A slog through history

Historical fiction is not easy to write, I should think. It demands extensive research to be convincing, but at the same time the research needs to be painted in gently, filling the background, with the story in the foreground, and with the characters behaving appropriately for their period. There is outstanding historical fiction like Amitav Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies or Louise Erdrich’s The Night Watchman, but even less well-known books like Brinda Charry’s The East Indian can be really well done.

The English Problem, alas, is historical fiction that lands with a thud. The author has certainly done research, but is all too eager to display this research to the reader: the characters therefore produce long expositions on history and culture at frequent intervals.

[Shiv’s English host, Mr Polak] “Well, sit down, son, and let me put it all in context. First, a bit of history you may not know. [..] The Inns of Court begin in 1215, when a tyrannical king, King John, agreed to the central condition of the Magna Carta ….”

Lucy gave him some history and background. “In the 1830s, Thomas Carlyle came up with the idea for a public library. He found benefactors and public support, and it became an institution in 1841.”[..] Lucy went on to list everyone who had belonged there, from George Eliot, to Dickens, Hardy, T.S. Eliot, E.M. Forster, H.G.Wells, all members.

and each such account goes on for pages of stolid dialogue.

The author’s temptation to include fictionalized real life characters must have been strong, because several turn up here — Gandhi (but not any other Indians involved in the freedom struggle, oddly), Virginia Woolf, E.M. Forster, and so on. Gandhi appears early: he meets a 10 year old Shiv Advani who is immediately enthralled.

Shiv, then ten, watched as Gandhi walked into their house, instantly drawn to him. When he opened his mouth to speak, everyone stopped whatever they were doing and turned towards him. He had lit them. They longed to serve him.

Gandhi, in turn, is so impressed by this meeting with young Shiv that over the course of the book, he corresponds with him regularly and decides his future. First, train as a lawyer in England. Shiv struggles successfully through a law degree and barrister training, and one would think Gandhi would then be pleased to have such a brilliant lawyer available in England to argue the cause of Indian freedom. But no, Gandhi promptly tells him to switch gears entirely and start a magazine for the purported purpose of increasing awareness among intellectuals of India’s freedom struggle. This conveniently allows the author to place Shiv among the Bloomsbury intellectuals of the time, where he meets Virginia Woolf and Forster and so on.

Then, abruptly, after a few issues of the magazine are released, Gandhi announces that project is satisfactorily completed (!), and Shiv is to return to being a lawyer, but now in pre-Independence India. This is a lot of authorial deus ex machina for a reader to accept.

The novel follows Shiv, but he is a cipher. He follows whatever he is told to do, whether by his parents (get married before you go to England) or Gandhi (become a lawyer) — or by the author.

It was Shiv’s life they were talking about. But he observed it dispassionately. It stretched before him, a long dark road that would be shaped and paved by others. [..] But nothing would come from starting an argument with them — Indian parents had full power over their children.

He marries, sleeps with his wife exactly once, and then leaves for many years, showing no interest in her or the son he managed to beget. In London he meets a beguiling young man, Lucien, and falls into an all-consuming, complete, unexpected love. This departure from the norm holds possibilities for both Shiv and the novel, but alas fizzles out. Later, he meets another young beauty, Julia, followed by marriage and a daughter. Shiv’s love affairs, which take up much of the book, are described in purple prose:

felt himself as totally in love with another human being as it was possible to be [..] Desire toed no lines, had no geography. [..] irresistible, as essential as oxygen [..]

Throughout the book, Shiv is internally tormented and intensely sensitive.

He silently seethed, yet said nothing.

He stared at his listless feet in despair.

He looked forward only to bed and sleep.

Shiv trembles before the front door of his flat, filled with a sense of foreboding.

Shiv’s internal conflicts can become tedious reading, and a reader will find few examples of his oft-mentioned brilliance.

The book contains two improbable child characters. One is Shiv’s son, Sher, who finally meets his father after 18 years. Despite having been abandoned before birth, he bears no bitterness, and is delighted to meet Shiv. The second child is Shiv’s daughter by Julia: at the age of 3 she is packed off from England to Sind to live with Shiv’s parents. The week-long journey does not affect her at all, and she settles down immediately: the dramatic change of family, food, language, and environment apparently bothers her not at all.

History is presented, but often without depth or analysis. After a Hindu-Muslim riot in Sind, Shiv’s father sternly tells the local English judge:

“My people, of all religious denominations, respect one another. I have personally given them my word that they will be safe, that no infighting will be tolerated, that all will be left in peace to worship at the altars of their choice.”

If all the people respect one another, why is it necessary to ban infighting or require the British to maintain order? Several Hindu and Muslim men were killed, after which apparently the community ‘mourned together’ — in which case, who exactly killed the men? The reader is left to deduce and analyze on their own.

The novel is full of ambitious but unappealing metaphors:

The planets of the heart were desire, obstruction and reason: its watery terrain the emotions.

The swans came flying in on a magic white carpet made by their enormous spread wings. They stood aloft there for a moment, then alighted, their wingspans thunder-clapping across the water in a blaze of sound.

Her jowly face and bejeweled fingers glinted: her inquisitive eyes were like lice combs as they teased out his discomfort.

That last one, I admit, did make me laugh out loud.

This is a long novel that feels like a plod, and ends abruptly with many hanging threads. Not recommended.

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