The Siege of Krishnapur

by J. G. Farrell

Other authorsPankaj Mishra (Introduction)

Paperback, 2004

Status

Available

Call number

823.914

Publication

NYRB Classics (2004), Paperback, 376 pages

Description

"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 a picture of the follies of empire."--BOOK JACKET.… (more)

Media reviews

The Guardian

Farrell is the funniest novelist in English since Evelyn Waugh, with the same eye for the absurd as Tom Sharpe. This is the fictitious account, hilarious and horrifying by turns, of a besieged British garrison which held out for four months in the summer of 1857, the year of the Great Indian

Mutiny, against a horde of native Sepoys. Despite the omens, the young British cavalry officers continue to indulge their taste for galloping into the nearest memsahib's drawing room, jumping over the sofas and then filling their sola topis with champagne instead of water to quench their horses' thirst. It is left to the Governor of Krishnapur, a sensitive, cultured man with a collection of treasures in his residence, to prepare for the siege. By the end of it cholera, starvation and the Sepoys have done for most of the inhabitants, who are reduced to eating beetles and, in the absence of powder and shot, loading their cannons with monogrammed silver cutlery and false teeth. The final retreat of the British, still doggedly stiff-upper-lipped, through the pantries, laundries, music rooms and ballroom of the residency, using chandeliers and violins as weapons, is a comic delight. And so is the usually serious Tim Pigott-Smith, whose repertoire of characters, from petulant maharajas to pink-faced subalterns - "I say, may we come in, we've come to relieve you" - is dazzling.

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Time Magazine

1974-09-30 Farrell can write with a fury to match his theme. As spectacle, The Siege of Krishnapur has the blaze and the agony of a scenario for hell. But as moral commentary, it is overcalculated—and its ironies unsuitably neat.

User reviews

LibraryThing member kidzdoc

The Siege of Krishnapur is the second novel in Farrell's Empire Trilogy, which was awarded the Booker Prize in 1973. The book is based in part on written accounts of the Siege of Lucknow, which occurred during the First War of Indian Independence, also known as the Indian Mutiny, which took place

in northern India in 1857. During that period India was governed by the East India Company, a British company not affiliated with the British Crown, which mainly engaged in trade with India and China, including the forceful trade of opium with China that led to the two Opium Wars between the United Kingdom and China.

The novel begins in Krishnapur, a fictional town based on the northern Indian town of Lucknow, in Utter Pradesh. The Company governs the country ruthlessly and with little regard for the "natives", and employs an army of sepoys, Indian soldiers that help to maintain the status quo. The sepoys are poorly paid and maltreated, with little regard to their customs and beliefs, and they eventually rebel against their British masters, which begins with the slaughter of hundreds of unarmed British civilians in a neighboring town. Word quickly reaches Krishnapur, but the leadership, run by a doddering and marginally competent general, initially downplays the seriousness of this situation. In a short time the rebellion reaches Krishnapur; the British citizens flee to the apparent safety of the Residency, the compound that serves as the seat of local government, which is run by the Collector and the Magistrate.

The mutineers attack the Residency in successive but ill-timed waves, which are repelled by the Brits with increasing difficulty. Months pass by, with no relief from army units in neighboring and the occupants of the Residency slowly succumb to musket fire, cholera and other illnesses, starvation, and incompetent medical care. The survivors begin to lose hope, as their food supplies and ammunition dwindle away while the sepoys prepare for a final assault on the Residency.

This sounds like a grim tale, but Farrell spins a tale of comic genius and biting satire. The narration is simply divine, with some of the most beautifully crafted sentences and richest descriptions that I've ever read. The book is laugh out loud funny throughout, as Farrell portrays the Brits as clueless but lovable dumb asses, who are petty, selfish and all too human. A typical passage describes Vokins, the manservant to the Collector, as he tells his master about the advance of the mutineers in town:

"The trouble was that Vokins, as he made his solemn journeys from the door to the Collector's ear, did not understand that many of these messages were redundant (for, after all, once a cantonment has been set alight the number of bungalows blazing, more or less, is a matter of relative indifference). Vokins thought they were cumulative and progressive Vokins lacked the broader view. He tended only to see the prospect of the Death of Vokins. Although some of the Collector's guests might have been hard put to it to think of what a man of Vokins's class had to lose, to Vokins it was very clear what he had to lose: namely his life. He was not at all anxious to leave his skin on the Indian plains; he wanted to take it back to the slums of Soho or whereever it came from."

