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Summary
Summary
Calcutta in 1836: an uneasy mix of two worlds--the patient, implacably unchangeable India and thetableau vivantof English life created of imperialism's desperation. This is where Lady Eleanor, her sister Harriet, and her brother, Henry--the newly appointed Governor-General of the colony--arrive after a harrowing sea journey "from Heaven, across the world, to Hell." But none of them will find India hellish in anticipated ways, and some--including Harriet and, against her better judgment, Eleanor--will find an irresistible and endlessly confounding heaven. In Lady Eleanor--whose story is based on actual diaries--we have a keenly intelligent and observant narrator. Her descriptions of her profoundly unfamiliar world are vivid and sensual. The stultifying heat, the sensuous relief of the monsoon rains, the aromas and colors of the gardens and marketplaces, the mystifying grace and silence of the Indians themselves all come to rich life on the page. When she, Harriet, Henry, and ten thousand soldiers and servants make a three-year trek to the Punjab from Calcutta under Henry's failing leadership, Eleanor's impressions of the people and landscape are deepened, charged by her own revulsion and exaltation: "My life," she says, "once a fastidious nibble, has turned into an endless disorderly feast." Harriet, whose passivity conceals a dazed openness to the true India, and Henry, with his frightened adherence to the crumbling ideals of empire, become foils to Eleanor's slow but inexorable seduction. Historically precise, gorgeously evocative, banked with the heat of unbidden desires,One Last Lookis a mesmerizing tale of the complex lure of the exotic and the brazen failure of imperialism--both political and personal. It is a powerful confirmation of Susanna Moore's remarkable gifts.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Moore's captivating fifth novel takes the form of entries in the diary of Lady Eleanor, a British aristocrat who travels in 1836 to Calcutta with her sister Harriet and her brother Henry, who has been appointed Governor-general of the colony. Like the narrator in Moore's 1995 thriller In the Cut, eloquent but snobbish Eleanor is not especially likable-she's convinced of her own superiority, even over her own "inordinately sensitive" sister. But she's a fascinating heroine-not only because she teases readers with hints of her unusually close relationship with Henry. During her six years in India, Eleanor undergoes a striking transformation, realizing that her "life-once a fastidious nibble-has turned into an endless disorderly feast." The Eleanor who likened Calcutta to hell becomes a woman able to admire her sister (who quickly falls in love with India), appreciate her exotic surroundings and recognize the folly of her stuffy fellow Englishmen and their attempts to recreate British culture on the subcontinent. She starts to question the idea of empire and to respect Indian culture; by the time Henry's tenure is up, she mourns the loss of her "elation of toiling through isolation and wonder." In precise, elegant prose, Moore vividly evokes the country's beauty and overwhelming otherness, but her exploration of character is even more interesting. Moore spent two years studying England and India in that era, and her novel was inspired by the diaries of Emily Eden, an Englishwoman in Calcutta; as a result, her protagonist is nuanced and convincing. As Eleanor writes in her diary, "The writing of women is always read in the hope of discovering women's secrets"; Eleanor and her creator reveal just enough glimpses to keep readers transfixed. (Oct.) Forecast: This is another departure for Moore, who before In the Cut was associated with coming-of-age narratives anchored in her native Hawaii. Some readers may be thrown by her unpredictable trajectory, but others will appreciate her ability to apply her distinctive voice to different eras and genres. 75,000 first printing. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Guardian Review
One Last Look is a strange departure for Susanna Moore. Although it is beautifully researched and elegantly written, this excursion into colonial India has a feeling of lassitude about it. Most people now associate Moore with her fourth novel, In the Cut . That book was an extremely unusual thriller set in New York, with a narrator as interested in describing particular nuances of slang as she was keen to portray her sexual experiences. Next to that novel and its urgent engagement with a contemporary city and sensibility, this feels a little like a holiday. In One Last Look Moore carefully shifts into 19th-century diction in a way that tells you more about the author's ability to mimic her sources than about the unique life of her characters. The novel is told through the diary of Eleanor Oliphant, who leaves London in 1836 to travel with her brother Henry, the new governor-general, to India. Slowly Eleanor, Henry and their sister Harriet become accustomed to the heat, the food, the servants, the wealth and poverty, the claustrophobic social life, and even start to love their new home. There are many nicely observed scenes, which make you feel that you are in the company of an intelligent, observant woman with a fine sense of the absurd. But