John Keay
Due South
Coromandel: A Personal History of South India
By Charles Allen
Little, Brown 411pp £25 order from our bookshop
After some twenty books on India, Charles Allen says his latest will be his last. It certainly has a valedictory ring to it, with enough echoes of his earlier works to suggest a summation. In seeking to rehabilitate some scholarly but obscure British officials, Coromandel recalls Allen’s Plain Tales from the Raj (1975), a spin-off from a BBC radio series that may have been the only book on India ever to top the bestseller list. Kipling, the subject of two later books by Allen, also pops up. So does Ashoka, India’s benign ‘first emperor’, of whom Allen has written an impressive biography. All this comes with some settling of old scores. The late Edward Said’s critique of the ‘orientalism’ of Indologists riles Allen almost as much as the current Indian government’s promotion of ‘anti-history’, concocted in the populist dispensaries of Hindu nationalism. But, ever the gentleman, Allen administers reproof in the nicest possible way. ‘At the end of the day, dear reader, it is up to you to judge for yourself whether what I have written is more valid,’ he says.
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'Only in Britain, perhaps, could spy chiefs – conventionally viewed as masters of subterfuge – be so highly regarded as ethical guides.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/the-spy-who-taught-me
In this month's Bookends, @AdamCSDouglas looks at the curious life of Henry Labouchere: a friend of Bram Stoker, 'loose cannon', and architect of the law that outlawed homosexual activity in Britain.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/a-gross-indecency
'We have all twenty-nine of her Barsetshire novels, and whenever a certain longing reaches critical mass we read all twenty-nine again, straight through.'
Patricia T O'Conner on her love for Angela Thirkell. (£)
https://literaryreview.co.uk/good-gad