Farrell also weaves several topics within the novel, including the role of science and religion in Western society, the roles and responsibilities of colonists toward their Indian subjects, mid-19th century medicine, including the pathogenesis and proper treatment of cholera and other illnesses that affect the besieged colonists, and the role of women in British society. The biggest flaw in the book, which Farrell acknowledged after he wrote it, is that the Indians are almost invisible in this novel. Only one Indian is portrayed in any detail, the Anglophilic son of the Maharajah, who plays only a minor role. However, as I mentioned about a book that I read last year, the highest praise I can give The Siege of Krishnapur is that I wouldn't mind reading it again now, and I'm sure that I will in the very near future — after I read Troubles and The Singapore Grip, the other novels in the Empire Trilogy. It deserves its frequent mention as one of the great 20th century British novels, and I could not recommend it any more highly.

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LibraryThing member DeltaQueen50

Drawing upon the history of the Indian Mutiny in 1857, J.G. Farrell once again turns his razor sharp wit upon the British justification of their colonial policy. In [The Siege of Krishnapur] which he loosely based on the sieges of Lucknow and Cawnpore, he gives us a dramatically vivid account of a

well mixed group of unique characters as they are trapped in the Company residency for a number of months holding the mutineers at bay.

While these people are plunged into danger and despair, we also are treated to their inner thoughts and justification for being in India and, from missionary zeal to actually believing that the British were improving the life of native Indians through medicine and science, we also see how effortlessly these same people hold themselves above the native population, fully confident in their superiority.

Beautifully written with his trademark ironic warmth, this is the middle book of his Empire Trilogy. J.G. Farrell is indeed an author of great skill as he delivers a suspenseful story, yet still manages to convey the political and human consequences of the British Colonial rule. The story is interesting and gut-wrenching while the political background is fascinating, I highly recommend this book.

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LibraryThing member brenzi

This is a novel of change. Set in 1857 and based on the Siege of Lucknow, at a far remote Indian outpost, many miles from Calcutta, it tells the story of the mutiny of the native sepoys but more importantly, solidifies the total ignorance of the British in thinking their superiority over all

things, but especially over these Indians that they are determined to educate in one way or another, will always prevail. Farrell has written an incredibly nuanced satire that points out how wrong the British were, even a year before Queen Victoria signed a proclamation formally naming India a part of the British Empire. At the time of the siege, The East India Company was ruling India with a violent hand implemented by the British military.

There are few named Indian characters in a story where they are the main object and somehow this method is part of Farrell’s brilliance. The British treat them with so little respect that they are nearly invisible. Until they’re not and the British are forced to confront the reality of the state of their lives during the five months that the siege lasts. Besides the obvious bodies piling up as a result of the shelling of the Residency, where all the British are forced to retreat, they are fighting an outbreak of cholera, the intense heat common in the sub continent, intense insect infestations to the area and this:

"The smell, which was so atrocious that the butchers had to work with cloths tied over their noses, came from rejected offal which they were in the habit of throwing over the wall in the hope that the vultures would deal with it. But the truth was that the scavengers of the district, both birds and animals, were already thoroughly bloated from the results of the first attack…the birds were so heavy with meat that they could hardly launch themselves into the air, the jackals could hardly drag themselves back to their lairs."

Loaded with complex characters whose interaction provide thought-provoking narrative conflict, they wait for the arrival of the saving military regiment but steadily lose hope that they will ever be rescued. This book won the Booker prize in 1973 and rightly so. Just absolutely brilliant.

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LibraryThing member stephmo

If there's a miscalculation in Farrell's book, it is that he makes it abundantly clear that just about every British citizen in Krishnapur is either arrogant, ignorant, mentally deficient or clearly mistaken about their need to bring anything to the people of India. In this, I suppose the dark

humor of the siege is easy to pass along, but there's also the unrelenting and depressing inaction while being surrounded by generally unlikable individuals that can make one find many other things to do other than read through the next few chapters of the book. Of course, Farrell saves himself by nutshelling much of the British attitude towards the Indians that leads up to the siege with brilliant passages such as this (the Collector and Magistrate are British):

The land was particularly fertile here, either because it had been blessed by the footprint, as the Hindus believed, or, as the British believed, because it was regularly flooded and covered with a nourishing silt.

