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.