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Some really good chapters this week! This is where I feel the novel really starts to come into its own as we get a deeper glimpse into what makes the characters tick, society tick, and some of what may be driving the mystery as well.
Chapter 5: Full disclosure: THIS IS PERHAPS MY FAVORITE CHAPTER OF THE BOOK. We’ve got drama, action, and character development out the wazoo.
The chapter opens with Mir Aziz once more taking Avery under his wing. He’s as evasive and opaque as Blake but his manner is a much better fit with Avery, who’s less inclined to bridle because Aziz hasn’t rubbed him the wrong way.
I feel for Avery at the temple. He’s so out of his element and of course the sight would horrify him, particularly with what he thinks he knows about Thugs and Indian culture in general. True to form, Mir Aziz tries to gently enlighten while Blake tries to shock and nettle, with predictable results. One wonders why Blake didn’t try to occupy Avery with something else somewhere else, or at least have Mir Aziz try to occupy Avery instead. You get the sense that nothing has really prepared Avery for Bindachal.
Which, of course, results in what I think is one of—if not the—pivotal scenes in the book. Blake and Avery’s frustrations with one another boil to the surface and they tell each other exactly what they think of each other. And then:
”You might be smartish but I can’t tell.”
Oh. MY. That one sucked the breath out of my lungs in the way I imagine it did Avery’s. Here is Blake at his observant best and interpersonal worst, going straight for the jugular. He’s learned enough about Avery to hit him where it hurts, but doesn’t know him well enough to want to pull his punches.
You get a sense of how genuine Avery’s hurt is here, which is what I think wins Blake over in the end, especially if you compare it to Avery’s arrogance and reversion to social forms during their first confrontation in Blacktown. Blake’s reaction makes clear he regrets what he’s done as soon as Avery doesn’t go back on the attack, but at this point the damage is probably done.
So now they’re completely avoiding one another. And then we come to the bandit attack. This is where Avery gets to prove what he’s made of, but at a horrible cost. I feel awful for Nungoo and even the second bandit he shoots.
On a strictly logical level, Blake and Avery’s actions here make no sense: even with the opium, everything they do here just postpones the man’s painful death. Why doesn’t Blake give him the coup de grace if Avery’s unable?
Obviously, the reason is so they can have their pivotal coming to terms. And oh, I love everything about this scene, which is a paragon of showing-not-telling. Blake starts to realize how capable Avery can be provided Blake hasn’t preemptively shut him down. Within the space of two sentences we go from “Avery” to “Mr. Avery” to actually stopping to consider Avery and what he’s done, and trying to interact instead of instinctively writing him off.
And oh, heavily-in-shock Avery going to try to salvage his books just breaks my heart every time.
This clearly makes an impression on Blake as well: Wait, this kid seems capable and perhaps interested in reading/learning? Which leads to Blake finally trying to find something out about who Avery actually is instead of letting confirmation bias convince him he needn’t bother because he already has Avery pegged due to the commonalities Avery shares with other Company ensigns.
And damn, it sure seems like Blake has surreptitiously inspected Avery’s books at some point, doesn’t it, since he somehow knows that Avery owns Pickwick Papers? ;-)
And as someone with a thing for hurt/comfort, Blake stitching Avery up and sort of steadying him through his shock just, um, really does it for me. As does Avery’s entirely formal apology and peace offering to Blake, which is so out of step with Blake, but Blake’s finally seen enough that he’s able to take it in the spirit in which it’s offered.
And on to Jubblepore.
Chapter 6: Our surviving heroes arrive safely in Jubblepore! And wow, their reception is significantly more frosty than they might have hoped. For the first time we get to see Blake effectively throwing his weight around to get what he wants out of Company men, as opposed to just railing against them for forcing him into things he doesn’t want to do.
And apparently the First Rule of Jubblepore: we do not talk about Xavier Mountstuart in Jubblepore. Which is fine by Avery, who’s running on fumes at this point.
As an aside, I just love that the first thing Avery remarks on when he wakes is how nicely Blake cleans up. XD After staring. Openly.
Blake and Sleeman’s initial meeting is fascinating. They initially seem like birds of a feather: Indian culture otaku, language geeks, and general science and book nerds. And although he’s hopelessly outclassed, Avery still manages to hold his own, fanboying over Sleeman-the-author. And he’s also familiar with fossils, although we see how different is his frame of reference from that of the better educated Blake and Sleeman. Again, we get another glimpse of Avery aside from the horseman/marksman/aspiring high society climber.
Again, everyone in earshot reacts very poorly to Mountstuart. Are they all terrified he’s going to write his next roman a clef about the nepotism on which Jubblepore apparently runs? Or have they learned their distaste from reports of Mountstuart’s takedowns of Calcutta society?
Poor Avery, still overdoing things because he doesn’t want to confront how badly he’s injured or let Blake sideline him again. The silver lining, at least, is that Blake is willing to unwind enough to pay Avery a well-deserved compliment for his efforts, for all he doesn’t have the proper skills our outlook to be of greatest use to Blake. Gratified. Poor Avery...you totally deserve the compliment, but Blake is also playing you like a fiddle right now.
We really don’t seem much of Mir Aziz or Sameer in this chapter, do we? I wonder, are they off assisting Blake or has Sleeman kept them locked in? Avery, if only you’d think to ask! I think it’s pretty telling that as far as Avery’s come, he still thinks of Blake as the member of the party with any role to play in finding Mountstuart.