The flooding, though, was a nuisance and it grew worse every year because of the attrition of the embankments. Cattle and crops were lost. To stop the flooding by reinforcing the embankments was the great ambition of the Magistrate and the Collector. While the Collector had been visiting the opium factory the Magistrate, accompanied by his bearer, Abdullah, had ridden out of Krishnapur to visit the embankments and consult the landowners whose coolies would be needed for the work of the reinforcement.

Farrell packs so much in here - the improvements that are not asked for, the sneering at of religious belief vs. the superiority of science, the fact that India was (at the time) a key in trading opium for tea, that the British assumed India's class system meant their access to labor was their access to labor. You find yourself suddenly reading through passages like this on religious matters, the matters of military theory, medicinal theory and morality. Even so, there's humor to be found all throughout in character action and inaction (even the Collector's one book on sieges gives advice for day thirty-five as It is now time to surrender... which one suspects he regretted not taking from taking as the siege began being measured in months).

It's not difficult to see why this was one of the books up for the Booker of the Booker. One just wishes this were passed out in military schools and in introductory political science courses to all would-be politicos and military strategists that ever felt that one of their strengths was in being somehow "more advanced" than another country in terms of civilization. The Siege of Krishapur should serve as the cautionary tale how this belief will be your eventual downfall.

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LibraryThing member Eyejaybee

I struggled to get into this novel and, i must confess, did not encounter a single empathetic character. There were certainly some funny epiosdes but the book was simply too disjointed to keep my attention.

LibraryThing member lmichet

While perusing the other user reviews, I noticed that some think that this book is not gripping.
What? What, I ask?
At times this book reads like a movie. I don't know exactly how to express it. At times the story is slower, yes, but it slows down to make satire and speeds up liberally for action

scenes which are so clear and compelling and expertly paced that there is almost no way to avoid using the word 'gripping' when describing them.
If you're going to read this book, you must be open to imbibe social and historical commentary. But it's fascinating commentary, and the descriptive power Farrell uses to effect this commentary is brilliant. And he ought to have been directing movies, is all I'm saying-- because this is one hell of a good book.
Not for the faint-hearted, though, as they say. Most of the characters are universally scorned by the author, except for one, of which precious little is seen in the actual story. This is a book about a crowd of people Farrell has serious disgust for living like animals and struggling to survive in absolutely foul conditions while simultaneously hating one another and the world around them like nobody's business. And it all seems so real! Every detail of the British colonists' misery was fascinating, and the way the characters behave is almost appallingly lifelike.
Anyway. Read this book. But make sure you can handle some historical-socio-political commentary. Because if you hate that kind of thing you'll chicken out early, and then it'll just have been a waste.

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LibraryThing member davidroche

Brilliant. Everything that you could want in a novel. Beautifully written, funny, poignant and a cracking story.

LibraryThing member msf59

“The British could leave and half India wouldn't notice us leaving just as they didn't notice us arriving. All our reforms of administration might be reforms on the moon for all it has to do with them..”

“India itself was now a different place; the fiction of happy natives being led forward

along the road to civilization could no longer be sustained.”

“All our actions and intentions are futile unless animated by warmth of feeling. Without love everything is a desert. Even Justice, Science, and Respectability.”

India, 1857. An isolated British outpost, on the subcontinent. The British here are living a comfortable life, clutching to their noble, old-world principles. There are are hints and rumblings that an uprising is about to occur, by Muslim soldiers. The colonists start to prepare for an attack but they are soon surrounded and the siege begins. I like how the tension grows in the story to an almost unbearable pitch and the subtle humor, that permeates the first half of the novel slowly begins to crumble. Based on historical events, Farrell does an incredible job with the writing and the story-telling. He was a genuine talent. Too bad he died at a young age. This is the second book in his Empire Trilogy.

