- Hardcover: 496 pages
- Publisher: Knopf; 1 Amer ed edition (Aug 27 2002)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0375414886
- ISBN-13: 978-0375414886
- Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 16.8 x 3.6 cm
- Shipping Weight: 862 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #602,039 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
Award-winning novelist Philip Hensher announces a radical departure from his earlier books with The Mulberry Empire, an extraordinarily ambitious, sprawling historical epic that deals with the route of the British from Afghanistan in the late 1830s. Hensher has established a reputation as a waspish commentator on contemporary English and European life in previous novels like Pleasured, but in The Mulberry Empire he draws on an earlier tradition of Kipling, Trollope, and Conrad to recreate the moment at which the early 19th century eyed Afghanistan as an addition to its growing Asian Empire.
The novel begins in Kabul with the arrival of Burnes, an ambitious young Scot, eager to open up the country to the English. News of his arrival soon reaches the Amir, for whom "the arrival of the new European in town was like the dropping of a rock into the opaque pool of water which was the city, ruffling the surface immediately in ordinary and predictable ways, but disturbing the substance and mass beneath in a manner which could not be seen, or predicted." Hensher then weaves his story between Burnes's return to London, his romance with the daughter of an opium-addicted hero of Trafalgar, the Amir's court, encounters with Carlyle and Palmerston, and the bloody "Great Game" of imperial politics that catapults the novel into the murderous events with which its culminates. Hensher's novel takes on added significance following the events of September 11, but ultimately he is unable to control the vastness of his historical canvas. At times the book unwittingly reads like a parody of the purple colonial prose of Rider Haggard, and many of its descriptions of Afghanistan and its people are painfully exotic and orientalist. Hensher should be applauded for extending his novelist range, but not for the results. --Jerry Brotton
From Publishers Weekly
Hensher's ambitious new novel (his first to be published in the United States) concerns a lesser-known chapter of Afghan history the British occupation of Kabul in 1839. In the mid-1830s, Alexander Burnes, a British officer, became the London sensation du jour after publishing a book on his adventures in the East, including his encounters with the Afghan prince, Amir Dost Mohammed Khan. His book roused British interest in Afghanistan, a possible new colony and market. Fearing that the Russians might take Kabul first, the British marched into the city, ousted the Amir, and replaced him with one favored by their ally, the Punjabi king. Though the British troops succeeded and remained encamped outside Kabul for three years, the Afghanis at last attacked and sent 16,000 British troops retreating through the valley of their death: they were ambushed, and only one survived. Adopting a part timeless, part ironic storytelling voice, Hensher follows several characters in this vast tapestry: Burnes, of course, and the Amir, but also Bella Garraway, the woman the Amir courts during his year in London; Charles Masson, a British deserter who finds refuge in Kabul; and Vitkevich, a Wilde-like Russian emissary, among many others. Mastering the light touch necessary for a complex history, Hensher moves easily from realm to realm, though he best captures the vanities of society whether of Britain's "upper few thousand" or Moscow's salons. The shifting focus weakens the drama, but what Hensher loses in tension he makes up for in information. Thus the reader learns Persian has six words for mulberry a holy fruit of Islam and Pushto, uncountable. For the post-modern, post-empire reader, ironies abound, and gently as Hensher tells it, the tale is cautionary: any nation should think twice before unseating a foreign prince.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
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Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Expansion of the British Empire,
By
This review is from: The Mulberry Empire: A Novel (Paperback)
Set during the 1830's MULBERRY EMPIRE focuses on the expansion of the British Empire into central Asia. Already holding India as a prized possession, Britain looks beyond the horizon to Afghanistan in hopes of dominating trading and beating the Russians. At the center of the novel is Alexander Burnes, a Scot, who publishes a book about his travel experiences to Kabul that sends literary waves throughout London and beyond and draws attention to the need for expanding the British throne into Afghanistan. Alternating between London and Afghanistan this novel attempts to highlight the historic role of western powers in Asia. Books that fall into the genre of historical fiction are often hit or miss, and MULBERRY EMPIRE falls somewhere in between. Some passages are awe-inspiring while the remainders are downright clunkers. I greatly enjoyed the chapters devoted to London and the character of Charles Masson. Philip Hensher's descriptions of the Season and the upper class bring the characters to life on the page. His metaphors are witty and repeatedly brought a smile to my face. These aspects are the true highlights of this novel. It is unfortunate that the remainder of this book can often be dull and disappointing. Hensher's prose tends to be reminiscent of Victorian-era authors who were often paid by the word and therefore expanded their writing into dreadful details and painful insights. On the cover Hensher is described as a modern-day Dickins and Tolstoy. While the verdict is still out on that claim I have to admit that I was disappointed in THE MULBERRY EMPIRE, and would hesitate recommending it to others.
1.0 out of 5 stars
Sore Disappointment Awaits Readers,
By
This review is from: The Mulberry Empire: A Novel (Paperback)
Sore Disappointment Awaits Readers: A Book Review of Mulberry Empire by Philip Hensher.The Mulberry Empire takes off with an immediate hook, a seemingly interesting plot, amusing detail and gloriously luxuriant description. Various characters meet in far away and exotic locations in the mid 19th century: Afghanistan, the African continent, Russia, the English countryside and in the homes of the highest of high society London. This story begins: "The Amir Dost Mohammed Khad had fifty four sons. And his favorite among these sons was Akbar". The novel lures the reader with stimulation of the senses: "Kabel you did not need to walk the streets to map them in their olfactory manner; you only need to sit by the window and wait for a breeze". We are introduced to a few interesting men that find themselves in various circumstances, for various reasons, in Afghanistan. The most intriguing of the lot is Masson, a rogue who kills a fellow soldiers on guard duty, who watched as he had been raped by another soldier. Once he escapes he seems to find his place in the world. "Masson, speaking, improvising, in Persian, felt as if a new personality had been vouchsafed to him, and he observed this flirtatious antidotal multifarious new passion from outside, observing the transformation with an inner astonishment" Unfortunately, the British connections and characters are the undoing of this potentially fantastic tale. A plethora of plots, subplots, character inclusions and location changes aide in the collapse of the novel at its mid-point. Perhaps it's not a novel for non-English, non-military history book readers. Due to the brilliant beginning, I felt driven to read on; I was sorely disappointed. The initial excellence perishes in the effluvia of the Victorian kitchen sink that is thrown in. The only manner of enjoying this book is to read the first one hundred pages, then reader beware.
1.0 out of 5 stars
Get a blue pencil,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Mulberry Empire: A Novel (Paperback)
Other reviewers comment that the story seems to ramble, that it proceeds at a leisurely pace, that it's plodding, and that it's overdone. Yeah, well, to me those are three good reasons not to buy this book. Hensher likes to hear himself talk, but why do you want to spend money to listen? I love to savor good historical fiction, but in this case I was skipping pages just to get the story moving. I usually pass books on to friends, but this book was such a frustrating reading experience that it went straight into the garbage.
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