From: paulchem@tigger.cs.Colorado.EDU (Icarus)
Subject: Book Review: Trotternama -- Alan Sealy.
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 07:34:15 GMT


1] Let me start off by thanking all those who responded to my 
   suggestion for starting a mailing list to discuss books.
   From the mail I received I surmised that people soon tire of
   mailing lists and that anyway the audience reached would be
   much smaller than if the discussion was carried out on the net.

   I decided to start of this thread with a review of a book I 
   read some time ago. I suggest that we cross post to rec.arts.books
   if the book under discussion has wider appeal.

2] E-mail any reactions to the critique itself.
   Post any reactions you had to the book.
   All qoutes are from memory and I apologize for any errors.

   I would like to see many more books being discussed here.

3] Trotternama -- Alan Sealy.

    
   Sealy has adopted as his basic story telling device the Nama, that
   literary form peculiar to poets at court, writing in persian, in praise
   of those who paid for their outpourings. The faizalnama for example uses
   hyperbole to describe the virtue of the king and addresses the reader in a
   condescending yet humourous tone. 

                          Sealy uses this approach to tell the story of the 
   Trotters an anglo-indian family founded by The First Trotter -- a french
   captain at different times in the pay of the british and the french armies--
   through seven generations of decline and decay.

           The First Trotter builds San Soucci, a castle with four towers 
   which will eventually house a wife in each. San Soucci is a magical place,
   where trees and animals of every kind live in perfect harmony under the
   benevolent guidance of The Great Trotter. The Trotter, is one of the last
   true adventurers: He is curious about the workings of all things. In the
   process of pursuing his esoteric researches he discovers Indigo and the
   storage of Ice and the shape of the earth. This last discovery is what leads
   to his tragic demise. Sealy achieves a rare level of humour in the three
   passages that describe The Great Trotters fall from grace, literally.
   The Great Trotter goes up in his balloon, as was his habit after breakfast,
   to look at the earth from a hieght that lent perspective. He sees something
   worth another look through his telescope, leans over and falls. 
   Sealy divides the description of The Trotters Fall in three Parts:

               I. The Great Trotter considers the heavens.
               I. The Great Trotter considers the earth.
               I. The Great Trotter considers what lies in between.

          The death of The Great Trotter, causes great dissension among his 
  servants and his family of four wives. Each of the wives claim they are 
  pregnant, and fight over the inheritance. 

          The rest of the book describes how the family falls from their
  state of royal grace to common citizens forced to earn their bread.
  Sealy uses metaphor of the Trotter family to tell the story of the anglo-
  indians. The Rise and fall of british power in India finds a echo in the
  anglo-indian peoples. The women clinging closer to the idea that they 
  were somehow superior to the natives by virtue of their british or 
  french or portugese connections. Hockey Players, Police officers, 
  Soldiers, Farmers and Politicians march through this history of the
  anglo-indians. And Railway men. The Railways were for some mysterious
  reason, the refuge of the Anglo-indian working classes. Whole families
  worked in the railways, fathers, sons, sons-in-law. Nothing like a 
  respectable railway man they would say in the old times.

                 When asked by the british how they could be one group of
  people even though they claimed to be descended from every country in europe,
  one of the anglo politicians says "Yes, we are a people, though we are
  descended from diverse nations, we are now one, we have a common language:
  English."

         The narrative describes the story of their lives in fascinating 
  detail, intermixed with recipes for making everything from Trotter Curry to
  History and Telescopes. Victoria, a matron who pines for england that
  she has only read about, sees its green lawns and tea parties and its gracious
  people while her husband makes love to her. She climbs the winding path to
  the cottage she sees in her vision, desparate in her anxiety to see the
  blessed house itself. Sealy manages to convey the urgency of the couple
  in the light of her longing to "Go Home", only half humourous in his 
  description.


         The family spreads and its power diffuses until the inevitable end and
  humiliation of converting San Soucci into a Starred Hotel. Sealy effectively
  conveys the tragedy of a people lost between two cultures, and takes the 
  reader on a tour of lasting memories.

   
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
.    ~ ~                                                                     .
.    o o      signito ergo sum.              paul chemmanoor.                .
.     |    i sign therefore i am.            Computer Science department.    .
.     =                                      Univ. of Colorado, Boulder.     .
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian