoughts;
Note: The following quote could be construed as a SPOILER
“Culture is a sham…It’s a cosmetic painted on
life by rich people to conceal its ugliness”
Passages that explore the human condition;
A lamp was burning in his study
and in the glass of the bookcases he saw his own image, shadowy in detail,
wearing an already rather tattered morning coat, the face also in shadow,
anonymous, the face of a man like other men, who in a few years would be lost
to history, whose personality would be no more individual than the shadowy reflection
in the glass. ‘How alike we all re, really…There’s so little difference between
one man and another when one comes to think of it.’
There are a plethora of reviews out there about this book
and there’s not a lot more I can add about this novel, where a review in my own
words feels almost heresy against the wonderful writing, composure and message of
this book. One I’d highly recommend to anybody who is yet to discover J.G.
Farrell.
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