Cultural divides on CD
Selina Mills
The Siege of Krishnapur by J. G. Farrell is one of those books that people keep rediscovering. You can’t believe you have never come across it before (it was written in 1972) and when you have finished it, either by book or CD read by Tim Pigott-Smith, it feels as if you had known it all your life. It well deserved the Booker Prize in 1973.
Set in northern India in 1857, the story revolves around a small group of colonials who protect a handkerchief-sized outpost of the empire. Days are spent discussing the Great Exhibition, the nature of progress and the season’s fair ladies, Miriam, Louise, not to mention the scandalous Miss Lucy, who has shamed herself by having an affair out of wedlock. Only the tax collector, Mr Hopkins, has a sense that trouble is brewing outside this seamless universe.
Farrell’s elegant and poised prose is perfectly suited for listening to this tale, as it brims with visual imagery and has a tight plot that twists tighter with each chapter. Based on true events that took place during the Indian mutiny, the pleasant life takes on a sinister turn as locals start rebelling and European inmates are left with no food, water or back-up troops.
What attracts you, apart from the language, is that the narrator Tim PigottSmith, has a deep and well-paced voice which draws you deep into the 19thcentury world of colonial India without forcing it. He also gives enough space to the narratives of people’s inner voices, from the colonials to the maharajahs to the locals, to allow you to hear them in your own head.
By the end, you have a vivid, and often disturbing, portrait of what happens to people when their social props and customs are removed and they are forced to rely on their own survival skills, if they have any. The only quibble worth mentioning is that in order to run through the four CDs you need stretches of time to build the layers of tension. In other words, it is not a good one to listen to while washing up, but brilliant for journeys to the country or flights to India.
In another glimpse of an unknown culture, but set in more recent times, The Bookseller of Kabul by the award-winning Norwegian journalist Asne Seierstad tells the true tale of Sultan Khan who defied the Taleban authorities and supplied books and art to locals in Afghanistan throughout the Nineties and early 2000s. She lived with Sultan and his family for over four months in spring 2002, and subsequently wrote a bestselling book documenting their lives.
As the first chapter makes clear, it is not just about Sultan the bookseller, but about the customs and the daily lives of the family that surround him — from food to father/son relationships, crime (and punishment) and even family marriages. Seierstad goes shopping with the women, discusses business with the men and recounts conversations with the family regarding pilgrimages to Mecca. Intriguing tales for a woman to have access to in a fundamentalist Muslim culture.
Emilia Fox reads the work fluidly. She has a lovely, lilting voice that does not patronise the strange syntax of the Afghan families’ English (three of them translate for Seierstad throughout the book) and she gives the intimacy of tone that makes you feel you are personally being told the tale. She also gives weight to the fact that this is a sketch of a nation recovering from war, struggling with new authorities, new legislation and poverty. The four-CD-set also includes a foreword by the author, and her Norwegian tones remind you that this is based on a true family, whose names have been changed for the sake of privacy.
Matthew Parris’s A Castle in Spain, read by himself and detailing the restoration of a ruin he found 20 years ago in the Pyrenees, might give you courage to finish your own DIY projects this year. This is not another Year in Provence as Parris, who is better known for his political commentary, has a deep passion for the building because of its history, its architecture and meaning to the area. Some people may not like the violin timbre of his voice; but he infuses the story with such intelligence and thought, that you almost wish you had found the castle yourself.
The Siege of Krishnapur by J. G. Farrell, read by Tim Pigott-Smith (CSA, £15.99, 4 CDs, approx 5 hours).
The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad, read by Emilia Fox (Time Warner Audio Books, £14.99, 4 CDs, approx 6 hours).
A Castle in Spain by Matthew Parris, read by himself (Penguin Audio Books, £13, 3 CDs, 3 hours).
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