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LibraryThing member jwhenderson

Set in India, 1857, during the Great Mutiny, this novel by J. G. Farrell is both a mighty work of historical fiction and a humane study of man. Farrell's ability to create a world filled with flawed but often sympathetic characters sets this novel apart from typical historical fair. Add to that the

subtle way he underlays the action with discussion of the effect of science and rationality, represented by the Great Exhibition of 1851 and its' Crystal Palace, on the attitudes of the British in India and you have a challenging novel of ideas. The action takes place during the period of unrest that leads to the end of the control of the East India Company with battle sequences during the siege by the Sepoys that are riveting, but do not detract from more abstract discussions of theology, philosophy and medicine. Ultimately the British in Krishnapur are faced with a battle for their lives against multiple attackers; disease in the form of Cholera, starvation and the Sepoys. All the while, the novel seems to overflow with wit, tenderness, satire and the whole of humanity. This is a great read.

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LibraryThing member Joycepa

An immediate impression of The Siege of Krishanpur, for which Farrell won the 1973 Man Booker Prize, is that it is a comedy about a rather unlikely topic, the Great Mutiny of Muslim sepoys in India in 1857. The topic is treated with great seriousness; the characters are not. The latter are as

improbable a set as one can find in a war story.

In the first in what is called the Empire Trilogy, Farrell examines the British colonial community in a remote outpost in India—and finds them, above all, comic, in the sense that their attitudes are so bizarre (to us) that they’re laughable--ridiculous. And that is what I think Farrell did in each of his three books—use a time of crisis in Britain’s colonial experience to hold up the British attitude to ridicule. As you read, you wonder if these people could possibly be real. They are and they aren’t—they’re almost caricatures designed to point out the moral blindness of the British in their imperial rule. The reader is reminded of that forcefully when reading the sections on the production of opium in India for trade with China. Not only is this legal but it is sanctioned as a terrific commercial enterprise bringing benefits to all. No one considers the Chinese, of course.

Until 1858, India was not formally a part of the British Empire, but was ruled instead by the East India Company. The authority in each colony is a Company official; in this story, it is the Collector who, in reality, knows absolutely nothing about the “real" Indians, but who firmly believes in science and progress and who is convinced that the British, in their dominion over “inferior” peoples, are bringing the benefits of civilization to a semi-barbaric populace. We’ll see this again in Troubles (Ireland) and yet again in The Singapore Grip (World War II). In each book, the crisis erupts into violence and the British, because of their moral blindness, are ill-equipped to deal with that violence. The Siege of Krishanpur relates in excellent detail what the British faced in the Rebellion. What it does not do—not part of the story—is talk about the savagery with which the British put it down; thousands of Indians were slaughtered. The cover of my edition, however, is graphic. It’s a reproduction of an 1858 photograph of the interior of an Indian town after 2,000 rebels were slaughtered by the 93rd Highlanders. A few Indians are standing at the edge of a courtyard whose surface is covered in human skulls.

The novel parodies a 19th century British genre known as the “mutiny novel” in which a young officer just our from England meets a charming young lady and rescues same from the horrors of the war. Yes, the protagonist is a young man (although not an officer) just arrived, and yes, he meets the young lady (who actually turns out to be one of the more admirable characters). But their attitudes are hardly heroic. Only the Collector sees what has to be done and is actively opposed by even the soldiers who simply can’ believe that rebellion is possible.

The resulting siege is brilliantly written; you feel as if you’re there with the colonists, thanks to the lavish details of exactly what life was life under siege. Farrell researched his stories meticulously; much of his material in all three books is from personal memoirs. The authenticity is unmistakable.

Because of the way the characters are portrayed, the book was not an easy read for me but one which I profoundly enjoyed, and which I would recommend to any history buff as well as those looking for another perspective on British policy during the time of Empire, over which no one with any moral sense will grieve.

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LibraryThing member japaul22

This is the second book in Farrell's trio of novels exploring the crumbling British Empire. The first was Troubles set in 1916 Ireland and I LOVED it. This book, however, didn't work for me for some reason. It is set in India during an uprising of the locals that traps many British. I liked the set

up and ideas in the book but I could not connect to any of the characters and I was generally sort of bored. In fact, I dropped the bookmark out of the book about 2/3 through and could not for the life of me figure out where I had been reading.

