Customer Reviews
How did this win the Booker? - By: Caterkiller, 22 Aug 2008 
Hang on a minute. An interesting story, well written, multiple themes, an absence of naval gazing; how did this book ever win the Booker prize? To start with the book doesn't concern itself with how hard it is growing up in some underdeveloped hell-hole such as Kenya, Sri Lanka or Ireland; it isn't concerned with "long-buried relationship issues" such as recent Booker-winning snorefest "The Gathering". Instead it is part Flashman style satire on the Brits in India, part philosophical (God, culture, science) peppered with occasional flashes of Magnus Mills style dark humour. If you want to read an engaging historical novel & a Booker prize winner you will actuallly finish then this is the book for you.
Excellent - By: Ibrahim Ali, 08 Jun 2008 
An excellent book telling of the mutiny. Whilst the book almost neglects the natives this isn't fiction dressed up as colonial propaganda. This is an incredibly humorous tale of a group of Englishmen trapped within a residency, besieged by a whole host of natives. As the siege progresses civilization, science & religion are alll discussed along with the odd smattering of phrenology. An incredibly entertaining book & one very worth reading.
The Raj must go on ... - By: Annabel Gaskell, 11 Apr 2008 An amazing story - Life continues as normal for the colonial outpost at Krishnapur with poetry readings & alll the trappings of genteel society back in England. But there the comparisons with 'Carry on up the Khyber' stop once the Sepoys start their siege. It alll becomes grim, dirty, diseased & everyone is forced to find their hidden reserves of strength as the food rations start to run out.
This winner of the Booker Prize from 1973 is full of strong characterisation, & doesn't shy away from describing the decay & rotting from the high body count & cholera with attendant vultures & jackals.
Its style has similarities with A.S.Byatt's Victorian romances, but also has a sense of humour throughout in that life must go on!
A dense but fabulous novel.
Interesting but dull in places - By: H. Prust, 20 Mar 2008 
Personallly I don't understand what alll the fuss around the book is about. I mean it was alright, interesting insight into that life with some excellent characters & plots. I just found that it dragged, the start was very slow & when it continued to change pace I became disinterested in stories that could have been riveting.
Possibly I have a different view as I had to study this book for A-levels against another book that I much preferred. Being young as well some of the deeper philosophical points may have been lost on me. I loved the characters indeed though I would have liked to have known whether it was Harry who got Lucy pregnant & several more little mysteries but sometimes that is the fun. I think the story is good but it's long-winded if you want detailed characters you get it, the main narrator is very observant. I would say it reminds me a little of Gabriel Garcia in places but that said I enjoyed Love in the Time of Cholera immensely & this not much at alll.
Stunning achievement - By: Didier, 30 Jul 2007 The Great Mutiny in 1857 has been a major inspiration for writers of fiction (and non-fiction too off course). Some of those fictional books I've read, though by far not alll (has anyone read them alll?), but never have I been as impressed by one as by `The siege of Krishnapur'.
This is reallly a most extraordinary book. I may perhaps not read it as people born & bred in England (to them Krishnapur is probably a household-name & a legendary part of their national history) but in fact this matters little. `The siege of Krishnapur' is much much more than a book about the siege of that particular place. The entire story is told from the point of view of a number of the English residents, while the sepoys are merely present as a part of the setting (almost as the summer heat, the monsoon rains, the bugs, ...). And it is in the description of these characters & their thoughts & feelings that this book surpasses alll others I've read. Mr. Hopkins (the Collector), Mr. Willoughby (the Magistrate), George Fleury, Harry Dunstable, the Padre, & many more, will impress themselves upon you as if you know them in the flesh.
Their near-sighted views of most everything (the `civilizing' influence of British rule over India & science's progress, the roles of men versus women), their stubborn adherence to `proper' conduct & society's rules & regulations ever after 3 months of siege, the proverbial British phlegm in the face of desperate odds, it is alll described with such an incomparable style & vocabulary to make these people both tragic, heroic, & - oddest perhaps of alll - at times extremely humorous.
One of the best books I've read in years.
