Holder Of The World [Paperback]

Neither as accessible as Jasmine nor as superbly crafted as National Book Critics Circle Award-winner The Middleman and Other Stories , Mukherjee's new novel is a challenging work that engages the intellect more than the heart. Narrator Beigh Masters is a Yale grad who has put her history degree to use in "assets research," tracking down rare art and jewels for wealthy clients. Her pet research project involves Hannah Easton, born in Massachusetts in 1670, who went on to marry an English trader, journey with him to India at the dawn of European colonization and become the lover of a Hindu prince. This novel is Hannah's story, told by Beigh with an emphasis on the themes that interest her: the nature of time, the merit of attempts to recapture the past, the collision of values that inevitably occurs when New World meets Old, the power wielded by unconventional women in a hidebound society and the revenge that such a society exacts. Mukherjee writes with her customary elegant lucidity; her insights into 17th-century America, England and India are as tough-minded and astute as anything she has written about contemporary society; and she spins a rousing narrative of greed, lust, battles and betrayals. Readers may feel somewhat aloof from Hannah, who is viewed always from a distance, but an abundance of interesting ideas partly compensates for the book's lack of an emotional center.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Exotic locales and historical-genealogical connections color this novel by the author of Jasmine ( LJ 7/89). Beigh is a contemporary New England woman of Indian (that is, "Indian-Indian, not wah-wah Indian") heritage, who is in love with technocrat Venn from India. Beigh is obsessed with antiquities. The graduate work she was doing on the Puritans had led her to the discovery of one of her ancestors, a Hannah Easton, who traveled from her home in New England all the way to India with her trader husband. The author has woven together Hannah's story with Beigh's search for ancient jewels and legends. Mukherjee writes about all these unusual times and places with a style that is mesmerizing. Unfortunately, the dialog of bygone eras too frequently sounds contrived. Recommended for larger fiction collections.
- Ann H. Fisher, Radford P.L., Va.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Mukherjee (The Middleman, 1988; Jasmine, 1989, etc.), the tale of a 17th-century American girl who ends up an emperor's mistress in India. Hannah Easton, born in 1670 in the forests of Massachusetts, at age 15 moves to Salem with adoptive parents after her father dies of a bee sting and her mother--during the French and Indian War--runs off with a lover from the Nipmuc tribe. Having witnessed scalpings and worse, and harboring the terrible secret of her mother's having gone over to the ``barbarians,'' Hannah is a deeper well than most young girls, suffering trance-like illnesses but also excelling at needlework--including the surgical variety, learned in the war. Her oddnesses, though, are no impediment to marriage with the dashing adventurer Gabriel Legge, who takes her first to England, then to India, where Gabriel joins the East India Company before going independent as a pirate--a calling that will bring him fame and wealth, but also, at last, death. And Hannah? Her story is never simple, nor are her dealings either with English colonial society or with native Indian society, and in time she will become nothing less than loving mistress--or ``bibi''--of the Raja Jadav Singh, will survive a religious war, save her lover's life (through surgery), slay a victorious Muslim general, plead for peace before the Emperor Aurengzeb himself, then barely survive a second war--and possess an invaluable gem--before at last going home to Salem, where her life, along with that of her daughter (named, interestingly, Pearl), will continue quietly for some time. The narrator is a present-day American woman, an ``asset hunter'' whose assiduous research into the past is motivated as much by a desire for understanding as for money; her voice allows Mukherjee's enormous learnedness here to be worn lightly, and pulls her story along like a merchantman under full sail. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Mukherjee (The Middleman, 1988; Jasmine, 1989, etc.), the tale of a 17th-century American girl who ends up an emperor's mistress in India. Hannah Easton, born in 1670 in the forests of Massachusetts, at age 15 moves to Salem with adoptive parents after her father dies of a bee sting and her mother - during the French and Indian War - runs off with a lover from the Nipmuc tribe. Having witnessed scalpings and worse, and harboring the terrible secret of her mother's having gone over to the "barbarians," Hannah is a deeper well than most young girls, suffering trance-like illnesses but also excelling at needlework - including the surgical variety, learned in the war. Her oddnesses, though, are no impediment to marriage with the dashing adventurer Gabriel Legge, who takes her first to England, then to India, where Gabriel joins the East India Company before going independent as a pirate - a calling that will bring him fame and wealth, but also, at last, death. And Hannah? Her story is never simple, nor are her dealings either with English colonial society or with native Indian society, and in time she will become nothing less than loving mistress - or "bibi" - of the Raja Jadav Singh, will survive a religious war, save her lover's life (through surgery), slay a victorious Muslim general, plead for peace before the Emperor Aurengzeb himself, then barely survive a second war - and possess an invaluable gem - before at last going home to Salem, where her life, along with that of her daughter (named, interestingly, Pearl), will continue quietly for some time. The narrator is a present-day American woman, an "asset hunter" whose assiduous research into the past is motivated as much by a desire for understanding as for money; her voice allows Mukherjee's enormous learnedness here to be worn lightly, and pulls her story along like a merchantman under full sail. (Kirkus Reviews) --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

This is the remarkable story ofHannah Easton, a unique woman born in the American colonies in 1670, "aperson undreamed of in Puritan society." Inquisitive, vital and awake toher own possibilities, Hannah travels to Mughal, India, with her husband, andEnglish trader. There, she sets her own course, "translating" herselfinto the Salem Bibi, the white lover of a Hindu raja.

It is also the story of BeighMasters, born in New England in the mid-twentieth century, an "assethunter" who stumbles on the scattered record of her distant relative's lifewhile tracking a legendary diamond. As Beigh pieces together details of Hannah'sjourneys, she finds herself drawn into the most intimate and spellbinding fabricof that remote life, confirming her belief that with "sufficient passionand intelligence, we can decontrsuct the barriers of time andgeography...."

BHARATI MUKHERJEE is the author of seven novels, twonon-fiction books and two collections of short stories, including TheMiddleman and Other Stories, for which she won the National BookCritics Circle Award. She is a professor of English at the University ofCalifornia, Berkeley, and lives in San Francisco.