India Treasures : An Epic Novel of Rajasthan and Northern India through the Ages

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Summary: historical treasure
Review: An ornate and compelling collection of jeweled novellas pulling the reader through Indian history. Exquisite characters hit all the high notes without becoming heavyhanded. Bravo!

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Summary: Personalizing Indian History
Review: For a first time author, Worthington, does a splendid job of embracing a momentous topic. As stated by the previous reviewers, this is a fictional book based on India's history from "ancient times to post-Independence." Worthington weaves his story from present to past, making the locations come alive with historical tales. This is really a book of short stories told through one present-day story. Each story was interesting on its own. I highly recommend this book to even a novice reader of books on India, it kept my interest from the Get-Go!

Rating:
Summary: An epic novel on India
Review: For a first time author, Worthington, does a splendid job of embracing a momentous topic. As stated by the previous reviewers, this is a fictional book based on India's history from "ancient times to post-Independence." Worthington weaves his story from present to past, making the locations come alive with historical tales. This is really a book of short stories told through one present-day story. Each story was interesting on its own. I highly recommend this book to even a novice reader of books on India, it kept my interest from the Get-Go!

Rating:
Summary: An utterly absorbing historical
Review: Gary Worthington's India Treasures: An Epic Novel Of Rajasthan And Northern India Through The Ages is an engaging and entertaining sequence of eight dynamic novellas about Rajasthan and Northern India across the length of human history, all connected by a modern-day treasure hunt. Incorporating crucial events of Indian history seamlessly into the story, India Treasures brings the reader before the wisdom of the Buddha, the canvas of a medieval artist, the throne of the Sultan of Delhi, and many more wondrous places. An utterly absorbing historical. Also highly recommended is the sequel, India Fortunes.

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Summary: It helped me understand
Review: India Treasures gave me what I want from a historical novel - authenticity. I felt convinced the author deeply understood the multicultural history of India and how it has shaped India's complex social fabric today. A series of short novelettes set in various times from thousand of years ago to the 20th century were interspersed throughout the main story. They served to break up a long book into manageable chunks well suited for my busy schedule. More importantly they were an entertaining education about pivotal times in India's history. They helped me understand the reasons for modern India's religious diversity and struggle to discard the caste system.

Gary Worthington tells his stories from the eyes of different persons - young, old, privileged, and those locked in the darkness of the lowest castes. Indeed much of one of my favorite stories was told from the perspective of an extremely large elephant forced to participate in battle. At first I balked at this but I came to find it a very moving mirror of the human situation. I saw this beast feel the fear, devotion, puzzlement, loyalty, and comfort of habit of a conscious though simple mind caught up in events far beyond its comprehension.

India Treasures helped me to understand the process by which people come to believe or accept that others are vastly different from themselves thus deserving to be treated differently. While getting enlightened I learned much about India and enjoyed some very entertaining stories.

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Summary: India Treasures is an engaging novel
Review: India Treasures is as entertaining as it is intriguing, shifting you back and forth from present day to a variety of historical periods, weaving a story full of history, mystery, intrigue and atmosphere. I highly recommend this book. Whether you're an Indophile or a mystery-lover, you'll find yourself pulled into each story-within-a-story and a little sorry to look up and find out that you're really sitting on your own couch.

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Summary: A Treasure of India
Review: This epic tale of India draws the reader in by weaving ancient India events into an ongoing modern day treasure hunt. Each chapter brought a new understanding of the history that makes up the
complex and exciting world of present day India. The historical chapters read as separate stories while the present day chapters are an ongoing novel within a novel. I found this book difficult to put down and enjoyable to read. The chapter with the battle on elephants featuring Emperor Ashoka made me feel like I was right in the middle. I could smell and feel the battle scenes. I reccomend it for anyone who is searching for a greater understanding of India or just a good read.

Rating:
Summary: Doesn't deliver
Review: This is surely a monumental effort, but it doesn't capture the reader as Michener did, or Clavell did, or Rutherfurd does.

