Joseph Conrad Meets Graham Greene

The Strangler Vine was long listed for the 2014 Bailey’s Women’s Prize for Fiction and the description — historical fiction set in early 19th-century India featuring a green soldier, a wizened political operative and Thuggees — made it sound too good to pass up. Images of Indiana Jones came to mind, but Carter offers her readers so much more than that pulpy comic-booky fare. Trained as a journalist, she delivers a meticulously researched political novel that reminded me of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Graham Greene’s The Quiet American. Colonialism, racism, greed, and nationalism are on display in all their ugliness in this thrilling tale.

The novel is told from the point of view of William Avery, a young ensign or “griffin” in the army stationed in Calcutta for the British East India Company, aka “the Company,” in 1837. As a younger son of the landed gentry, he has no prospects or connections, and joining a regiment seemed his best option. Avery was thrilled initially to be posted in India, the site of romantic and swashbuckling adventures as written by his favorite author Xavier Mountstuart. Avery is not a particularly distinguished soldier; he finds himself in debt and hungover and increasingly homesick. When Avery is ordered to take a message to Jeremiah Blake, an Englishman living in Blacktown, his perilous adventures begin. In short order, he is drawn into a secret mission with Blake on behalf of the Company’s political wing, loses his best friend to murder, and is parted from the lovely Helen Larkbridge.

The mission is to find Avery’s idol Xavier Mountstuart. Mounstuart had just published a scandalous novel that was a thinly disguised attack on the Company, and it is rumored that he has entered alone into Thuggee territory in the hopes of researching these murderous thieving devotees of Kali so that he can write about them. The mission to find him is led, reluctantly and irascibly, by Blake. Blake is an older man of mysterious past; he is a Company man who hates the Company, knows many languages and is a master of disguise. His reasons for going on the mission and his relationship to Mountstuart are revealed slowly throughout the story. Initially he and Avery do not get along; Blake wishes not to take him along and Avery is disturbed by Blake’s criticisms of the Company. The other three members of the posse are natives. Avery is unable to speak any of the native languages, but Mir Aziz, Blake’s “general factotum,” is a Company man and able to guide Avery a bit along the difficult journey deep into the “jangal” (jungle).

Carter has two obvious strengths as a writer. One is that she is able to create and describe scenes that make the novel play out like a feature film in the reader’s head: a dark and dangerous village bazaar, a remote but orderly and genteel British outpost, a knife fight, a tiger hunt, narrow escapes. Her abilities as a journalist serve her well. Carter did a remarkable amount of research and is careful to be correct with her details. A number of her characters are real historical figures, notably Major William Sleeman, who was head of the Thuggee Department and was recognized as an expert on Thuggees for quite some time.

Carter’s other strength is in her ability to craft a fascinating political thriller out of her material. In order to pull this off, Carter had to immerse herself in the political, economic and social milieu of 1837 India. The reader learns of the drought that threatened northern India and the fear it caused among native peoples, especially when the Governor General planned a trip north. His entourage, including soldiers, would place an economic burden on an area already reeling. Carter also brings up the burgeoning opium trade and the pressure the Company put on landowners to grow that lucrative cash crop instead of food. And then, through Frances Parks, a real person who lived in India at the time and who meets with Blake, we learn that some English are bothered by the way the Company and Europeans have shifted their attitudes vis a vis the native peoples. In the past, they had expressed interest in local cultures and valued them; now they wish to Christianize and impose English rule and mores. At the beginning of the novel, Avery attends a party at which high ranking Company men and their wives are present. One lady says,

The natives are kindly creatures, most of them, but they are simply by nature dishonest. Their ungodly heathen religion enslaves and has degraded them. They do not understand the difference between good and evil. They are addicted to lying.

To speak on behalf of the natives becomes increasingly dangerous. Frances tells Blake,

These days the Company suspects those who see beauty in the lives of the natives….

As the mission proceeds, Avery and Blake find it very difficult to get anyone in authority — be it Major Sleeman or the Rao of Doora — to give them straight answers about Mountstuart and his movements through their territory. It would be a shame to ruin the story by giving any more plot detail, but “trust no one” might be a good subtitle for this book. When we meet Mountstuart, much is revealed about Blake and others, and the reasons for his involvement in the case become clear.

The Strangler Vine is an excellent read. I loved the political aspect of the story as well as the growing friendship between Avery and Blake (I believe Carter has written another novel featuring the two characters). And I learned some things about India, its culture and the Thuggees that I found surprising. Recommended for those who enjoy historical fiction and fans of Geraldine Brooks, another journalist who knows how to tell a story.