The Siege of Krishnapur
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Winner of the Booker Prize. India, 1857--the year of the Great Mutiny, when Muslim soldiers turned in bloody rebellion on their British overlords. This time of convulsion is the subject of J. G. Farrell's The Siege of Krishnapur , widely considered one of the finest British novels of the last fifty years.
… More »Winner of the Booker Prize. India, 1857--the year of the Great Mutiny, when Muslim soldiers turned in bloody rebellion on their British overlords. This time of convulsion is the subject of J. G. Farrell's The Siege of Krishnapur , widely considered one of the finest British novels of the last fifty years. Farrell's story is set in an isolated Victorian outpost on the subcontinent. Rumors of strife filter in from afar, and yet the members of the colonial community remain confident of their military and, above all, moral superiority. But when they find themselves under actual siege, the true character of their dominion--at once brutal, blundering, and wistful--is soon revealed. The Siege of Krishnapur is a companion to Troubles , about the Easter 1916 rebellion in Ireland, and The Singapore Grip , which takes place just before World War II, as the sun begins to set upon the British Empire. Together these three novels offer an unequaled picture of the follies of empire.
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Add a CommentThe beauty of Farrell's book lies not in its contemplation of the history of British brutality in India but in its exposing of the self satisfaction, hubris and ignorance that was at the heart of even the genteel classes of British society. The imagery in the book is gorgeous in its evocation of the Indian countryside, as well as its communication of the utterly alien face it presents to British settlers who seek to transplant England to India and wonder why it simply cannot be accepted by the larger Indian populace. A wonderful character study which stands firmly on its own two feet as a worthy read.
Andrew Miller's top 10 historical novels
Charlotte Gray: "This was the year I discovered J.G. Farrell, the British writer who produced the dazzling Empire Trilogy in the 1970s and then drowned, aged only 44, in 1979. Farrell’s three novels, set in the declining years of the British Empire, were reissued recently, and in 2010, Troubles, the first of the trilogy, scooped up the “Lost Booker,” for 1970 – a year when the prize was not awarded. "But my favourite of the trilogy is The Siege of Krishnapur. Set in 1857, when Indian sepoys rebelled and their British overlords retreated in shocked confusion to their compound, The Siege of Krishnapur won the Booker in 1973 and narrowly missed being picked as the “Best of the Bookers” this year. It is gripping, hilarious and tragic. Farrell paints a brilliant portrait of the occupying elite. His stiff-upper-lip Victorian soldiers, administrators and memsahibs display lunatic self-importance, generous humanity and horrific ignorance of local beliefs and interests. I’ve never read a piece of fiction that explores with such subtlety the assumptions on which the Empire was built – assumptions instilled for generations by British private schools."
Describes the insular British and their claim to rule justly a country they didn't or couldn't much understand. describes the ambitions and delusions of British rule over India ---- the elaborate imperial self-deception which is the true subject of this book.