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4.04 AVERAGE
4.04 AVERAGE
I saw this on a list entitled "Big fat reads worth the time" or something similar. COULD NOT BE FURTHER FROM THE TRUTH. This is the last time I force myself to finish a book just because I paid for it. I got the audiobook on sale and my god, I don't know how I did it, but I SLOGGED through 49 GODDAMN HOURS of this ferociously boring piece of historical fiction.
Aside from the snoozefest of a story I was periodically irritated by the narrator's struggle to pronounce basic words correctly. Don't get me wrong, he was pretty good for the most part, doing a range of accents (though the Irish one was HORRENDOUS) but every now and again he would pronounce a word as if he had only ever seen it written. Some examples: quayside, sergeant, chastise... I can't remember anymore (but trust me there were A LOT) but basically it was annoying AF to the point that I'd be cycling along on my way to work listening to this lame ass book and my neutral face would just break into an expression of pure incredulity and I'd lose track of the story for like a full minute because all I'd be thinking was "Really? REALLY? You're going to pronounce it like that?"
Anyway, rant over. Don't waste your time with this book. It's about a 1,000 pages too long, the characters are dull, dull, dull and the story is vaguely diverting at best and positively somnolent at worst.
I'm so glad to be finally finished!
Aside from the snoozefest of a story I was periodically irritated by the narrator's struggle to pronounce basic words correctly. Don't get me wrong, he was pretty good for the most part, doing a range of accents (though the Irish one was HORRENDOUS) but every now and again he would pronounce a word as if he had only ever seen it written. Some examples: quayside, sergeant, chastise... I can't remember anymore (but trust me there were A LOT) but basically it was annoying AF to the point that I'd be cycling along on my way to work listening to this lame ass book and my neutral face would just break into an expression of pure incredulity and I'd lose track of the story for like a full minute because all I'd be thinking was "Really? REALLY? You're going to pronounce it like that?"
Anyway, rant over. Don't waste your time with this book. It's about a 1,000 pages too long, the characters are dull, dull, dull and the story is vaguely diverting at best and positively somnolent at worst.
I'm so glad to be finally finished!
funny
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Thank you to M.M. Kaye for proving books written in the 70s can be just as tedious, boring, and bad as books written today. #trailblazer #girlboss #girlpower
There are some moments in this book that do shine, but these moments are largely drowned out by a tendency for repetition that makes me want to bang my head against the wall, downright corny writing, and a lack of priorities on the author's part. And something I've never understood - instead of inserting other authors' prose and poetry into your book, why don't you just write your own? You're only reminding me that I could be reading something better instead. If I want to read a Tennyson poem, I'll go read a Tennyson poem, alright? I don't need to read it second-hand through some other book. Also the ending is contrived and more racist than I expected.
There are some moments in this book that do shine, but these moments are largely drowned out by a tendency for repetition that makes me want to bang my head against the wall, downright corny writing, and a lack of priorities on the author's part. And something I've never understood - instead of inserting other authors' prose and poetry into your book, why don't you just write your own? You're only reminding me that I could be reading something better instead. If I want to read a Tennyson poem, I'll go read a Tennyson poem, alright? I don't need to read it second-hand through some other book. Also the ending is contrived and more racist than I expected.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, Gun violence, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Racism, Violence, Blood, Islamophobia, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, Colonisation, War, Classism
Moderate: Animal death, Bullying, Child abuse, Sexual content, Suicide attempt
Minor: Homophobia, Miscarriage
I read this book many, many years ago,(and if you're 30 or under, before you were born :-( ) and I still remember the characters and the feel for the book. I remember the handsome Ashok and telling the story at night to my husband who is not much of a reader, but who loves a good story.
adventurous
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I felt a little sad when I finished this book. I really enjoyed the setting and story. This book follows Ash-born in India to English parents. He spends the first several years of his childhood in India before going to England to be educated. Then he has the chance to return as part of the Guides, a military branch from England that worked with native soldiers. His perspective, having been a child of India is different from those of the fellow officers he serves with. The story goes through the much of the country of India and some of Afghanistan. It was one of those epic stories that is large in scope and not at all short. There is an element of romance that was occasionally interesting but held some inappropriateness as a warning. The beauty and brutality of the age is well illustrated along with prevailing attitudes about colonialism and the discrimination from all sides. This book isn't for the faint of heart, it is about a thousand pages long and is a time commitment. M.M. Kay wrote one of my favorite books-The Ordinary Princess-and that is what brought me to reading this book. I love her style of writing and I felt a good grasp of the places and people from her descriptions.
More reviews available at my blog, Beauty and the Bookworm.
The Far Pavilions is a doorstop of a book. Massive. To the point that, when I got it from the library on my Kindle and saw it was going to take 20-some hours to read, I immediately returned it and got in hard copy instead. Why? Because even though it's a whopper of a book to haul around, it feels like I'm making more progress when I read a book in hard copy and can see the pages go by and the ones waiting diminish. Even then, it took a long while to get through this book--though that was partially because the pacing is somewhat uneven and I had to read a few other, lighter books in the meantime just to keep myself going.
The book follows its main character, Ash, from childhood into his mid-to-late twenties. Ash, though born to two English citizens, was raised by a Hindu woman following the death of both of his parents, and doesn't know that he's actually English until early adolescence, when he has to flee to England for fear of his life. Ultimately, he returns to India in the service of the Corps of Guides and finds himself re-enmeshed in many of the dramas that he had previously left behind, as well as some new ones. Though there is action in this book, the crux of the conflict comes from Ash's identity crisis, feeling as if he is torn between two worlds: the Indian "Ashok" work of his childhood, and the English "Ashton" world of his adulthood. All of the action ties into this to some degree.
