Thank you for guiding us through TSOK. I would never have selected this book myself, but had total faith in your choice after being with you from the start of 2024. Great notes and insights as always. Have a fantastic break next month - so well deserved- and I look forward to your return in May. Happy holidays 😎 ✈️ 📕
Thank you for this wonderful slow read Simon I cannot tell you how much I have enjoyed it.
What a tragedy that Farrell died so young I am sure he would have produced so many more admirable novels.
That 18 barrell pepper box pistol may have been impractical to use but it looks bloody amazing.
As an aside, I came across, during some casual conversation, a Wiki entry about the 'Nabobs', which gives an insight into the disruptive nature of men who returned to England with riches from India:
++++
The English use of nabob was for a person who became rapidly wealthy in a foreign country, typically India, and returned home with considerable power and influence. In England, the name was applied to men who made fortunes working for the East India Company and, on their return home, used the wealth to purchase seats in Parliament.
A common fear was that these individuals – the nabobs, their agents, and those who took their bribes – would use their wealth and influence to corrupt Parliament. The collapse of the Company's finances in 1772 due to bad administration, both in India and Britain, aroused public indignation towards the Company's activities and the behaviour of the Company's employees. Samuel Foote gave a satirical look at those men who had enriched themselves through the East India Company in his 1772 play, The Nabob.
Nabobs became immensely popular figures within satirical culture in Britain, often depicted as lazy and materialistic, as well as a lack of temperance when regarding economic affairs in India. Nabobs typically came from middle-class backgrounds and tended to be of Caledonian origin, often being seen as low born social climbers.[13] Nabobs were often seen as challenging traditional values of middle-class British masculinity, as their weak moral grounds projected an effeminate symbol of a virtuous British culture. During the late 18th century, Britain was already struggling to define itself within its own imperial system—one that exposed cultural issues as well as growing the nation financially and socially. By taming the indulgent, uncultivated Nabob, and reintegrating both its character and wealth into sophisticated British society, the empire could reassert their vision of masculinity as well as push the image of an ethically upright middle class.[14] Beliefs that Nabobs, which typically worked as merchants and traders, had overstepped the unspoken socio-economic boundary through the surplus of riches in Asia quickly circulated. Nabobs quickly became weak-minded figures that had given in to the sensual temptation of colonial India that so many generations before them had been successful in resisting. Additionally, ideas of the Nabob’s unfettered opulence and aspiration to rise to governmental positions by unjustly purchasing Parliament seats were condensed into a satirical character.[
Interesting! "Nabob" was (and perhaps still is?) a brand of coffee here in Canada (perhaps elsewhere too?) when I was growing up. (I'm a tea drinker, so I don't pay much attention to coffee, lol.) And I remember a politician (I looked it up; it was Spiro Agnew) saying something about "the nattering nabobs of negativity," but never really thought about what a "nabob" could be. Thanks for this explanation!
Honestly, for all I said last week about not being attached to the characters, these people have been in my life for two months and it's weird they're not any more! I generally don't believe in reading "faster" or "slower", at least for me I read at the pace I read at, and if I'm thinking about what speed I'm reading about I'm not concentrating on the book. But, having read this piece by piece, I really noticed the benefits of reading it over time, so perhaps slow readers do have an advantage in reading.
I am very glad they got rescued, although of course as I've come to expect from Farrell, the rescue's drama was outweighed by its humour. It's interesting that the Collector seems to be the only one who is reported to have lasting effects from the experience - and interesting that, despite the amount of interiority he has throughout the book, when he is no longer the bastion of knowledge and progress, we lose our insight into his mind.
I finished it over a month ago but that attachment to the Collector still lingers. I felt very emotional at the end and was bemused about how that happened as there's so much satire, they all have, by and large, loathsome (to me) ideas and attitudes, and yet...
I found the end chapter (which I can't look at now to check, as I've lent my copy to a friend) very sad. The Collector was stripped of everything that had given his life and mind meaning. It's an excellent ending.
Agreed, I keep thinking about the Collector now that we're finished, and about how he probably wouldn't have been able to talk about the siege express how he felt to anyone else.
