TBR Jar review: White Mughals. Love and Betrayal in Eighteenth-Century India by William Dalrymple

I expected this to be fiction based on true events, but actually it is a non-fiction book detailing the life and love of James Kirkpatrick in India. It is marketed as a great love story between an English man and an Indian woman, destined to be kept apart by race, religion and social standards but overcoming the odds to be together anyway. 

The book is very detailed and built mainly on letters, many of which survive in estates and the East India Company’s files. This makes for an accurate, but sometimes slightly dry retelling of actual events. There is so much detail about people and politics that the love story drowns in it. I would say this book is mainly about James Kirkpatrick and his life. His lover Khair features very little in it. 

It takes a while for the book to get to James, as it first sets up the entire backdrop of the British in India and the principle figures, both political and familial. This just doesn’t really interest me and for this part of the book I was mostly fascinated by the picture of James’ father, having returned to England to set up house and receive all his legitimate and illegitimate grandchildren from India to educate in England. When finally James enters center stage, the book is more about his political life than his love life, and again it goes into great detail about all the surrounding figures and events. 

The book is a wonderful testament to 18th century India and the melting pot of British and Indian customs and people that took place there, but being pitched as a “great love story” I think it falls short of its mark. Granted there were apparently none of Khair’s letters that survived, so it’s hard to get her perspective. But then why try at all? I think this book should have been pitched as the life story of a British man who tried to promote peace and tolerance and a melting together of cultures in an India that was slowly being crushed by the British invaders. 

I gave this book 2,5 stars out of 5 on Goodreads. It is an interesting book, I just think it was marketed in the wrong genre. 

The next pick from my TBR jar is “City of Saints and Madmen” by Jeff VanderMeer. Reading the summary on Goodreads it doesn’t really sound like something I would enjoy, so I will be harsh and dump that unceremoniously in the bin and pick another one. The next one “The Bloody Chamber: A Play” by Bryony Lavery will suffer the same fate. I’ve already read the original short story by Angela Carter and have no desire to revisit it in the form of a play. The next pick is “Cross My Heart” by Katie Klein and this seems to be a YA novel with the classic good girl/bad guy relationship. I will give this a go as sometimes you just need some trashy romance! 

HOWEVER!! That is not available from my local library and they can’t get it home for me! Argh! Instead we have “Forever Amber” which appears to be trashy romance in a historical setting. It only took 4 tries to find a book! At this rate I will empty my jar in no time (let’s not talk about the fact that I have enough new books to add to fill another jar…)