there is no sense of urgency in Eleanor's journey. She watches and she wonders, but she is essentially a passive observer of the colonial experience. A great deal of the novel is simply composed of colourful moments, intriguing in themselves, but with nothing to build them together. There is a set of tableaux at a ball, amusingly described, in which the whites portray "The Genie of India pouring the treasures of the east into the lap of Britannia"; there is a famine, quickly described; there is a visit to women in a zenana, ironically described ("I think they laughed at our bonnets, and I know we stared at their nose rings"). But in each case events are kept at a distance. We keep being told about Eleanor's sense of languor, as she starts to rely on laudanum and opium, and spends most of her time feeling that "I have lost all my strength, even for the most trifling things. I can barely lift a pen to write." The one real surprise that Eleanor does have for the readers is her ambiguous, incestuous relationship with her brother. Their scenes of intimacy are the only ones in which she becomes a truly compelling narrator; Moore has proved in In the Cut and also in earlier novels, such as Sleeping Beauties , that she has a great talent for exploring female desire. Here, Eleanor's emotional obliqueness comes into its own, giving these scenes a haunting power, but her moments with her brother are few and far between. Their love is already a fact when they arrive in India, while any dramas that occur during the years in India take place almost off- stage. When Eleanor's sister Harriet begins a relationship with one of her servants, Bhiraj, it is never directly confronted; instead we feel the soft suggestion of their intimacy rising through unspoken moments. "'Why is it, sister, you never wed?' I asked. She handed a cup and saucer to Bhiraj, who handed it to Zahid, who handed it to me." But even after Bhiraj is found dead in Harriet's room the relationship remains shrouded, and the only fallout from the tragedy is that Harriet, previously the most energetic of the protagonists, becomes as passive and withdrawn as Eleanor. Like so many historical novelists, when Moore runs out of inspiration, she takes refuge in piling on correct detail: of dress and food, social mores and historical events. "St Clery today gave us potage St Germain, celery and radishes, salad and Tunbridge wafers, a forequarter of lamb, woodcock with prune sauce, some very good orange jelly, and a Cambridge caramel cream with a perfectly fine Madeira that Henry bought in Funchal," she tells us. "I wore a gown of lemon gros de Naples with bunches of white organdy lily-of- the-valley sewn by my Dacca children, white satin slippers with crisscross ribbons, and a bonnet dashed with egret plumes." No doubt this concentration on the complicated pomp of colonial life is deliberately done in order to contrast with the uncertain emotions behind the display, but it is rather static in itself. And we have read so much in recent years from novelists wanting to look behind the facade of colonialism in India that there is nothing that feels very surprising about, say, the ladies in their gorgeous dresses sweating like pigs, or the careful social situations made uncomfortable by crossed cultural lines. And though it is totally understandable for a novelist writing today, it is rather unconvincing to see how Moore permits Eleanor and Henry to rise above the prejudices of their time. She allows this governor-general and his sister to ask bitterly, "Tell me, how are we allowed to keep this country one single day?"; and to muse, with complete disillusion, that "a mission is a most practical way of justifying conquest", while they admire the Indians ceaselessly for their grace and intelligence. It must have been a challenge for Moore to imitate so neatly the language and experiences of an English lady in 19th-century India. She doesn't put a foot wrong, and her prose continually rises to the lyrical. But what she has got out of this challenge is, I think, something less than she has put into it. Compared with her early novels set in her childhood home of Hawaii or her blistering take on her adult home of New York, this journey feels like a diversion from Moore's best work. Natasha Walter is the author of The New Feminism (Virago). To order One Last Look for pounds 12.99 plus p&p call Guardian book service on 0870 066 7979. Caption: article-moore.1 In One Last Look [Susanna Moore] carefully shifts into 19th-century diction in a way that tells you more about the author's ability to mimic her sources than about the unique life of her characters. The novel is told through the diary of Eleanor Oliphant, who leaves London in 1836 to travel with her brother Henry, the new governor-general, to India. Slowly Eleanor, Henry and their sister Harriet become accustomed to the heat, the food, the servants, the wealth and poverty, the claustrophobic social life, and even start to love their new home. There are many nicely observed scenes, which make you feel that you are in the company of an intelligent, observant woman with a fine sense of the absurd. But there is no sense of urgency in Eleanor's journey. She watches and she wonders, but she is essentially a passive observer of the colonial experience. - Natasha Walter.