I suspect this will upset a lot of people because I feel like I remember seeing many glowing reviews of this book, so don't give up on reading this if you were interested. It was probably just the wrong book for my crazy life right now.

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LibraryThing member BrokenTune

Later, while he was drinking tea at the table in his bedroom with three young subalterns from Captainganj a succession of musket balls came through the winder, attracted by the oil-lamp . . . one, two, three and then a fourth, one after another. The officers dived smartly under the table, leaving

the Collector to drink his tea alone. After a while they
re-emerged smiling sheepishly, deeply impressed by the Collector’s sang-froid. Realizing that he had forgotten to sweeten his tea, the Collector dipped a teaspoon into the sugar-bowl. But then he found that he was unable to keep the sugar on the spoon: as quickly as he scooped it up, it danced off again. It was clear that he would never get it from the sugar-bowl to the cup without scattering it over the table, so in the end he was obliged to push the sugar away and drink his tea unsweetened.

The Siege of Krishnapur sounded fascinating - a depiction of the fall of the British Empire illustrated in a small town in Northern India.

I don't know whether this book fell victim to my reading slump, or whether it just missed the mark with me, but I could not get interested in any of the characters or the story, and on finishing, I don't even know whether I would have finished it at all if it had not won the Booker in 1973.

It seems to me that The Siege of Krishnapur is one of those books that may have made more of an impression at the time it was written, but that has lost some of its appeal over time. Maybe the expectation of the book is to defy any nostalgia towards imperialism in its reader. But what if there is nothing to left to defy?

I don't know. This book maybe just wasn't for me.

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LibraryThing member John

I picked this up on spec recently in downtown Ottawa because there was a faint ringing of a bell when I looked at the title; perhaps because it won the Booker Prize in 1973 and I remembered it from some list. I am very glad that I did; an excellent novel and I shall search immediately for more by

Farrell; six other novels are listed and there will be no more as Farrell died young (42), by drowning, in 1979.

This one is set in the Indian Mutiny of 1857, in particular the siege of the British compound at a small post called Krishnapur. The Collector (so called because he loves to collect all manner of things: books, fine furniture, inventions) is the senior British authority and the only one who sees the growing unrest. He orders the digging of a ditch and the construction of earth embankments as a precaution, under the transparent screen of improving drainage, and invents other excuses to strengthen walls and various defensive constructions. All of which proves critical when the mutiny erupts and the post is besiege. The larger theme of the novel is modernity and civilization: what defines them? Is it material or moral/spiritual progress? By what "right" does one nation impose its vision of progress/morality on another? Why should one system be inherently superior to another? What loss is there in not recognizing the diversity and strengths of a native culture? And then finally, what is important in life? The trappings of material acquisitions or life itself and relations among people? This brings out the idiocy and sometimes fatal weaknesses of the British class system which some will maintain even unto death. Another theme: the clash between progress (in this case in medical science) and the weight of "perceived opinion" and the blindness of those unable/unwilling to consider the new. All of these played out in the crucible of a siege that last some months, thus magnifying and straining relations and bringing out the best, or the worst, of people. And it is played out through a wonderful cast of characters: the Collector who represents a mix of the materialist and the philosopher; the Magistrate who embodies the former; a poet, escorting his widowed sister to India, who embodies the latter; no end of young subalterns whom the poet disparages but then learns to appreciate for their different skills; an almost-mad Reverend who stirs the materialist versus the spiritual debate.

All in all the novel is first of all, a good story, and one that through the exploration or exposition of various ideas, captures well the hubris of the times, when it seemed that material progress and inventions would usher in a new and wonderful world, and the hubris of the colonial power caught up in a situation that it was congenitally incapable of understanding.

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LibraryThing member soraxtm

Wow This is a really great book even though it won the Booker prize. It's quite funny and awful, scathing and jaunty. The best part for me is it's engrossing.

