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3.89 AVERAGE
3.89 AVERAGE
informative
sad
slow-paced
Content Warnings
Moderate: Racism
This book was recommended to me by a comparative literature student when I spent a summer learning Tamil. I finally go around to reading it almost 7 years after the recommendation was given to me-- and not without reason. The book is overwhelmingly dense, and hard to get into. I didn't enjoy it until I pushed past page 200-- and then suddenly all the detail about the politics and main actors fell into the foreground and the "plot" became more clear. In the end, the love story was quite emotional to read, which almost caught me off guard.
This is all to say, not a leisurely read, but an interesting book.
This is all to say, not a leisurely read, but an interesting book.
Oh, I loved this book. I could hardly put it down. I confess I know very little about the years before the Raj, before the British Crown took over India from the East India Company, so this book came as a delightful, entrancing revelation. During the years of the British Raj, the lines - social, political, religious, caste and class - dividing British from Indian were very clearly defined and adhered to, but this was not the case in the early years of the East India Company. Many officials had bibis, Indian courtesans or mistresses; many kept a zenana, a harem of sorts; and some, fewer it is true, married Indian wives and raised Anglo-Indian children.
This book is the story of those years when it was not deemed entirely unacceptable to embrace Indian culture - most particularly the story of James Achilles Kirkpatrick, the Company Resident in Hyderabad, and Khair un-Nissa, a relative of the Prime Minister of Hyderabad. Their love affair was quite scandalous - there were no fewer than four enquiries into James' conduct by the Company, and he was more than prepared to resign his position and career to be with Khair, although it seems from the evidence that it was she who initially pursued him, and not the other way around!
Dalrymple's own summary serves quite well - "in a time, and a society, when women had few options and choices, and little control over their lives, Khair had defied convention, threatened suicide and risked everything to be with the man she had eventually succeeded in marrying, even though he was from a different culture, a different race, and, initially, from a different religion."
James Kirkpatrick represented the last gasp of the 'white mughals', the British officers and officials who whole-heartedly embraced the syncretic Hindu-Muslim culture of the Deccan of the time, performing and respecting the religious ceremonies, wearing the native costumes, falling in love with the women, often converting to Islam, and raising their Anglo-Indian children with feet in both worlds. Shortly after James' death, the world changed, not just with the Mutiny, and embracing the native culture was to become anathema - British ideals and mores were imposed from the top down, and the British hierarchy would no more associate with the Indian populations than the Hindu brahmins would with the untouchables. One cannot help feeling that something indescribably unique was lost; as Dalrymple argues, the years of the white mughals demonstrates there is nothing inevitable about the 'collision' between East and West, that these cultures are not irreconcilable, and that only bigotry, prejudice, racism and fear hold them apart.
This book is the story of those years when it was not deemed entirely unacceptable to embrace Indian culture - most particularly the story of James Achilles Kirkpatrick, the Company Resident in Hyderabad, and Khair un-Nissa, a relative of the Prime Minister of Hyderabad. Their love affair was quite scandalous - there were no fewer than four enquiries into James' conduct by the Company, and he was more than prepared to resign his position and career to be with Khair, although it seems from the evidence that it was she who initially pursued him, and not the other way around!
Dalrymple's own summary serves quite well - "in a time, and a society, when women had few options and choices, and little control over their lives, Khair had defied convention, threatened suicide and risked everything to be with the man she had eventually succeeded in marrying, even though he was from a different culture, a different race, and, initially, from a different religion."
James Kirkpatrick represented the last gasp of the 'white mughals', the British officers and officials who whole-heartedly embraced the syncretic Hindu-Muslim culture of the Deccan of the time, performing and respecting the religious ceremonies, wearing the native costumes, falling in love with the women, often converting to Islam, and raising their Anglo-Indian children with feet in both worlds. Shortly after James' death, the world changed, not just with the Mutiny, and embracing the native culture was to become anathema - British ideals and mores were imposed from the top down, and the British hierarchy would no more associate with the Indian populations than the Hindu brahmins would with the untouchables. One cannot help feeling that something indescribably unique was lost; as Dalrymple argues, the years of the white mughals demonstrates there is nothing inevitable about the 'collision' between East and West, that these cultures are not irreconcilable, and that only bigotry, prejudice, racism and fear hold them apart.
informative
reflective
slow-paced
I really liked this book. But the excessive amount of details were very time-consuming. But the story is fantastic and I also think this book is somewhat historically accurate. The author has not, in any way, tried to alter the story to "spice things up". I like that about this book.
informative
slow-paced
For the last few months -- I've been reading/listening to William Dalrymple a lot to understand Indian history.
He did answer my peculiar questions about India before Independence. My questions were geared towards lifestyle of people, economic status, military. Pardon me for injecting my personal opinion and my reading background.
I do remember the first and second generation orientalists eg: Sir William Jones, falling in love with Bengal et culture of India. They would be 'Indianized.' It makes sense that political opinion, academic opinion changed after 1840's. The English took a more imperialistic attitude towards India.
An Excellent book that gives a real picture of Hyderabad through relationship of James and Khair.
I think growing up in Tamil Nadu, India, the history that I was fed in High-school was contrary to a realist perspective and shoddy in content. I must say, I am embarrassed.
Overall, I recommend this to anyone interested in Indian History, Hyderabad, Life in India before 1850's
Deus Vult,
Gottfried
He did answer my peculiar questions about India before Independence. My questions were geared towards lifestyle of people, economic status, military. Pardon me for injecting my personal opinion and my reading background.
I do remember the first and second generation orientalists eg: Sir William Jones, falling in love with Bengal et culture of India. They would be 'Indianized.' It makes sense that political opinion, academic opinion changed after 1840's. The English took a more imperialistic attitude towards India.
An Excellent book that gives a real picture of Hyderabad through relationship of James and Khair.
I think growing up in Tamil Nadu, India, the history that I was fed in High-school was contrary to a realist perspective and shoddy in content. I must say, I am embarrassed.
Overall, I recommend this to anyone interested in Indian History, Hyderabad, Life in India before 1850's
Deus Vult,
Gottfried
This was extensively thoroughly historically researched, but this also made the novel a very tedious read - more like a set of historical documents strung together. I had great fun casting Aishwarya Rai and Sam Heughan as Khair-un-Nissa and James Achilles Kirkpatrick, respectively, though! The storyline was hugely promising, but it ends up being worth a read if you're more into history than historical drama.