By Thalassa Ali
Rated: ★★★★
This is a book that Jani passed along to me and because I am basically an unorganized person it hasn't bothered me one bit that I read this last book of a trilogy before I read the first two. This final volume of Ali's colonial India trilogy is supposed to follow A Singular Hostage and A Beggar at the Gate but is just fine as a stand-a-lone.
The story takes place in Kabul, Afghanistan, where Mariana Givens and her fellow Brits are living in a military camp. Tensions between the Afghanis and the British are on the rise, but the British feel that their military might and modern weaponry are enough to crush the Afghan rebels. Mariana's marriage to Hassan Ali Khan (see A Singular Hostage) makes her an outcast, since Englishwomen aren't expected to interact with the "natives."
The story is ostensibly about a woman torn between two cultures but what really made this book resonate with me was as a description of the role of the British in Afghanistan along with all their faults and blunders. Also there are some really good descriptions of Indian and Afghan characters and the local Afghanistan city of Kabul with it's colorful marketplaces. Where things sort of came apart for me was that Mariana was on one hand extrairordinarily stupid in her relationships and then some kind of a language whiz in which she can learn languages well enough to understand and translate complex poetry. I guess people can be very smart with books and dumb with people but I found it annoying because had the love story been better written this would be a truly great trilogy. Overall I suspect that Mariana exists simply for the author to tell her story of the Afghan War. In that respect this book is beautifully written. This author does history very well. It's a shame she doesn't do relationships as well.
I have the other two books on the reserve list at the library. But one again I have to say a special thanks to Jani. I doubt that I would have been aware of these books had it not been for her.
No comments:
Post a Comment