Kirkus Review
Moore's (In the Cut, 1995, etc.) fictionalized journal, based on actual published diaries, of life among the Raj in the 1830s and '40s depicts the convoluted relationship of the British to their Indian subjects. Lady Eleanor accompanies her brother Henry to Calcutta when he is appointed Governor-General to act as his official hostess (and secret incestuous lover). Also in the household are Eleanor's younger sister Harriet, their military-minded cousin Lafayette, and a slew of pets and domestic servants. At first, Eleanor, a sensualist at heart, is overcome by a kind of lassitude, a combination of the heat and the strangeness of the new life that throws her into contact not only with Indians but with middle-class Brits for the first time. In contrast, Harriet, always considered a bit dim in their high-born British world, blossoms into a strong, insightful, independent woman, immersing herself in native customs and setting up a laboratory to study the flora and fauna. Gradually, as Eleanor becomes deeply attached to her servants and their world, she begins to see the English role in India in a more complex light. When Henry, a conventional prig despite his sexual proclivities, doesn't follow Lafayette's advice about which local ruler to back in Afghanistan, he loses control of the region at the cost of thousands of lives. The scandal of Harriet's Indian male servant's gunshot death in her bedroom is covered up, but Harriet's unspoken intimacy with him is a far greater scandal, even in the eyes of Lafayette, who himself has fathered a half-caste child. When Henry's term is over (his disgrace over Afghanistan relieved by his new appointment to be First Lord of the Admiralty), Eleanor and Harriet, as dependent sisters, must return to England with their brother. Back on English soil, Harriet withers away while Eleanor (no longer enamored of Henry) survives with the help of her remaining Indian servant and opiates. When describing her life in India as an "endless disorderly feast," Eleanor might well be describing One Last Look: rich, lush, scattered, repetitive, and wonderfully satisfying. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Eleanor, the narrator of this novel in journal form, spends the majority of the time either sick or drugged. This gives a rather feverish and confusing view of British life in early-nineteenth-century India. When her father dies, she, her brother (with whom she has an incestuous relationship), and her sister are left in financial peril. They are minor nobility, and her brother is appointed governor-general of India. The two sisters and a cousin accompany him on the hellish journey. Despite her growing opium addiction, Eleanor slowly begins to gain an understanding of the damage the British empire is doing on the Indian subcontinent. Eleanor is mesmerizing, if not always lucid or likable. Those unfamiliar with the history of the time or place may find they need additional reading to fill in certain blanks. --Marta Segal Copyright 2003 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Moore draws on the actual diaries of Lady Eleanor, sister Harriet, and brother Henry, the new governor-general of India, to reimagine Anglo-Indian life in the 1830s. With a six-city author tour. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Excerpts
Aboard the Jupiter, 2 February 1836 There was another storm this morning, leaving a foot of water in my cabin, and now a rat scrabbles amongst my sodden books. There is a stench of rotting hides. My own excrement floats back and forth. The journal I began when we sailed last October is ruined. I have started anew--this is my first entry. As sick as death, I've eaten only oranges, and the teaspoonful of arrowroot I take each morning (I just devoured the last five oranges in the world crouched against the bolted door of my cabin, terrified that someone would take them from me). We have not seen land, nor another vessel--not even a sea monster--in seventy-two days. There is no coffee, no biscuits, no marmalade, no ale. Henry is not sick--he eats whatever food remains and dines again with the sailors. They've grown fond of him, I hear. Harriet is not sick--to my astonishment, she's never been better. Cousin Lafayette, of course, is a good sailor. Henry convinced the crew to tie Lafayette to the mast for his twenty-fifth birthday and douse him with sea-water. He spends much of his time with