Philip Womack
Travels with My Elephant
Jahan, the narrator of this richly textured, lusciously expansive historical novel, begins and ends the book by running away, seeking a peace that will never come. He escapes from his abusive stepfather and arrives (thanks to an English captain who works for the Ottomans) in 16th-century Istanbul, a ‘city of slanders and echoes’. It is a sprawling behemoth, gobbling up and spitting out people at random; the vicissitudes of life are magnified for all ranks. Ravaged by the evils of nature – fires, plagues – and of men in the form of plots, counter-plots, revenges and vendettas, it seems that there is no foundation secure enough for anyone to cling to.
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
'Sabotage became so prevalent that bankers even created their own terms – ‘asymmetric information’, ‘lack of financial literacy’, ‘the principal-agent dilemma’ – to describe how they might turn a dime from customers’ gullibility or ignorance.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/master-criminals-of-the-universe
'Unlike much that was extracted from India, these paintings were not plunder, and those who created them were properly remunerated and often received due credit.'
@PParkerWriting on 'Forgotten Masters: Indian Painting for the East India Company'.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/artists-for-hire
‘"I feel", Lowell told Hardwick ... "as if I were pulled apart and thinning into mist, or rather being torn apart and still preferring that state to making a decision."'
Richard Davenport-Hines on the letters of Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Hardwick.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/yours-unfaithfully-2