2013 June - The Siege of Krishnapur - J.G. Farrell

The story is set in the fictional town of Krishnapur during the Indian mutiny of 1857 and tells of a besieged British garrison which holds out for four months against an army of native sepoys. Among the community are the Collector, who is an extremely Victorian believer in progress and father of small children and who can often be found daydreaming of the Great Exhibition; the Magistrate a Chartist in his youth but who sees his youthful political ideals destroyed by witnessing the siege; Dr Dunstaple and Dr McNab who row over the best way to treat cholera; Fleury, a poetical young man from England who learns to become a soldier and Lucy a "fallen" woman rescued from a bungalow who eventually presides over a tea salon serving hot water in the despairing community. By the end of the novel cholera, starvation and the sepoys have killed off most of the inhabitants, who are reduced to eating dogs, horses and finally beetles, their teeth much loosened by scurvy. When the relieving force finally arrives they have so little idea of what the survivors have suffered that they offer alcoholic drinks all round .

We thought the book a marvellous mixture of tragedy and comedy ; horror and bravery . The story highlighted the need for people to believe in something in order to survive an extreme challenge . They needed to believe that the Collector was up to the job of leading them , and we saw the strain this put on a very able man . They also needed to maintain apparently trivial rituals of normal social life in order to keep up their spirits and prevent descent into uncivilised behaviour . The book also showed the gulf in understanding between the British and Indian communities and cultures .

Marks: High 9 , Low 6 , Average 7.5

Added comments from OL: Not what I expected at all.  Very clever. Humour in desperate situation well conveyed and very surprising.. I loved some of the set pieces like Lucy's teaparty, and the doctors' spats, The horror was there all the time however, and very vividly portrayed. Perhaps some of the women did not quite come to life.

I usually hate "For Reading Groups" at the end of a book but did think one question in this one was interesting,  something like this:  This book won the Booker prize in 1973; do you think it would have been likely to win in recent years, and if not why not?

I don't think it would, but cannot work out why that is what I think -

Mark from me 9