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veronicafrance 's review for:
White Mughals: Love and Betrayal in Eighteenth-Century India
by William Dalrymple
Without having any specific interest in India, I seem to have read quite a few books about India over the last couple of years, and William Dalrymple has a lot to do with it. I really liked his [b:City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi|124430|City of Djinns A Year in Delhi|William Dalrymple|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171869042s/124430.jpg|119825], and I’d heard many good things about White Mughals – all justified. This book is remarkable. Yes, it’s a history book, but you can read it like a novel. Think of it as a kind of Indian War and Peace – the cast of characters is even larger, and it does indeed address war and peace, private concerns and national politics. Dalrymple did an impressive amount of research, and his knowledge of India enabled him to discover some incredible primary sources that had never been translated.
The central love story of this book is fascinating, and sheds a completely different light on the British in India. Gone are the stereotypes of Victorian gentlemen in stiff suits, eating roast beef for Sunday lunch and viewing “the natives” as barely human. Kirkpatrick and others like him integrated completely, learning the local languages, wearing Indian dress, and marrying or at least living with Indian women (plural in some cases – Sir David Ochterlony had 13 wives, each with her own elephant!). Dalrymple captures the moment when this open exchange of cultures began to change, with India and its people becoming just resources to exploit. It also brings home just how much British imperialism was responsible for creating a gulf between Indian cultures – Hindu and Muslim – which did not exist before.
The book is full of fascinating details – rather too many sometimes. Dalrymple obviously loved doing the research and will rush off at a tangent at the slightest provocation, discussing Mughal architecture, gardening practices, festivals and the like, sometimes at too great a length. Equally, if some minor character turns out to have an interesting background, we will get a quick potted biography. And there are lots of footnotes, but you don’t have to read them all.
Such is the detail gleaned from letters and a contemporary Persian autobiography that you feel as if you know these people, except for Khair un-Nissa, who perhaps inevitably is a shadowy figure behind the screens of her zenana, seen only through others’ eyes. So vivid is the characterisation that despite the huge cast, I never found it necessary to consult the list at the front to remember who was who.
Saddest is the fate of so many Anglo-Indian children, born of English fathers and Indian mothers, who, in order to safeguard their future prospects in an increasingly racist imperial culture, are sent to school in England at the age of four or so, and most likely never see their mothers or grandparents again. Amazingly, in one final twist, Dalrymple manages to track down a last, touching correspondence between Kirkpatrick’s daughter, now a mother herself, and her Indian grandmother, last seen when she was four.
The central love story of this book is fascinating, and sheds a completely different light on the British in India. Gone are the stereotypes of Victorian gentlemen in stiff suits, eating roast beef for Sunday lunch and viewing “the natives” as barely human. Kirkpatrick and others like him integrated completely, learning the local languages, wearing Indian dress, and marrying or at least living with Indian women (plural in some cases – Sir David Ochterlony had 13 wives, each with her own elephant!). Dalrymple captures the moment when this open exchange of cultures began to change, with India and its people becoming just resources to exploit. It also brings home just how much British imperialism was responsible for creating a gulf between Indian cultures – Hindu and Muslim – which did not exist before.
The book is full of fascinating details – rather too many sometimes. Dalrymple obviously loved doing the research and will rush off at a tangent at the slightest provocation, discussing Mughal architecture, gardening practices, festivals and the like, sometimes at too great a length. Equally, if some minor character turns out to have an interesting background, we will get a quick potted biography. And there are lots of footnotes, but you don’t have to read them all.
Such is the detail gleaned from letters and a contemporary Persian autobiography that you feel as if you know these people, except for Khair un-Nissa, who perhaps inevitably is a shadowy figure behind the screens of her zenana, seen only through others’ eyes. So vivid is the characterisation that despite the huge cast, I never found it necessary to consult the list at the front to remember who was who.
Saddest is the fate of so many Anglo-Indian children, born of English fathers and Indian mothers, who, in order to safeguard their future prospects in an increasingly racist imperial culture, are sent to school in England at the age of four or so, and most likely never see their mothers or grandparents again. Amazingly, in one final twist, Dalrymple manages to track down a last, touching correspondence between Kirkpatrick’s daughter, now a mother herself, and her Indian grandmother, last seen when she was four.