The Far Pavilions

Ok, I am not quite finished yet with Bantwal's excellent tale of love and mystery, The Forbidden Daughter, but I hope to be by tomorrow. In the meantime, after my last post I have been thinking a lot about my favorite book, which I mentioned, M.M. Kaye's The Far Pavilions. I usually read it annually, but probably won't be able to do that this year due to the extensive size of it. As I had said, it is nearly as long as Clarissa and takes two or three weeks to read, which obviously isn't condusive to this little project I have going. So, I thought I would dedicate one post to thinking about such a great book anyway.

From the very first time I read this book, when I was thirteen, it took my breath away. I should mention that I grew up on stories of India as my fairytales, which definitely helped. In her school years, my mom had spent some time in India and loved it. So I have thought of India in romantic and adventurous terms since early childhood. However, Kaye's epic saga really doesn't even need any prepping to love it. Yes, it is long, but so is Harry Potter and do we really notice it? When a novel pulls you in so thoroughly, you don't even register the fact that you are churning through hundreds of pages.

The setting is colonial India, mid 19th century to be exact, and spans around thirty years. You might say this is a sort of Bildungsroman, but I am not sure that category truly fits. The story follows the life of Ashton/Ashok Pelham-Martin, a young British man born to a wandering British professor and his young inexperienced wife. However, immediately in the first pages, events necessitate his being carried away and hid by his Hindu nanny, who then raises him disguised as her own son. Although the plot runs the course from birth to adulthood, Kaye's writing is brilliant enough and so completely full of passion, intrigue and adventure that every stage of life sucks you in. You will fall completely in love with the main character and experience his ups and downs of love and battle just as passionately as the characters themselves. The one thing you must remember when reading this is to just surrender to it. Allow the vivid imagery Kaye provides to draw you in, forgive yourself for dreaming that the characters might just be real and simply live this book.

Speaking of realistic characters, many of them are just that. I don't mean just believable, but rather, I mean they are real. Kaye did TONS of research and the plausibility of this work does not just stem from the details her early life lived in colonial India allowed. One of the main characters in Ash's life was in fact her actual relative. In fact, with the exception of the two main characters, a great many of the people and facts are based in reality. If you ever wanted to know more of India/Pakistan/Afghanistan's history during this period, this is a great way to take it in. In fact, in light of our current American engagement in the area (Afghanistan and to an extent, Pakistan) I think more people should read this. The details of the Second Anglo-Afghani War as described here are pretty truthful. In my readings since 9/11 I have found this book has actually made me understand the situation over there somewhat better. Also, when reading, keep in mind that many of the main areas discussed in this work and labeled as India, are actually in Pakistan today. It was all the same thing in the 19th century. If you can, try to get ahold of a copy with the map in the front, although I think those are harder to get these days.

This epic was so beloved in its heyday that multiple attempts to dramatize it have been made. To my knowledge, there has been a mini-series/film made as well as a Broadway style play which ran in London for awhile. Although I have heard that the play was somewhat better, to my understanding, neither comes close to the greatness of the book. I know the film at least, and I suspect the play as well, only works with the first half of the book up through the culmination of the love story and completely disregards the part dealing with the war. While that first part happens to be my favorite, you must read the whole thing once. I admit to not having seen either (both hard to come by), but seriously, just give in and surrender yourself to the book. I mean, really, has any filming of a book really done it justice??

So, that is my one post tribute to the greatest literary work to come across my path. If you read nothing else from my blog this year, read this one. It is truly one of the greats. If you didn't catch it earlier, the link to this book is located in the previous post. Go find yourself a copy and set aside some time to plunge headfirst into Kaye's India.

Happy reading!
Sarah