LibraryThing member Kristelh

Fictional tale of the Sepoy Uprising in India in 1857 to 1858 written by J. G. Farrell and winner of the Booker in 1973. The story was well written and very readable. A siege is not a pretty thing, to be surrounded by the enemy and all you have are limited resources of defense (both arms and men),

food, water, it tells the tale from an every shrinking world. At first the British have it all and then soon, they only struggle to stay alive. It really is a comedy of Victorian manners and the humor that the author injects a long the way is appreciated. It is also a view of colonialism in this Victorian Era when British were running things and thought that the Asian's were lucky to have them there to help them be civilized, to bring them such wonderful things. It explores the rapid changes in inventions during this time. In addition, a great deal is spent on religion; catholic verses protestant, Christian verses Hinduism and Islam. And the fight between two doctors over the right way to treat Cholera. Of course the uprising resulted from the insensitivity of the British to the local religious mores. The grease used in cartridges that the Sepoy's were exposed to when opening cartridges.

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LibraryThing member janerawoof

Witty and well-written novel conflating the Sieges of Lucknow and Cawnpore during the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, into the fictional Siege of Krishnapur. The story concerns a group of English in that area in Northern India who hold out for four months against mutinous sepoys. Trapped inside the official

Residence and surrounding compound, which has been ringed by a dirt barrier and a ditch, we see the interactions among the various stiff upper lipped characters and their bravery, battling not only the sepoys, but hunger and cholera. I wondered if the novel was a satire on the Victorian English in India. Some events were certainly chuckle-worthy, intentional or not. Some of the turns of phrase were priceless.

Highly recommended.

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LibraryThing member datrappert

This is a marvelous book that works on many different levels. It is a tense novel of increasing doom as the British residents of Krishnapur hold out against overwhelming odds during the Sepoy Rebellion in 1857. It is also an indictment of British colonialism--the reader has to ask more than once,

why are these people here to begin with? The answer for many, of course, is money, but Farrell also presents the fantasy of a diehard few that the British are there as a superior culture to educate the natives. Chief among those who hold this view is the Collector, who is the real center of the book. Initially presented as an eccentric, during the course of the siege the Collector rises to heights of leadership, bravery, and occasionally even common sense that the reader cannot help but admire. The other main characters in the book also prove quite formidable in the face of flying musket balls, even more disgusting flying insects, dirty water, diminishing provisions, dirty and deteriorating clothes, and intense body odor. Although the body odor may be preferable to the odor of rotting animal (and later human, after the graveyard becomes to dangerous to use) corpses flung over the ramparts.

Farrell draws upon historical facts and accounts for much of his narrative, and weaves it into a compelling story that starts well and becomes almost unbearably intense--even with its comic aspects--as it proceeds. Even for a reader without much prior knowledge of the Sepoy Rebellion and only a general awareness of the British in India, Farrell presents the story in such detail and with such insight that you are drawn in completely.

I should add that I read this book on the Kindle, and it was a great example of why e-books can be superior to their paper brethren. Farrell includes many Indian words here, and the Kindle's dictionary held the bulk of them. The pleasure of this book would have been reduced by having to turn to a dictionary or a computer to find out what some of these things mean.

Highly highly recommended for anyone who likes to read. This is in no way one of those literary novels that makes you suffer on every page just so you can have the dubious pleasure of being one of the select few to have read it. Nor is it 800 pages long!

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LibraryThing member thorold

Very seventies, in the same sort of way that Flashman was very sixties. Farrell uses a composite of events from Lucknow and Cawnpore to look critically at the mid-Victorian British and their attitudes to empire. All the usual buttons are being pressed: Class; Tennyson; the Great Exhibition;

industry vs. art; science vs. religion; the role of women and the Double Standard; High and Low Church; etc. It's practically a condensed version of the Open University Arts Foundation course. Nothing very profound, but no very obvious howlers either. The adventure story itself is gripping and lively, and there are lots of jokes along the way, so it's a very entertaining read.

The big gap in the book is that we don't get to see anything from the Indian point of view: essentially, Farrell's technique in this regard is to show us the British not understanding India. The British don't listen to Indian opinions and simply have no notion of what the "mutineers" want or why they are attacking the British cantonment. With forty years' hindsight, I don't think this is enough: it would have been better to bring in some Indian point-of-view characters. But I don't think that's necessarily something that would have been obvious to a British reader in 1973.

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LibraryThing member dougwood57

"The Siege of Krishnapur', the second of J.G. Farrell's now classic works on the British Empire, (see also Troubles (New York Review Books Classics) and The Singapore Grip (New York Review Books Classics)) is a fictionalized account of the Siege of Lucknow during the Great Mutiny of 1857-1858 (aka

the Sepoy Rebellion). The mutiny or rebellion, depending on one's point of view, was ultimately defeated by the British and led to the replacement of East India Company rule by direct British governance under the Raj.