I like that Avery now feels comfortable enough to let a little personality out around Blake. It seems to be working; his sarcasm actually gets Blake to talk a bit. And whatever Blake is doing, it seems to have gotten Sleeman to open up a bit too, or at least preen in front of his visitors (which for Blake’s purposes probably accomplishes the same end).
Poor feverish Avery. That wasn’t a dream at all.
Chapter 7: We definitely start pulling back some curtains in this chapter. The exhumation scene is really effective: Carter doesn’t go overboard on the descriptions, but let’s the characters’ reactions speak to how horrific the find is. I always feel a little squeamish reading this scene.
I wonder at Mauwle’s ability to find the burial where the Approvers could not. He certainly appears to be fluent in their language, so perhaps he’s spoken to others with information on the location? Or are the Approvers themselves reluctant to revisit the scene of the crime?
I like the narrative parallels in this chapter: the Jubblepore officials trying to get Avery to spill the beans on Blake while Blake and Avery try to suss out what they know and aren’t saying about Mountstuart and Thuggee, and everyone at a frustrated impasse.
Blake does not have the ideal bedside manner, does he? (Although to be fair, his medical treatments do seem to work.) And oh! Good shot, Avery. I think Blake only unbent to tell you about the quing hao because your observation was so deliciously pointed. I’m so intrigued by what it was he was doing on the border with Thibbet those several years back.
I really like the scene in Sleeman’s garden, because a) I love gardening, b) Avery once again shows he’s knowledgeable and perceptive in surprising ways (he really has been paying attention to Mir Aziz’s lessons on the mofussil’s flora!), and c) we get a sense of what drives Sleeman, and where his blind spots and passions lie. It’s also amusing to see how quickly he dismisses Avery when he realizes how little Avery’s able to tell him about what Blake is up to.
Pursloe’s a jerk, but at least Avery gets a sense from him of whence Jubblepore’s patented animus against Mountstuart. When reading, I definitely pinged on “He did not choose to inform us of his departure, which was typical.” Harking back to the prologue, I wonder, are that scene and Pursloe’s statement related? Is Pursloe being entirely honest? And Mountstuart seems like the sort of guy who enjoys making enemies wherever he goes: is this where he made a fatal one?
Chapter 8: The School of Industry really gives you the creeps, doesn’t it? This place is the definition of Orwellian a century before the guy who gave us the term was even born. I wonder if Sleeman is needling Avery about being unable to follow that conversation or if he’s just so unobservant he hasn’t realized Blake’s the only one of the two who can converse with the non-European population.
We really get to see the full, ugly reality of Carter’s Sleeman here: self-satisfied, paternalistic, and arrogant. And a little sadistic, too, because it’s becoming clear that many of the people he’s imprisoned probably are not Thugs and may not even be guilty of the crimes for which he’s imprisoned them. And here he is, making them listen to a litany of the things they may or may not have done that have landed them in hellish incarceration alongside their families, who are even less likely to have committed Thuggee-type crimes.
Blake, of course, immediately latches on to “lower sort,” and no surprise there, given what we’ve already learned about his background and some of the factors that may be driving the local population to crime, which Sleeman et al. are completely disregarding.
Blake continues to slay him with a thousand cuts, and Sleeman is only half aware of what Blake’s doing. We only see Feringhea for a few pages and never really get to know him, but he’s such a fascinating character. By Sleeman’s own admission, Feringhea is “famous for his abilities as an inveigler” who puts people “under a spell,” and I at least wonder whether Sleeman is as immune to his charisma and wiles as he thinks he is, or whether Feringhea’s taking his pound of flesh by playing into everything Sleeman wants to hear. Certainly, there’s every indication that Feringhea is a Persian Muslim—his physical appearance, “refusal” to speak Hindi, use of Islamic terms—and it just flies right over Sleeman’s head...even when Blake more or less directly draws attention to it.
Poor Avery does his best with the interview, but it’s still not that great. At least he’s able to read the danger signs and divert Sleeman away from the time bomb of Blake’s anger. And Sleeman falls right for it when Blake pretends awe at Feringhea, leaving Blake to conduct a basically unsupervised interview even though he knows about Blake’s fluency and views of Thuggee.
“Breaking machine.” I shudder. Also, FFS, Avery, figure it out!
Unfortunately, instead of that, we get Blake not figuring it out instead. Because despite having coming to an understanding of sorts with Avery, he still doesn’t account for Avery’s honesty, earnestness, and sense of duty—Avery is very much resolved to do the job he was given, properly, and is not about to stand idly by while Blake does things that neither sit right with him nor deigns to explain them to Avery. Blake, just tell him why you’re sneaking out every night—you know this kid is no dummy!
The hanging scenes—both Avery’s recollection of the one in Exeter, and the present day hanging in Jubblepore, are brutal. Carter uses them to great effect to show us who Avery is; alongside the aftermath of the raid on their camp we’ve learned that he’s neither sadistic nor vengeful; someone who likes guns for sport but only engages in violence for self-defense and doesn’t enjoy it for its own sake.
Yet again, the hanging raises more questions than it answers: rather than a unified Kali-worshiping cult, the men Sleeman puts to death come from multiple castes, speak multiple languages, and are mocked and mourned by different segments of the crowd. And it it all seems to go over Sleeman's head, for all the information he's supposedly gathered. It definitely flies over Mauwle’s, who further confirms the arbitrary and extrajudicial nature of Jubblepore’s purported law and order, and in the heat of the moment lets slip that everyone's main complaint with Mountstuart seems to be that he was personally unpleasant.
これで以上です。