It is a series of novellas interrupted now and then by a modern tale of India, its bureaucrats searching for a tax-hidden treasure in the palace of a wealthy but no longer all-powerful prince (Raja) in modern democratic India.

The search touches on various ancient locations leading, in each case, to the author bringing the reader back to that time - from the Aryan invaders, the Buddha and Mahavira, the great Emperor Ashoka, and so on. A terrific concept, but it just doesn't deliver, and fails to convince.

Filled with information gleaned from histories, the characters and situations don't give the reader that sense of place in which to lose oneself, so critical to historical novels. And the author's inclusion of a "study guide" I felt to be, if not pompous, a bit premature.

One otherwise well-written story about an elephant and his young handler is fatally marred by the author's description of the elephant's attitude to his captivity. The animal is happy and content with his being regularly fed and bathed. This is precisely the argument used by present-day handlers of these great beasts in circuses.

Buddha is not served any better. He comes across as a holier-than-thou caricature, not the passionate, struggling marvel of a human being that he was. The rest of the stories are more of the same, missing the mark.

The author's sense of "untouchability" in present day India is accurate and informative, but, again, the reader is not moved. This is a book by a lawyer (self-described as such) with a serious interest in India. One yearns for a book on this subject by a writer.

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Summary: Superb and Exciting Indian Historical
Review: With the straightforward narration of Rutherford and the structure of Michener, this book is so well done that it exceeds in pace and excitement both Rutherford and Michener.

I am from India and a voracious reader of all types of books (including the aforementioned Rutherford and Michener), and I am unusually critical of those that write about India and don't have their books ring true. I initially picked up the book with the feeling that it might be amusing, but probably wouldn't be terribly accurate. Mr Worthington has exceeded even Indian authors on the accuracy front: his names ring true, the language rings true (including the use of Indian words: for example he makes the fine distinction between jauhar and sati), and the characters ring true. M.M. Kaye (the author of The Far Pavilions) lived in India for many years, and yet got the shade of meanings of some Indian words wrong, while as I read Mr Worthington's India Treasures I felt that a fellow Indian had written it.

Mr Worthington's best achievement, though, is that he has rooted the main story in present times, with historical stories that have a link to the main story. While each can be read separately, the book is best enjoyed in sequence, as this generates in the reader an accurate picture of how modern India evolved into the complex society that it is today, with the myriad external influences combining and sythesizing with internal realities.

My highest praise, though, would be reserved for the language and the manner in which Mr Worthington tells the story. He plunges the reader without delay into an intriguing situation and a wonderful story. Those who are captivated by books such as ...and Ladies of the Club, The Far Pavilions, Sarum, and Steinbeck's East of Eden, will find that the straightforward storytelling and language reminds them of those books, and also of the time when they were children and their favorite adult read them stories that they did not want to end and that kept them captivated way beyond their bedtimes. That feeling of "don't let it end" keeps one reading and reading until, sadly, it does end (but, never fear, there is a promised sequel!). The characters and stories will stay with you for a long, long time. The understanding of India will, perhaps, stay with you longer.

This book, in my estimation, is accessible to children of age 14 and above. The story of the elephant is particularly entrancing. The main story, set during a period in India's history under Indira Gandhi, called "The Emergency", when individual rights were suspended for eighteen months, and the government rode rough-shod over people, will probably be an eye-opener for many people, including those in India who were born after 1975.

Unlike any other book on India that I am aware of, this book cuts an illuminating swathe through Indian history (even I learned something about Indian history), and blends history and fiction seamlessly into a superb entertainment.

There is romance in this book, there is adventure in this book, there is history in this book. I am impressed enough by this book to be inspired to write my first Amazon.com review, and I have been buying books from Amazon since early 1997. While I started the book prepared to find faults and shrug it off as another one of those books on India, I found that it won me over in short order. I hope Mr Worthington keeps on writing, I hope more readers discover this gem, and I look forward with pleasurable anticipation to his next book.

Read it! As the much used (and sometimes abused, though not in this case) phrase goes, "You will not be disappointed!"