Farrell masterfully recreates the insular British upper-class life in India - and the siege only intensifies this insularity. As the siege drags on and on, the inhabitants strive to maintain expected standards of behavior and decorum. Farrell populates his book with interesting characters who debate and dispute morality, religion, progress, and civilization.

Excellent introductions are a hallmark of the New York Review of Books Classics and the introduction to this volume by Pankaj Mishra places the book in historical and cultural context and adds significant value.

Highest Recommendation.

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LibraryThing member deebee1

In early 1857, small piles of chapatis mysteriously appear on doorsteps, in homes of British colonial administrators. It signals the beginning of the Sepoy rebellion -- an uprising of the native soldiers against the British. These actual events provide the background for this fictionalized account

of a siege in a remote British cantonment called Krishnapur, told from the point of view of the colonial masters.

We are introduced to a cast of characters whose lives in British India seem, on the surface, unremarkable -- officials in far-off districts coping with the tedium of daily administration, wives and mothers more concerned with finding suitable husbands for their daughters, young soldiers who in the absence of military adventure are instead in town for fun and flirting, and so on. In their daily routines, we feel their boredom, class consciousness, and most of all, the general displeasure of being in this difficult, searingly hot country.

Krishnapur is attacked, and the community seeks refuge behind the walls of the Residency. The bloody siege goes on for over three months, the defenders heroic in their stand, many dead and injured, stocks of food dwindling fast, medicine and ammunition lacking, and the hot summer taking its toll.

Farell portrays the life in the Residency during the siege as a microcosm of the larger society, highlighting misplaced values and goals of individuals and social relations. He employs dark humor to point out the absurdity of certain beliefs and behavior, which can also be viewed as a criticism of colonialism. We meet with unforgettable characters, all very stubborn and highly opinionated, seemingly difficult to like, but who during the course of the siege, we start to care about. Most unforgettable is the dedicated Collector whose belief in progress and industry seem boundless. We track his inner thoughts, foreboding of trouble and foresight to build ramparts, his doubts, his determination, his extreme sense of duty. We accompany him in his struggle to keep up the leadership, to captain a fast sinking ship. Interestingly, even in an almost hopeless environment, there is plenty of dialogue and debate on philosophy, religion, and morality. It even seems that horror brings out this philosophizing mood in everybody. For example, staring death in the eye, a young man, Fleury, is still concerned with his theories in relation to the operation of the guns.

The themes of the novel are serious, but it is not heavy to read. Combined with wit, he also writes with vivid imagery and his description of the invasions/attacks is so beautifully written it is cinematic. In fact, it's the most striking of any battle imagery i've ever read.

Farell won the Booker for this novel in 1973. It is the second in the Empire trilogy.

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LibraryThing member verenka

Now I read a third book about the British Raj. This one is set a lot earlier than the other two books and it deals with the revolt of the local sepoys that leads to the siege of Krishnapur. The book was recommended to me and I found it interesting enough. But I think I just can't relate to this

topic very well, class system and all that.

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LibraryThing member ebethe

A well written, witty and revealing story of some pretty grim topics (colonialism, battle, dying and such) and ideas (progress, religion and such) that wasn't too long nor too short. One of the finest novels that I have ever read.

An added bonus is that it is in the NYRB Classics series, which

means great paperback binding and layout.

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LibraryThing member Fluffyblue

The story is set in 1857 when the British had set up communities throughout India. The back of the book really tells it like it is, it is witty and tells a good story, and it is also serious at times. I enjoyed it. I found the characters to be very well written, and in that respect the writing

reminded me of Dickens. They were quirky and believable. The story itself dragged on a little bit, but on the whole, it was a good book and I'm glad I read it.

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LibraryThing member Bpolybius

The only Mutiny novel -- or memoir, for that matter -- you really ever need to read.

LibraryThing member NeilDalley

Totally uninspired by this book and I cannot imagine how it ever won the Booker Prize. It has taken me months to make myself finish it as there was always something more interesting to read.

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