the ladies, particularly the lovely Miss Haywood--he aims to improve her whist. Frolic, like Harriet, is having a lovely time. The dog has a little window of his own, tacked with netting, where he sits and utters odd moans of pleasure at the foam. Rather we were transported to Botany Bay in a ship full of Irish poachers than this! At least we'd have had the pleasure of a little felony. Aboard the Jupiter, 4 February 1836 I cannot conceive what it is like for the passengers below, packed tightly with the captain's private stores of cheese and hats to sell--the hatches are closed to prevent flooding. The wailing of the eighty-four hounds belonging to a Welsh army captain is ceaseless. A company of soldiers--who ate all the poultry before we'd left the Thames--drills up and down in new hobnailed boots, more thunderous even than the loose casks rolling across the deck. (We are most grateful that the crew is barefoot.) Harriet's maid Jones is so unhinged that Dr. Drummond has tied her to a chair. Two sails were carried away in the storm and a drunken German piano tuner traveling to Ceylon lost overboard. Henry says it is a great pity, as piano tuners are hard to find in the East. There was a gathering on deck at sunset to ease his way to his Reward, but I could not bring myself to attend. My sheets are stiff with blood; my hair heavy with salt. There are no clean clothes. My nightdress was so soiled, I stuffed it through the porthole and watched it disappear in the dirty yellow sky. Aboard the Jupiter, 5 February 1836 I sleep when my exhaustion is so great that even I cannot resist--the click of the cockroaches cannot keep me awake, nor the sailors singing "May God Sink the Sea," nor the groan of the bulkheads as they strain to split in two. The ocean streams heedlessly past, so near it seems to surge through my body. The movement of the ship both lulls and torments me--a glide forward and then a trembling pause until the ship relinquishes with a shudder and swoons into the trough of the next swell. It puts me in mind of the plea- sures of love. St. Cléry hides in his cabin with green-sickness, and Henry's manservant, Crick, is covered in boils. Aboard the Jupiter, 8 February 1836 No matter how loud I scream, no one can hear me. Aboard the Jupiter, 12 February 1836 I am feeling better now. It is so hot now we've passed the Equator, I wear only a muslin camisole under my dressing gown. (By the time we reached Rio de Janeiro, I'd given up wearing stockings or dressing my hair.) My maid Brandt is disappointed that I refuse to unpack my finery, in fear that soon we will be obliged to dress like Ali Baba (she has never forgotten the evening that my mother, who'd been once to Syria, came down the staircase wearing Damascene pantaloons and a jeweled dagger at her waist), but she is too busy quarreling with the new half-caste maid, Rosina, to make a fuss. Harriet, good girl that she is, happily keeps up her regime, wearing her corset without complaint, plaiting and plaiting again her hair into two splendid coils, splashing in the buckets of salt water the young officers conspire to bring her--Capt. Chesnell is said to have challenged Lt. Galsworthy for twice going out of turn. She busies herself writing longish letters when she is not memorizing Lalla Rookh. I worry that my sister will have a difficult time of it when we arrive. Harriet is used to comfort and quiet and a certain kind of society. That she is a trifling bit simple will be an advantage, for once. I used to sit in my cabin and think of ways to frighten her (it is not as easy as one would think--she is not embarrassed by fairies). I'd set off to find her with something akin to glee, but her guileless gaze, turned on me in bewilderment as I prowled round her, robbed me of my purpose. She is so biddable, so eager to please that I would creep back to my cabin in shame. Life on board ship, while not being Paradise to all, as Brandt insists on reminding me, is nothing compared to what awaits us. Aboard the Jupiter, 18 February 1836 Yesterday, an unearthly howl, one I've not heard before, racketed through the ship like a troupe of demons. (At first, I thought that I was howling.) I bestirred myself to the kennel where Lafayette keeps his dogs, but they were dumb with fear, cringing against each other. Eighteen puppies have been born in four months. I never liked a greyhound--too eager--but these were pitiable in