A detailed personalized view of the impact of class and colonialism on an artisan, a young carver seconded to a local ruler, taught by an involuntarily expatriated Frenchman, who goes through war and the perils of serving on a ship to find a place where he can learn what he needs to be the craftsmen he aspires to be. ( )

A wonderful epic story about unlikely friends centering on woodcarving artistry during the late 1700's and early 1800's. A French craftsman has a Muslim assistant as an aide and together they create a beautiful museum quality piece of a tiger for a middle eastern leader. Abbas becomes the focal point of the story as he hones his carving skills following his mentor (who dies) to France and England trying to maintain contact with their masterpiece. Abbas falls in love along the way. A great novel. ( )

I spotted this book on the long-list for the 2023 U.S. National Book Awards, and it looked intriguing so I got it from the library.

It's a piece of historical fiction, and it's about historical events in India which I knew nothing about. Though there are admittedly some violent and distressing incidents in it, overall the story has a warm, engaging feel as the life-journey of the main character draws you in.

We start in the city of Srirangapatna, part of the Kingdom of Mysore in India, in the year 1794, when it was under the rule of Tipu Sultan Fath Ali Khan, who was at that time loosely allied to France.

The protagonist of the story is a young boy called Abbas, who works as a woodcarver for his father Yusuf Muhammad. As well as his rather boring everyday work, Abbas also loves to make little wooden toys, some of which come to the attention of the wife of Tipu Sultan, and he begins to make some of his toys specifically at her request. In this way he comes to the notice of Tipu Sultan himself.

Tipu Sultan orders Abbas to come to him, and Abbas is terrified, particularly after he discovers that Tipu's wife has betrayed him. But the king doesn't want to have Abbas killed, but rather to work as an assistant to a French inventor, Lucien Du Leze. Du Leze has been living in Mysore for some time, after fleeing his home in Rouen in France after the French Revolution and has found a patron in Tipu Sultan. The king wants Du Leze to build a life-size automaton of a tiger attacking a British soldier.

One doesn't say "no" to an absolute ruler like Tipu Sultan, particularly if you are so lowly a person as Abbas, and so he starts work with Du Leze to build the contraption, learning a great deal as he does, but always aware of how much there is left to learn.

In the background of all of this, however, is the war with the British—well, the British and the East India Company—which eventually leads to the siege of Srirangapatna. Tipu Sultan dies in the attack, and young Abbas only barely survives himself. Du Leze also escapes the violence and offers to take Abbas back home with him to Rouen and teach him the trade of clockmaking, but Abbas needs to tend to his dying father and reluctantly refuses. Abbas is very talented and ambitious, yearning to shake the world with his abilities. But his situation in life is such that this seems impossible without the aid of a teacher and mentor like Lucien Du Leze.

In the aftermath of the siege, the victorious British divide up the spoils. Among these is the mechanical tiger automaton, which is awarded as a prize to a Colonel Selwyn, who takes it back home to England as a gift to his wife.

Abbas stows away aboard a British merchant ship, on which he is forced to serve for several years before finally reaching Rouen, only to find that Lucien Du Leze has recently died, leaving his shop to his adopted daughter Jehanne, the mixed-race child of a friend of his in India. She is struggling to make ends meet, and Abbas doesn't have sufficient skills to continue the clockmaking business.

So between them they come up with an audacious plan to get back the mechanical tiger from Colonel Selwyn's widow. How this plan works out occupies the remainder of the book and introduces us to two more very interesting characters in Lady Selwyn and her man of business, "Rum", another ex-patriot Indian like Abbas.

The point of view in the book smoothly shifts as needed: from Abbas, to Thomas (a midshipman who serves with him aboard the merchantman), to Jehanne, to Lady Selwyn, to Rum. All of this makes a harmonious whole rather than a disjointed narrative.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, it was very educational—it's based solidly on true historical events—and also highly entertaining and at times very moving. There's a tender, slowly-developing love story; and it also has quite a lot of things to say about how non-white people like Abbas and Rum were treated by white society at the time (and of course even still today).

Highly recommended. ( )

Loot is a beautifully written historical fiction novel set in the late 18th C. Beginning in India, Abbas, at 17, is summoned to the Tipu Sultan's palace to work for a master carpenter, Lucien Du Leze, carving an automaton of a tiger, the Sultan's symbol. Together, they create a masterpiece, with an organ inside the large tiger. Lucien wants to return to France, asks Abbas to come. Jehanna, daughter of Martine, is on journey, and was enthralled by Abbas' toy making.
Abbas stays to serve in Tipu's army, but English soldiers capture and destroy city. Abbas survives and takes a journey to France. He finds Jehanna, and they concoct a plan to get the automaton from Lady Selwyn in England. Once again, they journey, but their plan has problems.
Loosely based on historical events, the author weaves a vivid picture of the hardships of the times, the long journeys, and the consequences of war. There are also multiple love stories in the book, between lovers and parents and children. I was caught up in the story of Abbas and his quest to leave his mark on the world. ( )

A fictional exploration of how and why museums come to own objects, who is remembered in history and who is written out.

In Mysore, India, Abbas is apprenticed to a french artisan clock maker and deviser of automatons. They are contracted to create something for the Sultan and create a tiger mauling a white soldier. This is a real artefact held and displayed by the V & A where the internal workings of the tiger can be seen. The book tells how the tiger came to be in England and what happened to its makers.

Abbas was left in India when his teacher Du Leze returned to France and did not board a ship for Rouen to meet him again for several years, during which the East Indian Company ransacked the country and divided up the spoils, one of which was the musical automaton. It was given to the Governor who then had it shipped home when he died. His wife then displayed it and charged people to come and see it, living in a museum herself of 'oriental' objects, but lonely.

Once Abbas searched for Du Leze he met up again with Jehanne, who had become Du Leze's daughter after her own parents died on board the ship sailing to France. Together, they hatch a plan to steal the automaton back and show it themselves and make money but circumstances conspire against them. Throughout the tale we see Indians pushed out of their country 'I'm here because you were there', and the ways in which they have to adapt to fit in to the society. There is Rum who is Lady Selwyn's estate manager and her lover but who is not accepted when he is not with her. And there is Abbas.

At one point the narrator switches and becomes a British seaman, Thomas Beddicker, onboard the ship that Abbas works on to get to Rouen. Beddicker dreams of being the captain of his own ship and invites Abbas to join him but Abbas refuses explaining that he hasn't come this far to be a servant of others but to make a name for himself.

The story is a quest, a love story and almost a heist although I don't think this part is quite pulled off. However, it is an enjoyable imagined account of how the tiger came to be in London.

I couldn't quite get my teeth into this book although there were times when it made me smile. ( )