I’m so glad you said that!! I was rooting for them to get rescued and worrying that made me a pro colonial person or something. I am not surprised by Fleury, he has irritated me since January
I WAS surprised by Fleury. Louise rose to commendable heights in the novel and ended with Fleury. I thought he had no chance with her in the beginning but he prevailed.
Unfortunately, while he and Harry were unlikely heroes during the siege, I’m sorry Fleury settled into a life of haranguing his kids, eating too much, seeking pleasure with “passionate” women, impatient with the Collector….
Hurray for Miriam and Dr. McNab and for Harry and Lucy.
Haha I felt bad about being glad about it, too. I suspect we're supposed to. Yes, they're very flawed people in all the way the book points out, and Farrell is very explicit about how their rescue means the horrible deaths of lots of Indians, but I think it's difficult to get to know people even a little bit and not want them to survive. If this was written from the opposite perspective we'd be rooting for them to survive too.
Fleury somehow manages to be irritating when he's anti-Victorian and even more annoying as he gets more Victorian, I don't know how he does it!
Hmm, I don't know about cheering on their demise, but, for example, the other doctor's death was both so darkly funny and so entirely his own doing that it was difficult to feel any sort of humanity towards him, and I don't think it would have made it a poor book (or been particularly surprising) if Farrell had done the same with the other main characters. I thought he might be going that way with with Fleury's single combat at one point. But I suppose my soul is picked in vinegar ;)
Haha, maybe it is! I guess it is just a moral principle that no human deserves to die, and certainly no human deserves to die in pain. I felt for Dr Dunstaple, despite himself. I'm very distrustful of fiction that excites our inhumanity.
I think throughout the whole book I've read Farrell as not exciting our inhumanity, but questioning who gets that humanity status and why, and repeatedly pushing against it. We're so used to colonial heroes and more or less unquestioningly reading books where "natives" aren't really granted that status, like Fleury's single combat, but less self-aware. Even when as modern readers we criticise that viewpoint, I haven't read much that that points it out so explicitly again and again in the text - down to Stapleton commenting the survivors are more like untouchables than English people, the book to me is constantly making the point that the English people are only different to everyone else in their trappings, that they're invaders, that their supposed culture and knowledge is worth very little. That they don't deserve an elevated humanity status, that Dr Dunstable's superstition is no different to that of the people who sacrificed the black rams to make the floods retreat, and in fact, possibly worse as it's more harmful.
And while I agree with you that nobody deserves to die, certainly not in pain, it's normal in any kind of fiction that there are main characters and side characters, and some people's deaths we mourn and some are simply part of the plot, and I think Farrell uses that to echo the dehumanisation of Indians, poor English people, etc, in the book. So I wasn't sure how far Farrell would go in his questioning, and I think he could have used their deaths to do that, too, to strip their humanity in order to question who "deserves" it, if that makes sense. I'm glad he didn't, though. That's how I read it, at least haha.
I cannot believe that nobody has commented on Fleury taking his pistol apart in the middle of heated battle!! Farrell was such a master of using ratcheting up the tension and then throwing in a moment of ridiculous humor to break it.
But I echo the words of many others who have posted here in saying how much I have enjoyed this book that I never would have considered on my own and how appreciative I am of Simon’s fine work.
Thanks again, Simon for another insightful slow read. I was plucked out of my comfort zone with this one but learned so much. You have a special way of breaking open a text to point us towards a better understanding.
Thank you, Simon, for suggesting this strange and excellent novel and for leading the slow read with such a staggering array of additional information. I had not expected the novel to be up so very many of my alleys, nor to have such a unique tone of voice, nor to contain so many thrilling and swashbuckling action scenes. The misappropriation of all the Victorian paraphernalia for military means was as wonderful as it was deadly.
In cholera tangents, I learned only today via a local historian that Fanny Hensel, the sister of Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (the ultimate Victorian composer and friends with Albert and Victoria) and a very fine composer and musician in her own right, actually wrote a Cholera Cantata to commemorate those who died in the first cholera epidemics. https://susanne-wosnitzka.de/fanny-hensel-und-die-cholera-kantate/2020/03/09/ - this is German, but DeepL will certainly oblige. There’s a rousing recording at the end of the blog entry, which I’d like to use to take my bow as your faithful special reporter for cholera.
