Even the siege begins slowly, with disquieting news of massacres in cities far away.

Farrell introduces us gradually to a large cast of characters as he paints a vivid portrait of the Victorians' daily routines that are accompanied by heat, boredom, class consciousness, and the pursuit of genteel pastimes intended for cooler climates. Like the mysteriously appearing chapatis, life in British India seems, on the surface, innocuous enough. Farrell's Booker Prize-winning exploration of race, culture, and class, The Siege of Krishnapur. This seminal event in Anglo-Indian relations provides the backdrop for J.G.

Students of history will recognize 1857 as the year of the Sepoy rebellion in India-an uprising of native soldiers against the British, brought on by Hindu and Muslim recruits' belief that the rifle cartridges they were provided had been greased with pig or cow fat. 'The first sign of trouble at Krishnapur came with a mysterious distribution of chapatis, made of coarse flour and about the size and thickness of a biscuit towards the end of February 1857, they swept the countryside like an epidemic.' 'synopsis' may belong to another edition of this title. Together these three novels offer an unequaled picture of the follies of empire. 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. But when they find themselves under actual siege, the true character of their dominion-at once brutal, blundering, and wistful-is soon revealed. 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.

Farrell’s The Siege of Krishnapur, widely considered one of the finest British novels of the last fifty years.įarrell’s story is set in an isolated Victorian outpost on the subcontinent.

This time of convulsion is the subject of J. India, 1857-the year of the Great Mutiny, when Muslim soldiers turned in bloody rebellion on their British overlords. Winner of the Booker Prize. An insightful and thrilling novel about the British Empire in India during the Great Mutiny of 1957, as seen through the eyes of a young, love-struck idealist.

The siege of krishnapur review