The Holder of the World

by Bharati Mukherjee

"An amazing literary feat and a masterpiece of storytelling. Once again, Bharati Mukherjee proves she is one of our foremost writers, with the literary muscles to weave both the future and the past into a tale that is singularly intelligent and provocative."
--AMY TAN

This is the remarkable story of Hannah Easton, a unique woman born in the American colonies in 1670, "a person undreamed of in Puritan society." Inquisitive, vital and awake to her own possibilities, Hannah travels to Mughal, India, with her husband, and English trader. There, she sets her own course, "translating" herself into the Salem Bibi, the white lover of a Hindu raja.

It is also the story of Beigh Masters, born in New England in the mid-twentieth century, an "asset hunter" who stumbles on the scattered record of her distant relative's life while tracking a legendary diamond. As Beigh pieces together details of Hannah's journeys, she finds herself drawn into the most intimate and spellbinding fabric of that remote life, confirming her belief that with "sufficient passion and intelligence, we can deconstruct the barriers of time and geography...."

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, India, Historical, Indian Literature, Female Authors, Novels

286 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Bharati Mukherjee was an Indian-born award winning American writer who explored the internal culture clashes of her immigrant characters in the award-winning collection The Middleman and Other Stories and in novels like Jasmine and Desirable Daughters.

Ms. Mukherjee, a native of Calcutta, attended schools in England, Switzerland and India, earned advanced degrees in creative writing in the United States and lived for more than a decade in Canada, affording her a wealth of experience in the modern realities of multiculturalism.

She earned a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Calcutta in 1959 and a master’s degree from the University of Baroda, in Gujarat, in 1961. After sending six handwritten stories to the University of Iowa, she was accepted into the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she studied with Philip Roth and Vance Bourjaily in her first year. She earned an M.F.A. in 1963 and a doctorate in comparative literature in 1969 at Iowa.

After years of short-term academic appointments, Ms. Mukherjee was hired in 1989 to teach postcolonial and world literature at the University of California, Berkeley.

Bharati Mukherjee died on Saturday, January 28, 2017 in Manhattan. She was 76.

Reviews

[Proustitute (on hiatus) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mukherjee's novel is a fantastic journey not through history, per se, but about the aspects of the personal that inform history and its varied tellings. Many of the reviews I've read of The Holder of the World that were negative seemed to be expecting a historical fiction; this is far from Mukherjee's intention here. Indeed, she is questioning the very notion of history itself in how the narrator constructs the past of her seventeenth-century ancestor, Hannah, whose very name is palindrome, implying that she can be read in the same way from any vantage point. But this is not what the narrator discovers: Mukherjee's text is a collage of other texts from the narrator's trips to archival sources to journal entries (some from texts that actually exist, some from texts that do not exist at all), from intertextual allusions to Hawthorne and Rowlandson to a juxtaposition of different ways to retrieve and assess different kinds of information and build histories from them—e.g. the narrator's archival quest versus her partner's computerized experiments in mapping memory and time.

As a novel about history, this is wonderfully written, engaging, and compelling; the fractured and fragmented narrative—which sometimes jumps back and forth in time rapidly and lacks an overall cohesiveness—can be dizzying at first, but this is part of its structural integrity. The project of building one's history is never linear, and Mukherjee's project in bringing colonial America into dialogue with colonial England—and placing Hannah in the direct center of the Native Americans and native Indians as she journeys throughout her life—is a sophisticated attempt to discuss how power and narrative can be subverted. Not only are the stereotypical traits assigned to race and mapped on to gender at play here, with Hannah navigating her way through them, but these "negative" attributes are actually sources of freedom, movement, and liberation, both for this seventeenth-century woman and for the narrator who is intent on constructing this woman's history.

The source material is varied and rich; the historical settings are always visceral and enhanced by archival material—whether real or not, as Mukherjee seems to want to get the reader involved in questioning whether all truths are necessary in constructing a history or histories. I really enjoyed the book, and would highly recommend it to those interested in the problematical task of writing and constructing personal and cultural histories, and how the same problems at work in these attempts to reach back through time are also at play in the time period in questioning, allowing for a concurrent analysis of power, class, race, gender, and imperialism to take place while still conducting a very personal project close to one's heart.