Poor Fanny wasn’t allowed to conduct her own work because her father (and much-loved but, as I said, very Victorian brother) thought it would be wholly improper for her to do so. I’m sure she was also tired of being a woman at some point…
Also, I cannot be the only one who burst into a rendition of - if not exactly in song - the St Crispin’s Day speech as soon as the gentlemen in England now abed roused their sleepy heads? It was hard to let this novel go.
I had no idea a petard was a little gunpowder explosive. I had always thought that a petard was a rope or a noose, and so Hamlet was saying 'hung by your own noose'. My mind is blown.
Then you have missed out on some of my happiest childhood memories, we used to buy them in France when on school trips then across the channel and scare fellow classmates with the loud bangs
Thank you so much for all your notes and tangents through this! I definitely got a lot more out of it than I would have reading it by myself. I loved knowing about all the background and references I probably would never have looked up!
Also, I loved the description of a "soul pickled in vinegar". I'm going to describe myself this way from now on haha
Thank you Simon and all fellow commentators on this read. I would not have found or selected this book on my own. It was so strange, funny, sad, poignant, shocking and multilayered with meaning. Quite a few laugh out loud moments in the midst of near death suffering. I appreciated Fleury, for his insane moments philosophically and in “windmill” use of saber- even the enemy couldn’t deal with that! And even the Padre took liberal interpretation with the forbidden tree of the knowledge of science and intellect-ha!
Thank you Simon for choosing this book for a slow read. I enjoyed your commentary, footnotes, tangents, and responses to our comments. I am a fan and look forward to all your choices! You really are a gifted host and teacher! Your choices for tangents have been so interesting! I thank the group for thoughtful comments and posting tangents! Especially liked the cholera rabbit hole from Sabine.
This was such a phenomenal reading experience of a book and author that had never been on my radar. I realized on the final pages that a couple of the main characters reminded me of bits and pieces of Ignatius J. Reilly from A Confederacy of Dunces.
I am a Deep South (US) historian, and yet was unfamiliar with the caning of the US senator prior to the American Civil War. Not surprised, though...
This led me to my own tangent -- did Dickens ever refer to gutta-percha in his writings? And of course he did. I discovered this delightful conclusion to his section on 'Walking-Sticks' in 'Household Words' (1852):
"As to the murderous walking-sticks, which thrust out upon you their swords, or dirks, or spring spears, we like them not; their use is only to be tolerated in private gentlemen and editors, who do not feel comfortable in the streets of California or Kentucky without a colt's revolver peeping out of their pockets loaded to the muzzle and on full cock."
I am looking forward to reading 'A Place of Greater Safety' in May. Thanks so much for guiding us in these read-alongs, Simon.
I finished the book last night, and have been looking forward to this post. :) I knew some basic stuff about Britain's history in India, but aside from watching "The Jewel in the Crown" and reading the first book in the series it was based on (40!! years ago now!!), I don't think I'd read much about it, before picking up this book. And I wasn't sure I was going to like it -- but it didn't take me long to realize how wrong I'd been. As usual, Simon's weekly summary posts, "footnotes and tangents" and comments from the other readers, have helped me to better understand and appreciate what we were reading. It also turned out to be funnier than I expected! (despite the subject matter!)
Another happy occasion to send gratitude your way at the end of a slow read, Simon! I had read this book many years ago and remembered that I liked it a lot, but my memory wasn’t fully prepped for Farrell’s incredible dark wit. Thanks to your weekly posts and (as always) phenomenal links to background reading, I also got so much more out of this second reading in terms of the book’s symbolism and historical parallels.
One little request, Simon: Would you mind adding a link for your tip jar to this final Krishnapur post? I (and perhaps others) would like to show my gratitude beyond the annual subscription for all of your work as we come to the end of this fantastic book. If Substack has developed a better way to do this now and I’ve missed it, please let us know. Thank you again and see you in May for APOGS!
Thanks, Sheri! I certainly appreciated the book much more on this re-read, discovering so much more texture that I hadn't noticed before.
I still have my tip jar (https://buy.stripe.com/28o6rz9UMfd1aBibII) but it seems a bit much to shake is too much these days. Last year, subscription income didn't quite cover what I do. Footnotes and Tangents is doing much better this year, so I'm less in need of additional support.
