William Dalrymple chronicles ten years of living and traveling in Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and India. Here he discovers a region falling into a time of darkness, discord and disintegration which according to ancient Hindu cosmology is known as the Age of Kali. Despite the area's strife and discontent, Dalrymple's attitude does not fall to pessimism, rather every page reveals his passion for the people and culture of the Indian subcontinent. He encounters such figures as Benazir Bhutto and Imran Khan and meets with ostracised inmates of a widows' home. Critical yet sympathetic, The Age of Kali is must-have reading for anyone wanting to understand the countries of the subcontinent.
Amazon.com Review:
William Dalrymple has proved himself to be one of the most perceptive and enjoyable travel writers of the 1990s. His first book, In Xanadu, became an instant backpacker's classic, winning a stream of literary prizes. City of Djinns and From the Holy Mountain soon followed, to universal critical praise. Yet it is India that Dalrymple continues to return to in his travels, and his fourth book, The Age of Kali, is his most reflective book to date.
The result of 10 year's living and traveling throughout the Indian subcontinent, The Age of Kali emerges from Dalrymple's uneasy sense that the region is slipping into the most fearsome of all epochs in ancient Hindu cosmology: "the Kali Yug, the Age of Kali, the lowest possible throw, an epoch of strife, corruption, darkness, and disintegration." The brilliance of this book lies in its refusal to reflect any cultural pessimism. Dalrymple's love for the subcontinent, and his feel for its diverse cultural identity, comes across in every page, which makes its chronicles of political corruption, ethnic violence, and social disintegration all the more poignant. The scope of the book is particularly impressive, from the vivid opening chapters portraying the lawless caste violence of Bihar, to interviews with the drug barons on the North-West Frontier, and Dalrymple's extraordinary encounter with the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka. Some of the most fascinating sections of the book are Dalrymple's interviews with Imran Khan and Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan, which read like nonfiction companion pieces to Salman Rushdie's bitterly satirical Shame. The Age of Kali is a dark, disturbing book that takes the pulse of a continent facing some tough questions. --Jerry Brotton, Amazon.co.uk
Customer Reviews
Average Customer Review
Not so much travels, lots of encounters, March 29, 2008
By
Bjørn Chr Tørrissen (Oslo, Norway)
There are only a few things I'd like to add to the existing reviews of this book:
1. In this book Mr Dalrymple is not really a traveller/travel writer, but more of a political journalist. He visits various regions and discusses their political situation/problems, with an in-depth look at the Bhutto Dynasty in Pakistan wrapping up the book. If you're looking for travel literature about India, look elsewhere!
2. In addition to the stories from a few chosen regions in India, the book also has quite a bit about Pakistan in it, as well as a visit to Reunion, which actually is a piece of French territory, very close to Madagascar. The link to India is fairly weak, and it seems as if it was just included to make the book sufficiently thick.
For what it is, though, it's a decent piece of literature!
Few writers with as much skill as William Dalrymple, January 7, 2008
By
Sean D'souza (Auckland, New Zealand)
Some writers work harder than others. They write better than others. And they do it in a way that's so fluid and relaxed. William Dalrymple surely is one of those. You could pick up a Dalrymple book blindly, and expect to enter a world that's interesting, rich, crazy, chaotic and wonderful all at once.
I've read most of his books. And I'd say you just couldn't go wrong with William Dalrymple--or the Age of Kali for that matter.
Really good read, really crappy book, May 13, 2007
By
johnnio (zurich, zurich canton Switzerland)
Wonderfull stories from India and Pakistan - unusual and well-told, but my Lonely Planet edition began to fall apart the moment I opened the book. After three days, all the pages fell out. Sorry about that, sez LP. Uh, yeah, thanks.
Fascinating and Intriguing, April 6, 2007
By
Rao Nasir Khan (San Francisco)
Age of Kali is a fascinating read. I have been to or lived at many places Dalrymple writes about in this book and so I can relate to what he says.
I must admit that insights that he brings out are much deeper than my own even when I spent years living in those places. The most interesting chapters are that of Vrindavan, Sri Lanka and Hyderabad. The section on Bombay was a bit of a drag, particularly when after having written so brilliantly so far he got stuck with Baba Sehgal and Shobha De (the latter only a few English speaking people know anyway) and missed the pulse of Bombay.
Both Bihar and Pakistan were equally depressing (not because of Mr Dalrymple), though insightful at the same time.
This is a great read, cover to cover but appears more of a collection of essays written at different times rather than a fluent continuous travelogue. Imran Khan's story could have been cut short by several pages and the author's journey into Reunion Island, though fascinating in its own right, seems like a chapter from another book.
There are flashes of brilliance in a wonderfully written piece but also dots of passable text.
Overall a brilliantly written book about an extremely complex people and difficult times with the elegance of a master story teller and pathos of a native.
Fearless and enlightening plunge into the conflict centers in India, December 20, 2006
By
Robert Reid (Chicago, IL USA)
In this relevant and political travelogue, it's hard to tell whether Dalrymple is playing devil's advocate in order to provoke the passions of his interview subjects, or if he can just be, at times, pigheadedly judgemental and narrow-minded. For example, he acts as if he doesn't recognize the symbolism of the first Kentucky Fried Chicken in Bangalore ("Three thousand tandoori restaurants in London don't seem to have destroyed British culture."); later, he questions Pakistan's failure to cede Kashmir to India based on India's superior military strength.
But you have to realize that the persona of Dalrymple as the interviewer doesn't really matter here. His itinerary is fearless (he visits conflict zones in both Sri Lanka and Pakistan), and his approach to history/travel writing through interviewing important political figures succeeds in making modern history come to life. Selflessly, he asks the toughest questions imaginable, as if he's looking for trouble (for example, insisting on probing the intra-familial feuding in Benazir Bhutto's family). The result is an intense and colorful portrayal of India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka- revealing the conflicts between Hinduism and Islam, between tradition and modernization, and between corruption and idealism.
While Dalrymple lightheartedly captures some of the colorful eccentricities of his subjects (e.g. listening to someone describe a holy man who reputedly appeared to be talking to a wall, when "if you got close enough you could hear what sounded like the wall talking to him"), at other times he ruthlessly exposes the character flaws of his subjects (at one point he describes a Tamil revolutionary in Sri Lanka as "the textbook revolutionary intellectual: quick-witted and intense, fond of gesticulation and dogmatic generalisation"; more colorfully, he portrays Benazir Bhutto ignoring his repeated attempts to interrupt her monologue with his own relevant questions).
In the end it's really up to the reader to discern the truth; for example, whether integrity really is a luxury in Pakistan, where police officers take bribes to augment their below-living-wage salaries, and whether it's okay for teenage girls to be so accepting of the violence that is part of their lives in Sri Lanka.
While Dalrymple's genius in this work stems from his in-depth research and use of dialogue to create lively characters, I found myself longing for the continuous narrative thread that makes another one of his works, City of Djinns, as readable as a novel and perhaps the greatest bit of travel and history writing I've read to date. But given the scope and format of this work, a series of political travelogues across the Indian subcontinent, it is right on the mark.