[Marc Lamot · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a tough one. It took a while before I came into the story, and even then I was constantly set on a wrong foot. I have the impression that Mukherjee aimed at an experiment with different angles. On the one hand, an exploration of the historical process: how disparate data can be composed into a story and by doing so expose the great input of the author; and demonstrate that history has a complexity and "thickness" (Isaiah Berlin) that can not be represented by computer data, but only can be accessed through a literary story. On the other hand, Mukherjee also wanted to evoke various problems: colonial America in the 17th century, Puritanism versus "wild Indian", and more or less the same but in the context of Mogul-India in the 17th century; plus, not insignificant, gender issues around a woman with a complex background which gradually knows to find her goal. All fascinating, sure, but ultimately, I think that Mukherjee has been a bit too ambitious to cram this in a book of only 280 pages. Maybe to reread later.

[Brimate · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's a crazy story behind me reading this book. So my partner was going to take this class, and I happened to work briefly at a textbook store. I enjoyed looking at the books for different courses, and one course on Asian American literature had this book, when I had not previously seen, though I'd heard of the author.

It looked amazing of its own accord, and it looked quite relevant to the secret story I'm writing. They're sort of similar, and I thought I had been super original.

Later, I made the connection that the course this book was for was also the class my partner was going to take, and she had already ordered this book. Crazy. She ended up not taking the class, which left the book free for me to read.

So it's definitely helpful as historical background, setting, and details for my story, but it's also good on its own. I was expecting me, because I love historical fiction. I've enjoyed other historical fiction about colonial America and about India, and this author is apparently acclaimed and well-known.

The story was good and kept me interested the whole time, the details were unique, and there were some intriguing sub-plots and twists to the story, and it has that sense of all these ideas, events, people, places, etc becoming connected over the span of centuries and continents.

The book offers a critique of colonialism and colonialists, early capitalism, emperors and kings, and puritan society. The narrative is told by a unique white woman's voice, and revolves around the remarkable adventures and courageous acts of one to two (depending on the part of the book) strong, independent women, one Euro-American and one South Indian---both defying social mores of their time.

I should have liked it more. But I can't tell you why I didn't because I can't figure it out.

The book is enjoyable and one can learn about colonial India, America, and England---especially by looking up some words, people, events, etc---and I would still recommend it. But I wasn't totally drawn in and riveted like some other books have done for me.

[Sidharth Vardhan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Imagine Salman Rushdi but without magical realism! Mukherjee spins a historical yarn spanning 3 continents in trying to create her own version of Ramayana and Scarlet Letter. And in terms of historical accuracy (as far as I, a layman know) and very amount of material included, it's something incredible. Probably because of exactly that, the elements of novel never came together in my mind the way those in my favorite books do.

[Monica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Someone needs to reissue this with a better cover.

There is a staggering amount of plot in this book. Somehow it manages to combine puritan orphans, witch trials, pirates, serial killing, feminism, treasure hunting, concubines, and battles featuring elephants in full armor in 1600s India. Mukherjee's world creation is historically authentic (as far as I can tell) and full of fascinating details about an India I know nearly nothing about. I also think this might make an amazing movie .

This is three stars for me because I had a hard time connecting with the material - even though I think its interesting, well executed stuff. Fans of historical fiction, romance, and literary fiction might want to give this a try - I think you might like it more than I did.

[Lu]

Colonial India

[Liza Rodimtseva · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't know how long this book has been on my shelf. I didn't want to pick it up because, based on the description alone, I thought it might be one of those insufferable "feminist revision" novels, the kind which try to convince modern readers that things like slave harems, child marriage and dying in childbirth were ActUaLLy rEaLLy EmpOwEr1nG. Thankfully, it was better, and weirder than that. It begins with the narrator musing about the potential of a digital time machine powered by the aggregation of all of the information in the world (published in 1993, one imagines how disappointed she would be with how the internet turned out), before becoming an impressionistic, almost feverish, meditation on the human will to connect with their history. From ascetic Puritan New England to violently sensual India, it's a confrontation with history that dodges the usual tropes of historical fiction. Perhaps it feels a little contrived in its narrative format, maybe a little too formal and widely focused in its characterizations to be fully satisfying, but it's a vividly unique journey.