Thanks for the link, Simon, and I’m very glad to hear that Footnotes and Tangents is yielding some better returns for your hard work this year. You truly do a phenomenal job. From my perspective, the tip jar is a great way to mark the end of a book and I sure won’t be put off if you include it once in a while. ;-)
Am I the only one who found it difficult to really connect with this book? I thought so much of it was so farcical, I just couldn't take it seriously.
That said,I really liked the Collector. He seemed to me to have a quality I can only call decency. He didn't condemn Lucy, despite her 'fallen woman' status; he released Hari and the Prime Minister, even while fearing it might be detrimental to security; and he put a stop to that obscene auction of the food, amongst other things.
It was a heart-stopping moment for me when he was leaving Krishnapore and he saw the men drawing water - "and he knew that the same two men and two bullocks would do this ever day until the end of their lives" Yes, India would go on being India it's own particular way, despite all: the East India Company and the British were as nothing when measured against the eons of time, the teeming population, and the vastness of the landcape.
Even though I can understand, after the experiences he had, that he sold off his treasures on his return, I felt truly sorry, that he came to believe that culture was a "sham". I don't believe that this is true, even if it is used by some to elevate their status and to inflate their egos.
I think culture is universally important, whether we are talking about art galleries and classical concerts or football matches; or, as happens in Australia, those who have no interest in horse racing, who still have an annual bet on the Melbourne Cup. (A horse race for which there is national public holiday, and for which the nuns turned on the radio when I was a child in primary school.)
The lasting impression this book will leave with me, is that I am reminded, yet again, of the ways in which we can be so blinded by our own culture that we fail to see richness in other cultures, flawed though they may also be, and that we can even hold them in contempt. This was part of the world Farrell wrote about, and it is still part of our own world.
I think your point on culture is interesting, as it raises the question, what do we mean by culture? And indeed, what does the Collector mean by culture? Here it is wrapped up in ideas of progress and civilisation. And accordingly, other people don't have culture - they just have rituals, ignorance and superstition. It is this idea which I think the Collector is calling "a sham". Today, we would refer to culture in a more pluralistic sense, and see its value and worth in a more complex, multidirectional sense.
This novel felt very British to me, and written in the age of Monty Python. It is farce and tragedy, which I think is a good summary of the British Empire as well. If Britain had for so long told stories of empire that were both serious and deceptive, Farrell is being doubly radical and irreverent: poking fun at the British Empire while exposing its horrors.
No, you aren’t the only one, Glenys. Part of my problem may have been that I have been distracted by other matters during the period of reading this book (but I have tread many other books in that time without any difficulty). The main problem for me was that I was uncomfortable with the distance between Farrell and his characters. He wound them up, set them off to do their worst, and then laughed at them. It’s easy to laugh at Victorian imperialism rlgs fundamentalism, and I am certainly no supporter of either, but like you I don’t find farce a satisfactory vehicle for criticism of them. Which makes me sound very pompous.
A truly phantasmagorical section, closing what has been a wonderful read. I loved the laid-on-with-a-trowel symbolism. The "guilty red core" beneath the stucco -- says it all. And good to remember that when you're firing off statue heads as missiles, Shakespeare works best... I was terribly disappointed by Fleury. I'd previously found him silly but well-meaning. And in this section his farcical qualities are well to the fore, as he fights, Fleury-fashion (in the wrong place, without the right information, and focusing on the wrong thing), but there's still something endearing about him. But then, at the end, he's just an opinionated, dictatorial piece of tedium... I consider myself warned... Anyway, my thanks to everyone. I've really enjoyed following along.
Thank you so much, really enjoyed this. Not a book I would have been likely to have read and will now seek out others of his. Such a tragedy he died young.
Thank you for guiding us through TSOK. I would never have selected this book myself, but had total faith in your choice after being with you from the start of 2024. Great notes and insights as always. Have a fantastic break next month - so well deserved- and I look forward to your return in May. Happy holidays 😎 ✈️ 📕
Thank you for this wonderful slow read Simon I cannot tell you how much I have enjoyed it.
What a tragedy that Farrell died so young I am sure he would have produced so many more admirable novels.
That 18 barrell pepper box pistol may have been impractical to use but it looks bloody amazing.