Overall, I really liked this book. Ash, though he can be hardheaded and a jerk at times, is overall a sympathetic character. He is English by birth but was raised Indian, and has a deep-seated dislike of most of the elements of colonialism--which is kind of the opposite of what I had expected here. He also has a strong sense of fairness and right and wrong, which makes him likable--he always tries to do the right thing--but also gets him into trouble with many other characters who think in more shades of gray. This is a flaw that's admitted by Ash himself as well as several other characters in the book, showing that Kaye was clearly and keenly aware of it.
However, the pacing on this book is somewhat uneven. It's divided into eight different parts; the first had a few slow spots but were overall good, with a balance of character and action that I quite liked, and ultimately revolving around Ash being drawn to his childhood friend Juli, a princess of a small Indian kingdom. However, the last two parts, "My Brother Jonathan" and "The Land of Cain," take an abrupt turn. Instead of focusing on Ash, Kaye (for some reason) veers into the political and military shambles that was the Second Anglo-Afghan War and the ill-fated English mission that followed it. Though Ash is the main character of the rest of the book, in these two parts he's abruptly shoved aside in favor of a handful of other Corps of Guides officers who, while familiar, seem to rise to main character status out of pretty much nowhere. Ash is still involved in these conflicts, but in a very secondary role, and while the climactic events are important to his ultimate character development, it just felt strange because our main character was mostly absent.
Overall, I really enjoyed this. I think Kaye has a great sense for atmosphere and character, and clearly has a love for India of her own--though, as a quick note, this being pre-partition India, much of the action actually takes place in what we would presently think of as Pakistan. There are definite flaws here--the pacing for certain, and while I liked Ash overall, he had a few distasteful moments that made me shy away from fawning over him. But this is definitely an "epic" sort of book, and I'm definitely interested in reading the few other ones like this Kaye put forward.
4 stars out of 5.
The Far Pavilions is a doorstop of a book. Massive. To the point that, when I got it from the library on my Kindle and saw it was going to take 20-some hours to read, I immediately returned it and got in hard copy instead. Why? Because even though it's a whopper of a book to haul around, it feels like I'm making more progress when I read a book in hard copy and can see the pages go by and the ones waiting diminish. Even then, it took a long while to get through this book--though that was partially because the pacing is somewhat uneven and I had to read a few other, lighter books in the meantime just to keep myself going.
The book follows its main character, Ash, from childhood into his mid-to-late twenties. Ash, though born to two English citizens, was raised by a Hindu woman following the death of both of his parents, and doesn't know that he's actually English until early adolescence, when he has to flee to England for fear of his life. Ultimately, he returns to India in the service of the Corps of Guides and finds himself re-enmeshed in many of the dramas that he had previously left behind, as well as some new ones. Though there is action in this book, the crux of the conflict comes from Ash's identity crisis, feeling as if he is torn between two worlds: the Indian "Ashok" work of his childhood, and the English "Ashton" world of his adulthood. All of the action ties into this to some degree.
Overall, I really liked this book. Ash, though he can be hardheaded and a jerk at times, is overall a sympathetic character. He is English by birth but was raised Indian, and has a deep-seated dislike of most of the elements of colonialism--which is kind of the opposite of what I had expected here. He also has a strong sense of fairness and right and wrong, which makes him likable--he always tries to do the right thing--but also gets him into trouble with many other characters who think in more shades of gray. This is a flaw that's admitted by Ash himself as well as several other characters in the book, showing that Kaye was clearly and keenly aware of it.
However, the pacing on this book is somewhat uneven. It's divided into eight different parts; the first had a few slow spots but were overall good, with a balance of character and action that I quite liked, and ultimately revolving around Ash being drawn to his childhood friend Juli, a princess of a small Indian kingdom. However, the last two parts, "My Brother Jonathan" and "The Land of Cain," take an abrupt turn. Instead of focusing on Ash, Kaye (for some reason) veers into the political and military shambles that was the Second Anglo-Afghan War and the ill-fated English mission that followed it. Though Ash is the main character of the rest of the book, in these two parts he's abruptly shoved aside in favor of a handful of other Corps of Guides officers who, while familiar, seem to rise to main character status out of pretty much nowhere. Ash is still involved in these conflicts, but in a very secondary role, and while the climactic events are important to his ultimate character development, it just felt strange because our main character was mostly absent.
Overall, I really enjoyed this. I think Kaye has a great sense for atmosphere and character, and clearly has a love for India of her own--though, as a quick note, this being pre-partition India, much of the action actually takes place in what we would presently think of as Pakistan. There are definite flaws here--the pacing for certain, and while I liked Ash overall, he had a few distasteful moments that made me shy away from fawning over him. But this is definitely an "epic" sort of book, and I'm definitely interested in reading the few other ones like this Kaye put forward.
4 stars out of 5.
This was one hell of a read. A slow start, but the steady buildup of scenery and life in India during the British Raj was vivid and captivating. The book looks at Ash, a Brit by birth but Indian in all ways and his journey from boy to man. The author clearly researched what life was like during this time from the prejudices within Indian society to the effects of colonialism, and this made for a deeper and emotional read. This was an epic read and memorable in many ways.
adventurous
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
dark
informative
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No