[Lynn L · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book reminds me of The Hare With Amber Eyes: A Family's Century of Art and Loss.

The narrator goes back and forth between colonial america/India juxtapositioned with modern times. Frequently mentioned are artifacts, evidence, that support the research of the narrator. It feels a little like report on a person from history.

Overall I liked reading this book. I wish the story had a singular focus on the character Hannah. It's almost like the author included her research for writing directly in the story. This served as a distraction for me.

[Sir He-Man · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an ingenious cross genre book that combines Pilgrim times with Mughal India, a giant diamond, a modern day geneologist and antiques dealer, and a computer VR program that will eventually introduce an entirely unexpected story element.

Mukherjee is one of my favorite authors and this is her best book. Inspiring, brimming with feminist ideals that don't insult historical accuracy, and passionately researched, Holder of the World is a remarkable bit of historical romance as brought to us by a very gifted author who knows what it is like to have lived in two worlds.

[Bonnie G · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has several violent scenes, so don't read if you don't care for that kind of thing. But the premise is fascinating, and I love the shift from the 1990s to the late 1600s. The majority of scenes are in India and describe tribal identities that I had no idea existed. The British were there too, plundering like crazy. The author does a great job of describing chaos while holding it all together with a story of an unlikely early American heroine. She is fascinating. I wish she really existed.

[Meaghan Banks-Innes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Half my thesis; a book that gets better each time I read it.

[Brandon Shire · Rating 3 out of 5]

Solid read. Enjoyed it, but a bit heavy on the subplots and overly descriptive paragraphs.

[Robert Wechsler · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are a lot of contemporary novels where a present-day character (usually a woman) is researching a past character (ditto), and the chapters go back and forth, with all sorts of parallels and, in scifi versions, time travel. I generally don’t like these books. Zenia Tompkins’ translation of the Ukrainian writer Tanja Maljartschuk’s Forgottenness was so well done that it pulled me through, but I often found it annoying.

I am happy that in this novel, Bharati Mukherjee chose to have the whole story told by the present-day researcher (this was the first of her books I have read). The narrator was not too intrusive in the history (and, in fact, was gone for too much of the novel’s second half), but was enjoyable and held the novel together. As with many novels, the more plot there was in this second half, the less I enjoyed it. But the first half was excellent and the second pretty good.

[RKanimalkingdom · Rating 3 out of 5]

“You set aggressive men on a course of unstructured competition, and they soon become desperate men in unscrupulous battle.”

My first Bharati Mukherjee book! This woman was a genius, a freaking genius. Mukherjee takes the story of the Ramayana and almost recreates it, but with historical (and sometimes unhistorical) facts. She mainly angles the story towards the figure of Sita. Sita, was an orphan found by king Janaka from the earth. She choses to marry Ram and then chooses to follow him into exile for 14 years. There she gets kidnapped by Ravana and waits for Ram to rescue her while also refusing Ravana’s hand. After she gets rescued, Ram questions her loyalty which she proves by walking through an Agni Pariksha. After coming back to Ayodhya, she becomes pregnant, but rumours spread about her, and Ram decides to abandon her in the jungle, alone. She gives birth to twins, raises them and gives them to Ram, and then returns back into the earth. This is a really condensed version of the story, but Mukherjee is really questioning two things: 1. Why Sita had to prove herself to Ram 2. What if Sita had accepted Ravana?

Review Continued Here

[Parallel Worlds · Rating 1 out of 5]

Random House, 1993

Intended Audience: Adult

Sexual content: Significant

Ace/Genderqueer characters: None

Rating: R for gory violence and brief sexuality

Writing style: 2/5

Likable characters: 2/5

Plot/Concepts: 3/5



Beigh Masters is an assets researcher, obsessed with the life of the Salem Bibi, a Puritan woman named Hannah Easton who played a part in a great battle with the Muslim Emperor, the Holder of the World. Through the research of her partner Venn, information can reconstruct certain moments in time. Beigh hopes that all she’s pieced together will be enough to recreate one brief moment of the Salem Bibi’s life.