As an aside, I came across, during some casual conversation, a Wiki entry about the 'Nabobs', which gives an insight into the disruptive nature of men who returned to England with riches from India:
++++
The English use of nabob was for a person who became rapidly wealthy in a foreign country, typically India, and returned home with considerable power and influence. In England, the name was applied to men who made fortunes working for the East India Company and, on their return home, used the wealth to purchase seats in Parliament.
A common fear was that these individuals – the nabobs, their agents, and those who took their bribes – would use their wealth and influence to corrupt Parliament. The collapse of the Company's finances in 1772 due to bad administration, both in India and Britain, aroused public indignation towards the Company's activities and the behaviour of the Company's employees. Samuel Foote gave a satirical look at those men who had enriched themselves through the East India Company in his 1772 play, The Nabob.
Nabobs became immensely popular figures within satirical culture in Britain, often depicted as lazy and materialistic, as well as a lack of temperance when regarding economic affairs in India. Nabobs typically came from middle-class backgrounds and tended to be of Caledonian origin, often being seen as low born social climbers.[13] Nabobs were often seen as challenging traditional values of middle-class British masculinity, as their weak moral grounds projected an effeminate symbol of a virtuous British culture. During the late 18th century, Britain was already struggling to define itself within its own imperial system—one that exposed cultural issues as well as growing the nation financially and socially. By taming the indulgent, uncultivated Nabob, and reintegrating both its character and wealth into sophisticated British society, the empire could reassert their vision of masculinity as well as push the image of an ethically upright middle class.[14] Beliefs that Nabobs, which typically worked as merchants and traders, had overstepped the unspoken socio-economic boundary through the surplus of riches in Asia quickly circulated. Nabobs quickly became weak-minded figures that had given in to the sensual temptation of colonial India that so many generations before them had been successful in resisting. Additionally, ideas of the Nabob’s unfettered opulence and aspiration to rise to governmental positions by unjustly purchasing Parliament seats were condensed into a satirical character.[
This is really interesting, thank you for sharing!
Reminds me a little of our current situation in the US- people that got rich in Tech and use their money to get power and influence in politics…
Reminds a LOT of our current situation in the US. Rule by Nabobs.
Interesting! "Nabob" was (and perhaps still is?) a brand of coffee here in Canada (perhaps elsewhere too?) when I was growing up. (I'm a tea drinker, so I don't pay much attention to coffee, lol.) And I remember a politician (I looked it up; it was Spiro Agnew) saying something about "the nattering nabobs of negativity," but never really thought about what a "nabob" could be. Thanks for this explanation!
Interesting piece
Honestly, for all I said last week about not being attached to the characters, these people have been in my life for two months and it's weird they're not any more! I generally don't believe in reading "faster" or "slower", at least for me I read at the pace I read at, and if I'm thinking about what speed I'm reading about I'm not concentrating on the book. But, having read this piece by piece, I really noticed the benefits of reading it over time, so perhaps slow readers do have an advantage in reading.
I am very glad they got rescued, although of course as I've come to expect from Farrell, the rescue's drama was outweighed by its humour. It's interesting that the Collector seems to be the only one who is reported to have lasting effects from the experience - and interesting that, despite the amount of interiority he has throughout the book, when he is no longer the bastion of knowledge and progress, we lose our insight into his mind.
I finished it over a month ago but that attachment to the Collector still lingers. I felt very emotional at the end and was bemused about how that happened as there's so much satire, they all have, by and large, loathsome (to me) ideas and attitudes, and yet...
I found the end chapter (which I can't look at now to check, as I've lent my copy to a friend) very sad. The Collector was stripped of everything that had given his life and mind meaning. It's an excellent ending.
Agreed, I keep thinking about the Collector now that we're finished, and about how he probably wouldn't have been able to talk about the siege express how he felt to anyone else.
I’m so glad you said that!! I was rooting for them to get rescued and worrying that made me a pro colonial person or something. I am not surprised by Fleury, he has irritated me since January
I WAS surprised by Fleury. Louise rose to commendable heights in the novel and ended with Fleury. I thought he had no chance with her in the beginning but he prevailed.
Unfortunately, while he and Harry were unlikely heroes during the siege, I’m sorry Fleury settled into a life of haranguing his kids, eating too much, seeking pleasure with “passionate” women, impatient with the Collector….
