I did recognize your putting “absolutely nothing” in italics sent a message, but I thought, and still think, that the message was/is that you were signaling – not that the following comment was tongue in cheek and humorous – but that you were serious. That, at least, is what I would mean by such syntax. In that reading the humor would be that the reader should reverse the meaning of the phrase. Then, by continuing along that line with,

“And I haven’t read Troubles, the winner of the Lost Booker Prize, but I have read The Siege of Krishnapur, and I’ve read Mary Renault’s Fire from Heaven, and I thought Fire from Heaven was better,”

you reinforce the reader’s conclusion (confusion?) that you are in fact serious, and that my interpretation is corroborated. I read and re-read that paragraph looking for evidence that I was wrong in my understanding. I’m sorry for getting it wrong nonetheless.

Without getting into why I think the critique deepened over the course of the book – for a devastating statement see the final chapter eg – I do think the critique was deep, which is the important thing.

Goodness, you read my post as being very critical — more critical, in fact, than I think it actually was. What bothered me about the book was that Farrell sets out with a particular cast of characters, and a particular view of empire, and neither the characters nor the critique develop over the course of the book. The characters were funny and pathetic and exquisitively well-drawn, but they were the same people on the last page as on the first. Better character development would have made it a stronger book, in my opinion.

I did and do think that the critique of empire fails to deepen over the course of the book. Devastating, yes, but it didn’t feel layered to me, the way it did to you. I expect that’s just a function of our being different readers and bringing different things to the book.

The Mary Renault paragraph was a joke (mostly a joke — kidding on the square, I believe they call it?). I signaled it as a joke by introducing it with jokey italics. It had occurred to me, as I was writing the post, that my mild resentment of Farrell for winning over Mary Renault might have given me a subconscious bias against The Siege of Krishnapur as I was reading it. So I was poking fun at myself for that. The point of the joke was (a) to disclose this bias that may have colored my reading of Siege; and (b) to highlight the absurdity of the bias by phrasing its disclosure in a way that played up how utterly ill-founded it was.

(I realize you are probably sitting there thinking, That’s not funny at all!, which, yes, it wasn’t that funny to start with, and now that I’ve explained it really painstakingly, it is zero funny. But it was a little bit funny when I did it.)

This refers of course to the claim that the book is “almost solely through the eyes of the Europeans.” Not really true in any case. The attitudes of the Indians comes thru strongly on virtually every page. Not explicitly, but certainly by indirection. This is, after all, literature.

I do not understand why you would say that “The critique of empire and its creations was there throughout, but it didn’t deepen over the course of the book.” I saw level after level revealed as the siege progressed. It was almost as if I were watching an archeological excavation. By the end the critique of Empire was utterly devastating.

Finally, I was stunned by your assertion that “Mary Renault, and not J.G. Farrell, should have won the Lost Booker Prize. J.G. Farrell already won one! And I haven’t read Troubles, the winner of the Lost Booker Prize, but I have read The Siege of Krishnapur, and I’ve read Mary Renault’s Fire from Heaven, and I thought Fire from Heaven was better.”

Geez! What does whether Farrell has already won a Booker have anything to do with whether Troubles was the best of 1970?! Has critical judgment become a thing of fairness rather than quality? And how can you compare Fire to Siege and conclude that Fire is better than Troubles, which you have not even read? I don’t understand any of this.

You owe your readers better.

Now I need to get cracking and write my review, to explain myself further.

Me too! All the time! I am always trying to think of ways to save myself time and effort and misery later on, and it’s lovely when one of my schemes pans out. :p

But that may be just me, and may definitely have something to do with the fact that the plot wasn’t very exciting. You’d think a book about a battle would be interesting! Alas, no. So I had to put all my eggs in the character-development basket, and that didn’t work out for me.

Troubles is better, you say? Okay, well, when I try again with Farrell, and I probably will because he made me smile and I like colonial encounters stories, I’ll try Troubles.

I love The Charioteer so, so, so much. So few people have read it! I tried to make my mother and sister read it, and they both thought it was boring. Very sad for me. I’m glad you liked it too! It’s probably my favorite Renault book, in spite of the not-nice way she portrays effeminate men. The writing is so beautiful and the subtext so gorgeously tense.

Hahaha, you and Jill have a grim view of humanity! :p