Although this book is technically science fiction due to the inclusion of time reconstruction, we spend so little time exploring Beigh’s character that the story feels much more like historical fiction. She just happens to be a narrator with a name. In fact, reading this novel felt a bit like reading a textbook, and I’m pretty sure that’s the main reason I found it so excruciatingly boring. The ideas and concepts were fine, and even the characters had potential, but there was so much telling and summarizing rather than showing and experiencing that I was constantly catching myself, forgetting that I was reading a novel rather than an academic article. I never really got to connect with any person, place, or event. I felt like I was watching all this through the wrong end of a telescope—rather than being larger than life, everything was distant and unreal. This could have easily been remedied by creating more moments of actual dialogue and interactions between the characters, described with more immediacy.

The other side of this problem, however, is the fact that perhaps this dry informational style was what the author intended. If this really is a story more about Beigh than Hannah, we are more fully transported into her scholarly mindset by reading all of this as if we were some professional historian scanning her work for validity. Venn’s project is all about drawing a surplus of information together into something coherent, real, and alive. Beigh is trying to do that in her own way, but struggles to make it real for those she is narrating to. Perhaps the true meaning of the story lies somewhere in that contradiction, but I didn’t care enough to look too deeply.

Mukherjee seems to rely on exoticism to sell the story—look, here is a tale about a sexually repressed Puritan woman from Salem, Massachusetts, who because of her witch-like healing powers eventually winds up playing the foreign lover to great and powerful men in India, and becoming the temporary guardian of a fabled jewel. This is the stuff of legends, for sure, but there was nothing to make it meaningful to me. The religious themes were glossed over, the conflicts of identity only briefly touched upon. The dramatic moments were all gore and violence and wild passionate lust (more of the former than the latter). Although Hannah turns out to have a strong personality in some ways, she also doesn’t seem to have much of a sense of self—her circumstances shape her more than any decision she personally makes. Fate tosses her to and fro and all she does is accept what happens. The changes which come upon her feel forced and not truly stemming from her own heart.

Again, I could be missing some cultural cue here. Perhaps there is a deeper meaning embedded in the text which I lack the context to see; perhaps I am blinded by my expectations of what makes a good story according to a western model. I’d be happy to hear a well-thought-out opposition to my opinion on this book. Until then, all I can see is a novel which was written without much consideration for the reader; rather, it is simply a collection of ideas put down in a long explanation rather than anything meant to move, inspire, or even entertain.

[K.D. Absolutely · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book probably deserves more than two stars (in Goodreads, this means it was okay) but I just was not able to relate to the material. It is about Hannah Easton who was born as part of the American colonies in 1670, traveled to India and became a Salem Bibi, the white lover of Hindu raja.

A 2012 recent addition to the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die list, I even ordered and bought this book from Book Depository just for me to have a copy. However, while reading, the many interspersing, non-chronological, non-linear settings are too much for my simple taste. A review here on Goodreads says that memories or even recalling the past, i.e., histories (this being a historical fiction) works that way. We don't recall memories in chronological order, I thought I heard that one many times before. One of the techniques many novelists use. However, the 17th century America (except when for a while, I was reminded of the setting of The Scarlet Letter) and the Beigh Masters in New England, the British East India Company (except when I got reminded of A Passage to India) did not interest me much.

Granted that it has the vivid descriptions of those glorious settings being well-researched and styled with probably the discriminating readers of serious literature in mind when being written, it just struck me as when you are going back from a buffet table with your plate full of food. You were tempted to taste so many of the dishes that the taste of each is now mixed with the others that is not supposed to happen as you would not appreciate what each viand should taste alone. So, you will end up with the custard tasting like beef stew or your 4-cheese Italian pasta tasting like chicken tandoori.

Or maybe Hannah Easton, the modern version of Hester Prynne, feels like Sheena Easton who first came to my consciousness via her youngish interpretation of James Bond's movie theme "For Your Eyes Only" then when she changed her style in "Telephone" long long distance love affair, oh, oh / I can't find you anywhere, oh, oh / I call you on the telephone / But you're never home I gotta get a message to you / Wanna tell you what I'm going through, oh, oh I just turned off the radio and stopped listening to her.