Hurray for Miriam and Dr. McNab and for Harry and Lucy.
Haha I felt bad about being glad about it, too. I suspect we're supposed to. Yes, they're very flawed people in all the way the book points out, and Farrell is very explicit about how their rescue means the horrible deaths of lots of Indians, but I think it's difficult to get to know people even a little bit and not want them to survive. If this was written from the opposite perspective we'd be rooting for them to survive too.
Fleury somehow manages to be irritating when he's anti-Victorian and even more annoying as he gets more Victorian, I don't know how he does it!
We would be severely lacking in humanity if we cheered on their demise. And it would be a very poor book, if that's what we found ourselves doing.
Hmm, I don't know about cheering on their demise, but, for example, the other doctor's death was both so darkly funny and so entirely his own doing that it was difficult to feel any sort of humanity towards him, and I don't think it would have made it a poor book (or been particularly surprising) if Farrell had done the same with the other main characters. I thought he might be going that way with with Fleury's single combat at one point. But I suppose my soul is picked in vinegar ;)
Haha, maybe it is! I guess it is just a moral principle that no human deserves to die, and certainly no human deserves to die in pain. I felt for Dr Dunstaple, despite himself. I'm very distrustful of fiction that excites our inhumanity.
I think throughout the whole book I've read Farrell as not exciting our inhumanity, but questioning who gets that humanity status and why, and repeatedly pushing against it. We're so used to colonial heroes and more or less unquestioningly reading books where "natives" aren't really granted that status, like Fleury's single combat, but less self-aware. Even when as modern readers we criticise that viewpoint, I haven't read much that that points it out so explicitly again and again in the text - down to Stapleton commenting the survivors are more like untouchables than English people, the book to me is constantly making the point that the English people are only different to everyone else in their trappings, that they're invaders, that their supposed culture and knowledge is worth very little. That they don't deserve an elevated humanity status, that Dr Dunstable's superstition is no different to that of the people who sacrificed the black rams to make the floods retreat, and in fact, possibly worse as it's more harmful.
And while I agree with you that nobody deserves to die, certainly not in pain, it's normal in any kind of fiction that there are main characters and side characters, and some people's deaths we mourn and some are simply part of the plot, and I think Farrell uses that to echo the dehumanisation of Indians, poor English people, etc, in the book. So I wasn't sure how far Farrell would go in his questioning, and I think he could have used their deaths to do that, too, to strip their humanity in order to question who "deserves" it, if that makes sense. I'm glad he didn't, though. That's how I read it, at least haha.
I cannot believe that nobody has commented on Fleury taking his pistol apart in the middle of heated battle!! Farrell was such a master of using ratcheting up the tension and then throwing in a moment of ridiculous humor to break it.
But I echo the words of many others who have posted here in saying how much I have enjoyed this book that I never would have considered on my own and how appreciative I am of Simon’s fine work.
That whole scene was quite something!
Thanks again, Simon for another insightful slow read. I was plucked out of my comfort zone with this one but learned so much. You have a special way of breaking open a text to point us towards a better understanding.
Thank you, Simon, for suggesting this strange and excellent novel and for leading the slow read with such a staggering array of additional information. I had not expected the novel to be up so very many of my alleys, nor to have such a unique tone of voice, nor to contain so many thrilling and swashbuckling action scenes. The misappropriation of all the Victorian paraphernalia for military means was as wonderful as it was deadly.
In cholera tangents, I learned only today via a local historian that Fanny Hensel, the sister of Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (the ultimate Victorian composer and friends with Albert and Victoria) and a very fine composer and musician in her own right, actually wrote a Cholera Cantata to commemorate those who died in the first cholera epidemics. https://susanne-wosnitzka.de/fanny-hensel-und-die-cholera-kantate/2020/03/09/ - this is German, but DeepL will certainly oblige. There’s a rousing recording at the end of the blog entry, which I’d like to use to take my bow as your faithful special reporter for cholera.
Poor Fanny wasn’t allowed to conduct her own work because her father (and much-loved but, as I said, very Victorian brother) thought it would be wholly improper for her to do so. I’m sure she was also tired of being a woman at some point…
Also, I cannot be the only one who burst into a rendition of - if not exactly in song - the St Crispin’s Day speech as soon as the gentlemen in England now abed roused their sleepy heads? It was hard to let this novel go.
