J.G. Farrell, The Siege of Krishnapur *** 1/2

 The Siege of Krishnapur takes place in India during the Great Mutiny of 1857 but features no Indian characters. The story is told from the point of view of the English colonials at the isolated outpost, and for them the natives are merely the beneficiaries of their largesse. The leader of the output, Mr Hopkins aka the Collector, explicitly compares the locals to his children while speaking of his duty to control their lives. Each character has a distinctive view of how the British are improving India: by bringing them the trappings of civilization, infusing them with a spirit of rationalism, introducing them to Christianity or romanticism, setting an example of fortitude and decency. At dinner the men argue about whether their material or spiritual superiority is more important.

The subject matter is inexorably grim as the sepoys rise up against the British and conditions inside the output deteriorate due to diminishing food and supplies. The tone, however, is lightly comic; early on the characters are mocked for their blinkered world views and insistence on tradition, and the actual siege includes scenes of full-on farce. My favorite example of the latter was a battle during which the Padre, convinced that the uprising is a sign of Sin within the output, harangues George Fleury with evidence of God's design while Fleury incompetently loads the cannon and imagines how impressive he'll look in the daguerreotypes. There's also the time two young men try to scrape a cloud of cockchafer bugs off an unconscious woman's body:

Her body, both young men were interested to discover, was remarkably like the statues of young women they had seen ... The only significant difference ... was that Lucy had pubic hair; this caused them a bit of surprise at first. It was not something that had ever occurred to them as possible, likely, or even desirable.  "D'you think this is supposed to be here?" asked Harry.

Although the characters are drawn somewhat broadly as befits a satire, most of them do end up changed by their experiences. They question their earlier certainties.

 

Sam Anderson, Boom Town *** 1/2

Boom Town is a history of Oklahoma City told through the prism of its "purloined" basketball team (stolen from Seattle). The book includes many sardonically delivered anecdotes but is organized around three key elements: the city's founding during the Land Rush of 1889; the Thunder's playoff runs in 2012-2013; and its frequent tornadoes.

Anderson tries a bit too hard to draw parallels between these elements and to characterize the history as a tension between chaotic Booms and rational Process. He introduces compelling characters who shaped Oklahoma City but fails to provided a rounded portrait of how they accomplished their magic. Stanley Draper, for example, appears to have been a Robert Moses-type character who imposed his will on city planning, but it's not at all clear how he managed it. During the 1970s city leaders tore down most of downtown in thrall to a vision from I.M. Pei; Anderson paints a picture of a completely decimated city while other stories from the same time show continued activity there.

The book builds to a narrative climax with the bombing of the federal building in 1995. Anderson appropriately drains the sarcasm from his tone when describing this disaster, but undermines the seriousness of the moment by pairing it with a chapter about Russell Westbrook's injury in the 2013 playoffs.

Overall, Boom Town is an entertaining if superficial history that doesn't quite come together.

Shirley Hazzard, The Transit of Venus ****

The many sources that call The Transit of Venus "one of the great English-language novels of the twentieth century" say very little about its plot. You know why? Because there's nothing to it. It is a slow-developing love story with few dramatic incidents. Furthermore, Hazzard has an idiosyncratic writing style that piles on clauses and favors inanimate subjects. It shouldn't work; it should be a slog; but somehow it's great.

It's easy to see why her fellow writers gush about Hazzard: the book's success flows entirely from its stylistic effects, both the complex sentences that come at insights from an oblique angle and the "careful orchestrations of echo and rhythm" such as the repeated reports about how passersby would interpret the relationship between characters. Even I, as a casual reader, find myself wanting to read the book again to see how Hazzard pulls it off.

The Penguin Classics edition includes an insightful introduction from Lauren Groff.

Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House ****

I hesitated to buy this book despite its critical acclaim due to its subject matter: a memoir about an abusive lesbian relationship. I was eventually convinced by the intriguing idea that Machado tells her story through a variety of styles –– haunted house story, stoner comedy, noir, erotica, folktale.

The format wasn't exactly what I expected. The writing style remains fairly consistent throughout, lightly academic, without attempts to parrot genre styles. Machado does describe how her experiences with genres affects the way she interpreted her girlfriend's behavior and her own. She is very good (and honest) at capturing in-the-moment emotional responses, and most of the short chapters contain at least one insight.

In the Dream House was different than I expected, but compelling nonetheless.