Quite apart from the sheer weight of the book, when a chap starts a
novel by listing all 54 sons of the Amir Dost Mohammed Khan by
name, the experienced reader at once senses that here's a bloke
who's going to allow himself plenty of space to tell his story. And
so it proves. But what a story. Philip Hensher has taken an
all-but-forgotten fragment of history - the build-up to the First
Afghan War soon after Victoria's accession to the throne - and
fashioned a compelling and marvellous tale set in Calcutta, the
slums of Kabul, the drawing-rooms of Mayfair, the brothels of St
Petersburg and a decaying country house in Gloucestershire. He
casts his net wide, and the opening of the novel in the Amir's
palace is more than a bit like reading the Old Testament; but this
piece of narrative is vital in that it shows the antiquated
background against which the invasion of the clottish British
military force is set. The author handles his enormous cast of
eccentric stereotypes with the fascination he obviously feels, and
a lot of historical figures (among them Lord Palmerston and Queen
Victoria herself) flit across the scene in the course of the book,
which adds to the fun. Tricky things as a rule, historical novels,
but handled here by a master of the craft: take his description of
an ageing Afghan potentate as 'a moulting crow held together with
rubies'. This story of blunt-headed, scarlet-clad soldiers
representing civilization and imposing themselves on traditions
that are timelessly ancient is both brutish and shocking. This is a
magnificent book: it echoes Paul Scott, Patrick O'Brian, William
Golding and even Jane Austen, and demands to be read. An odd
masterpiece, and a wonderful achievement. (Kirkus UK)
With The Mulberry Empire, Philip Hensher, in his fourth book, has now happened upon a subject that suits his many talents perfectly. It’s a seemingly straightforward historical novel that recounts an episode in the Great Game in central Asia – the courtship, betrayal and invasion of Afghanistan in the 1830s by the emissaries of Her Majesty’s Empire, which is followed by the bloody and summary expulsion of the Brits from Kabul following an Afghani insurrection (shades of the Soviet Union’s final imperial fling in the very same country in the 1980s).
The novel has at its heart the encounter between West and East as embodied in the likeable, complex relationship between Alexander Burnes, leader of the initial British expeditionary party, and the wily, cultured Afghani ruler, the Amir Dost Mohammed Khan.
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