The Siege at Krishnapur by J. G. Farrell (Modern Library, 2012; originally published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1973)

 

The Siege at Krishnapur is an odd, dark, rather brutal book about a native Indian mutiny in the 1850s that traps a small community of British citizens and their servants and hangers-on in a poorly fortified compound for several grueling months, where they all suffer (and many die) from warfare, lack of water and food, cholera and other diseases.

Farrell seems to find most of these people (justifiably) reprehensible and ridiculous, and takes much humorous delight in their ever-worsening suffering.  Yet the reader can't help feeling a little sorry for them, as the hardships and discomforts they endure are so thoroughly and vividly described.  So the book has a strange, off-putting yet extremely engaging tone, and reading it is an intense and discomforting experience.

Farrell is an excellent writer -- good with both characters and place, all of which are described, or actually recreated and enlivened, with complexity and brilliance.