Review: The Siege of Krishnapur
Editorial Review - Kirkus ReviewsAn isolated British garrison falls prey to the 1857 Sepoy rebellion. The native Indian mutineers never really figure in this semicomic tapestry of colonial types: the image is rather that of black insects swarming over a white body. (When this literally happens to one Englishwoman her young rescuers are perplexed as to whether her pubic hair is human or verminous -- Farrell's idea of a stout anti-Victorian joke.) The besieged officials sustain a teatime bravado amidst cholera and stench and swelter; their leader is an outside rationalist called the Collector, a derisory, pontificating sponsor of the Queen's Progress. Farrell's refusal to romanticize teeming India is matched by his inability to mount the least of moving insights. Like his characters, he believes in phrenology, tracing the bumps and concavities of a singular time and place without penetrating its humanity. Farrell has an admiring audience in England -- he's a good writer if never able to overcome a certain aridity -- as in the earlier novels Troubles and A Girl in the Head.
Review: The Siege Of Krishnapur (Empire Trilogy #2)
User Review - Alex Rendall - GoodreadsSieges are often thought of as events that took place long ago and far away, in Medieval castles in foreign lands. The Siege of Krishnapur is certainly geographically remote from Farrell's own ... Read full review
Review: The Siege of Krishnapur (Empire Trilogy #2)
User Review - Sayantan - GoodreadsReally not what I expected, turned out to be way better. The "siege" in the title might lead you to believe this is a grim and gory tale of a last stand. Again seeing the 1857 connection, you might ... Read full review
Review: The Siege of Krishnapur (Empire Trilogy #2)
User Review - Bill Goode - GoodreadsInteresting ideas, good historical fiction, good descriptions, exciting action scenes, interesting characters. Unfortunately dialogue was not that great, holds it back a little. I did learn quite a bit about a part of British colonial history that I didn't know anything about. Read full review
Review: The Siege of Krishnapur (Empire Trilogy #2)
User Review - Jrobertus - GoodreadsI read this novel many years ago but loved it. It is part of Farrell's Empire Trilogy and is set in the Great Indian Uprising of 1857. A group of English soldiers and families is trapped for four ... Read full review
Review: The Siege of Krishnapur (Empire Trilogy #2)
User Review - Rishi Garg - GoodreadsWritten like a Victorian novel, I found myself waiting for the climax of the story, and for it to be, finally, some expression of the Indian/sepoy point of view. But instead, I was unsure what point ... Read full review
Review: The Siege Of Krishnapur (Empire Trilogy #2)
User Review - Tiny - GoodreadsI loved this book. It is set in colonial India, at the time of a sepoy uprising that spread across the country, finally reaching the outpost where the cast of colourful characters live, terribly ... Read full review
Review: The Siege of Krishnapur (Empire Trilogy #2)
User Review - Jenn - GoodreadsI loved this, its the best book I've read in ages, maybe helped by being an era I'm interested in anyway. It'a a fictionalised account of the Seige of Lucknow during the Indian mutiny of the 1850s. It ... Read full review
Review: The Siege of Krishnapur (Empire Trilogy #2)
User Review - Kim - GoodreadsPart of JG Farrell's trilogy of Empire -- this one covering the brutal siege of a British outpost in India. The story shows without telling the impossibility of the British position in India and the ... Read full review
Review: The Siege of Krishnapur (Empire Trilogy #2)
User Review - Jeanne Julian - GoodreadsThis is one in a trilogy by JG Farrell, a truly great writer (so sorry he died young!), which elucidates the folly and tragedy of Empire with stories set in Ireland, India, and Singapore. I read "The ... Read full review