I had no idea a petard was a little gunpowder explosive. I had always thought that a petard was a rope or a noose, and so Hamlet was saying 'hung by your own noose'. My mind is blown.
I had always assumed the same!
If my French is not failing me, pétard means “farter”. Hoisted by his own - teehee - petard. Once seen, it cannot be unseen!
Those medieval besiegers must have had fun naming their bombs....
Then you have missed out on some of my happiest childhood memories, we used to buy them in France when on school trips then across the channel and scare fellow classmates with the loud bangs
In Spanish, “petardo” means “firecracker”, but I wasn’t sure if that word existed in English, thank you for the note! 😊
Thank you so much for all your notes and tangents through this! I definitely got a lot more out of it than I would have reading it by myself. I loved knowing about all the background and references I probably would never have looked up!
Also, I loved the description of a "soul pickled in vinegar". I'm going to describe myself this way from now on haha
Thank you Simon and all fellow commentators on this read. I would not have found or selected this book on my own. It was so strange, funny, sad, poignant, shocking and multilayered with meaning. Quite a few laugh out loud moments in the midst of near death suffering. I appreciated Fleury, for his insane moments philosophically and in “windmill” use of saber- even the enemy couldn’t deal with that! And even the Padre took liberal interpretation with the forbidden tree of the knowledge of science and intellect-ha!
Thank you Simon for choosing this book for a slow read. I enjoyed your commentary, footnotes, tangents, and responses to our comments. I am a fan and look forward to all your choices! You really are a gifted host and teacher! Your choices for tangents have been so interesting! I thank the group for thoughtful comments and posting tangents! Especially liked the cholera rabbit hole from Sabine.
Thanks, Lisa!
This was such a phenomenal reading experience of a book and author that had never been on my radar. I realized on the final pages that a couple of the main characters reminded me of bits and pieces of Ignatius J. Reilly from A Confederacy of Dunces.
I am a Deep South (US) historian, and yet was unfamiliar with the caning of the US senator prior to the American Civil War. Not surprised, though...
This led me to my own tangent -- did Dickens ever refer to gutta-percha in his writings? And of course he did. I discovered this delightful conclusion to his section on 'Walking-Sticks' in 'Household Words' (1852):
"As to the murderous walking-sticks, which thrust out upon you their swords, or dirks, or spring spears, we like them not; their use is only to be tolerated in private gentlemen and editors, who do not feel comfortable in the streets of California or Kentucky without a colt's revolver peeping out of their pockets loaded to the muzzle and on full cock."
I am looking forward to reading 'A Place of Greater Safety' in May. Thanks so much for guiding us in these read-alongs, Simon.
I too thought of Ignatius while reading this!
I finished the book last night, and have been looking forward to this post. :) I knew some basic stuff about Britain's history in India, but aside from watching "The Jewel in the Crown" and reading the first book in the series it was based on (40!! years ago now!!), I don't think I'd read much about it, before picking up this book. And I wasn't sure I was going to like it -- but it didn't take me long to realize how wrong I'd been. As usual, Simon's weekly summary posts, "footnotes and tangents" and comments from the other readers, have helped me to better understand and appreciate what we were reading. It also turned out to be funnier than I expected! (despite the subject matter!)
I've added "Troubles" to my TBR wish list.
Another happy occasion to send gratitude your way at the end of a slow read, Simon! I had read this book many years ago and remembered that I liked it a lot, but my memory wasn’t fully prepped for Farrell’s incredible dark wit. Thanks to your weekly posts and (as always) phenomenal links to background reading, I also got so much more out of this second reading in terms of the book’s symbolism and historical parallels.
One little request, Simon: Would you mind adding a link for your tip jar to this final Krishnapur post? I (and perhaps others) would like to show my gratitude beyond the annual subscription for all of your work as we come to the end of this fantastic book. If Substack has developed a better way to do this now and I’ve missed it, please let us know. Thank you again and see you in May for APOGS!
Thanks, Sheri! I certainly appreciated the book much more on this re-read, discovering so much more texture that I hadn't noticed before.
