Abstract
This article aims at considering the various levels of reconstruction in J.G. Farrell’s The Siege of Krishnapur (1973), from the rewriting of a colonial event and of Victorian culture to critical appreciation of the latter. Yet, my contention is that the main re-construction at stake in the novel is the revival of the literary myth of the Raj, that is to say how the Raj is made into a commodified item to be consumed by modern-day readers.
Highlights
“Bricks Are Undoubtedly an Essential Ingredient of Civilisation”: Layers of Reconstruction in J.G
My contention is that the main re-construction at stake in the novel is the revival of the literary myth of the Raj, that is to say how the Raj is made into a commodified item to be consumed by modern-day readers
Farrell’s The Siege of Krishnapur (1973), which was awarded the Booker Prize in 1973, parodically revisits the Indian Mutiny which occurred in 1857 and is, to some, “the first Indian war of Independence.”1 The work is part of a trilogy including Troubles (1970), that focused on the 1916 Easter Rising, and The Singapore Grip (1978), which dealt with the invasion of Singapore by the Japanese during World War Two
Summary
This article aims at considering the various levels of reconstruction in J.G. Farrell’s The Siege of Krishnapur (1973), from the rewriting of a colonial event and of Victorian culture to critical appreciation of the latter. J.G. Farrell’s The Siege of Krishnapur (1973), which was awarded the Booker Prize in 1973, parodically revisits the Indian Mutiny which occurred in 1857 and is, to some, “the first Indian war of Independence.” The work is part of a trilogy including Troubles (1970), that focused on the 1916 Easter Rising, and The Singapore Grip (1978), which dealt with the invasion of Singapore by the Japanese during World War Two. After writing Troubles, Farrell specialised in historical fiction, explaining: “the reason why I preferred to use the past is that, as a rule, people have already made up their minds what they think about the present. Colonial India? Or does it have a critical and ethical dimension which would explain why it can be considered as postcolonial from a critical – even theoretical – point of view?4
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