their distress. Even Capt. Llewellyn's hounds were speechless for once. Tonight when I heard the horrible scream again, I slid from my berth, making my way as best I could across the fen that was once my mother's carpet (we were obliged to provide our own furnishings), and threw open the door. There was no one there. I could not bear to return to my berth--it reeks of too many other filthy souls--and found myself wondering if Henry were still awake. I went down the dark passage, my hands skimming the walls to keep from falling. Lafayette chipped one of his teeth in a fall last month. The door to Henry's cabin was open. I stepped inside. He was sitting in an old armchair from Ravenhill, bent over a map. I made myself a place on a narrow bench built into the wall. There was a basket of mending on the bench, waiting for Crick to recover his senses, if not his skill with a darning egg. (I used to slip into Henry's room when he was away at school to look at his things. I used to take his stockings to bed.) "You have worn your stockings to shreds, my dear," I said, looking into the basket. The bench was seeping and the damp wood was cool beneath my dressing gown. "Yes." He made an attempt to move his chair closer to me, forgetting that it was nailed to the floor. I snipped a thread from my bodice with a pair of tiny gold scissors from the sewing basket. "Shall we resume Mr. Berwick's Life?" I asked. I glanced at him, wondering if his curious giddiness of the last few weeks had finally passed. He still resembles a convict--the bits of hair clipped from his poor head for souvenir locks have yet to grow back, rendering his pale eyes too large for his face. He put the map aside with reluctance. I lighted another lamp, and found the Berwick, its pages brittle, and opened it to my place. "I had long made up my mind, not to marry while my father and mother lived, in order that my undivided attention might be bestowed upon them. My mother, had indeed, sometime before recommended a young woman in the neighborhood to me as a wife--she did not know the young lady intimately--but she knew that she was modest in her deportment, beautiful and handsome in her person and had a good fortune. In compliance with this recommendation, I soon got acquainted and became intimate with her, but was careful not to proceed further, and soon discovered that 'tho her character was innocence itself she was mentally one of the weakest of her sex--" He interrupted me. "Do you remember the time Aunt Sally caught her skirt climbing a stile and tumbled head over heels, landing on her feet with her dress over her head?" He began to laugh, scratching his short gray beard. Crick has been too sick to shave him. "You always forget that I wasn't there," I said. "Harriet was there." "And the next week Glamorgan had made a dozen tartan pantaloons for her to wear under her hoops. In Father's books they never wore underlinen. Much nicer." "For all the times you have told me this story, I wish I had been there." With thee conversing, I forget all time. He didn't catch my tease. I wouldn't say that Henry has wit, although he is superb with puns. "I could swear you were," he said. "No. I've certainly come to regret it." "Yes." "Have you concern of these things?" He was puzzled for the briefest moment. "These things?" "Women's fashions." "I leave that to my sisters." He was looking at my feet. As it is always my delight to oblige him, I lifted my dressing gown so he could see my ankles. I was wearing a pair of red morocco slippers; I was not wearing stockings. (When we were young, he liked me tied to my spine board and trussed like a goose.) "Shall I read on?" He grunted. I pulled the lamp closer. "The smirking lasses had long thrown out their jibes against me as being a woman hater, but in this they are greatly mistaken. I had indeed been very guarded in my conduct towards them, as I held it extremely wrong and cruel to sport with the feelings of any one of them in making them believe that I was in love with any of them, without really being so; in this (which was one of my resolves) sincerity and truth are my guides." I looked up and saw that he had gone back to his map. I laid aside the Berwick, of which I am not over-fond, and, rescuing Saint-Simon from the exile of my pocket, eagerly returned with him to Paris. Excerpted from One Last Look by Susanna Moore All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