I still have my tip jar (https://buy.stripe.com/28o6rz9UMfd1aBibII) but it seems a bit much to shake is too much these days. Last year, subscription income didn't quite cover what I do. Footnotes and Tangents is doing much better this year, so I'm less in need of additional support.
An alternative way of supporting is to buy through my bookshop: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/footnotesandtangents as I get a 10% commission on sales there.
But perhaps the best way to support is just to spread the word!
Thanks for the link, Simon, and I’m very glad to hear that Footnotes and Tangents is yielding some better returns for your hard work this year. You truly do a phenomenal job. From my perspective, the tip jar is a great way to mark the end of a book and I sure won’t be put off if you include it once in a while. ;-)
Am I the only one who found it difficult to really connect with this book? I thought so much of it was so farcical, I just couldn't take it seriously.
That said,I really liked the Collector. He seemed to me to have a quality I can only call decency. He didn't condemn Lucy, despite her 'fallen woman' status; he released Hari and the Prime Minister, even while fearing it might be detrimental to security; and he put a stop to that obscene auction of the food, amongst other things.
It was a heart-stopping moment for me when he was leaving Krishnapore and he saw the men drawing water - "and he knew that the same two men and two bullocks would do this ever day until the end of their lives" Yes, India would go on being India it's own particular way, despite all: the East India Company and the British were as nothing when measured against the eons of time, the teeming population, and the vastness of the landcape.
Even though I can understand, after the experiences he had, that he sold off his treasures on his return, I felt truly sorry, that he came to believe that culture was a "sham". I don't believe that this is true, even if it is used by some to elevate their status and to inflate their egos.
I think culture is universally important, whether we are talking about art galleries and classical concerts or football matches; or, as happens in Australia, those who have no interest in horse racing, who still have an annual bet on the Melbourne Cup. (A horse race for which there is national public holiday, and for which the nuns turned on the radio when I was a child in primary school.)
The lasting impression this book will leave with me, is that I am reminded, yet again, of the ways in which we can be so blinded by our own culture that we fail to see richness in other cultures, flawed though they may also be, and that we can even hold them in contempt. This was part of the world Farrell wrote about, and it is still part of our own world.
I think your point on culture is interesting, as it raises the question, what do we mean by culture? And indeed, what does the Collector mean by culture? Here it is wrapped up in ideas of progress and civilisation. And accordingly, other people don't have culture - they just have rituals, ignorance and superstition. It is this idea which I think the Collector is calling "a sham". Today, we would refer to culture in a more pluralistic sense, and see its value and worth in a more complex, multidirectional sense.
This novel felt very British to me, and written in the age of Monty Python. It is farce and tragedy, which I think is a good summary of the British Empire as well. If Britain had for so long told stories of empire that were both serious and deceptive, Farrell is being doubly radical and irreverent: poking fun at the British Empire while exposing its horrors.
No, you aren’t the only one, Glenys. Part of my problem may have been that I have been distracted by other matters during the period of reading this book (but I have tread many other books in that time without any difficulty). The main problem for me was that I was uncomfortable with the distance between Farrell and his characters. He wound them up, set them off to do their worst, and then laughed at them. It’s easy to laugh at Victorian imperialism rlgs fundamentalism, and I am certainly no supporter of either, but like you I don’t find farce a satisfactory vehicle for criticism of them. Which makes me sound very pompous.
Thanks, Susan, you have described my problem with the book so very well - not pompous at all.
Rlgs =and religious 🥴
A truly phantasmagorical section, closing what has been a wonderful read. I loved the laid-on-with-a-trowel symbolism. The "guilty red core" beneath the stucco -- says it all. And good to remember that when you're firing off statue heads as missiles, Shakespeare works best... I was terribly disappointed by Fleury. I'd previously found him silly but well-meaning. And in this section his farcical qualities are well to the fore, as he fights, Fleury-fashion (in the wrong place, without the right information, and focusing on the wrong thing), but there's still something endearing about him. But then, at the end, he's just an opinionated, dictatorial piece of tedium... I consider myself warned... Anyway, my thanks to everyone. I've really enjoyed following along.
Thank you so much, really enjoyed this. Not a book I would have been likely to have read and will now seek out others of his. Such a tragedy he died young.