Or maybe my brother will enjoy this book so the money I spent ordering this from Book Depository would not go to waste. Maybe. We'll see.

[Pamela · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting story that combines two storylines and timescales - the more prominent is the story of Hannah Easton whose journey takes her from Salem in the late seventeenth century to England and on to the Mughal Empire of India. The other story is of Beigh Masters, an American ‘asset hunter’ and distant descendant of Hannah, who has collected artefacts relating to Hannah’s life and travels.

This an enjoyable and readable piece of historical fiction, less literary in tone than I was expecting, but with some thought provoking and challenging themes around history and its representation. It’s very skilfully plotted and the narrative embeds well into the vivid descriptions of time and place. The volatile nature of India as East India Company officials, individual freebooters and the landowners and noble personages (Muslim and Hindu) vie for political and economic control of the country is particularly memorable.

I was less engaged by the present day story, and found the Beigh Masters character and her partner’s futuristic experiments with data rather vague and confusing. Nevertheless, I liked the questions she raised about history and the way they were integrated into the story. Overall a 3.5* read for me, but rounded up to 4* for the sheer verve and entertainment of the story.

[whimsicalmeerkat · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Holder of the World is the first book by Bharati Mukherjee I have read, and I am looking forward to reading the others she has on the 1001 Books to Read Before You Die list. The degree to which I enjoyed this book is made impressive by the fact that it is a loose re-telling of The Scarlet Letter, a book I utterly loathe. The Holder of the World is a story within a story; that of Beigh Masters and the novel she is writing about Hannah Easton, a 17th century American who ends up in India, the lover, or bibi, of an Indian Raja. The story is compelling and lush. It feels like a plausible recounting by someone who has spent years chasing the life of a person, stringing together their tale by hunting the artifacts they have left, while constantly growing more close to their subject.

[Marjorie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I upped this from three to four stars because I think it's a book that I will keep thinking about and remembering. It pulls together some of my interests - colonial America, genealogy, and India. The author interweaves several plot lines and that makes it a bit challenging to track. The historic plots revolve around one character, a woman, who has the (mis) fortune of experiencing the relatively powerless life of a woman in both colonial US and colonial India. A researcher, also a woman, in the 20th century is trying to ascertain the whereabouts of a rare gem that has a connection to her ancestor Hannah, the 17th century character. See what I mean about confusing? I think the author does a pretty good job pulling the stories together and shining light in interesting ways on the fluid dynamics of the history of the period. Throw in a little bit of real-life time-travel and there's enough in the book to sink your teeth into if you enjoy historical fiction. I think that this is a very good example of the genre although it meanders a bit. I will probably read it again and will definitely read more by the author.

[Just_ann_now · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really loved the rich descriptive detail, both of material objects and historical events. Unfortunately, the story-within-a-story conceit focused on telling, not showing. I couldn't really get a handle on either of the main characters, the narrator Beigh, an art historian, and the object of her obsession, Hannah, called "The Salem Bibi". I kept wondering why this book was on a Fantasy/SciFi list; the eventual scifi aspect seemed contrived. Despite these shortcomings (to my mind) the writing was in many ways very vivid - I could easily picture the jewels, the Mughal paintings, the war-elephants.

[Becky · Rating 1 out of 5]

Eurgh. I think historical fiction is rapidly becoming one of my least favourite genres. The Holder of the World is supposed to tie the modern day life of Beigh Masters, a US academic, with the life in the 1700s of The Salem Bibi, a white woman who ended up doing some pretty bizarre things in India. It's contrived, the modern day subplot is clumsy as hell, and it's not very interesting. Poor show.

[Rachel · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was confusing and difficult to get into. So I gave up.

[Jenn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolute love

[Lydia Presley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was recommended to me by a friend and I have to say, it was one of the more unique books I've read. The book moves back and forth, pretty fluidly, between a historical story and a more recent one--all through the frame of an academic researching a specific historical figure. Add onto that a missing jewel. It's like Titanic meets a researcher's adventure. I seriously laughed as I typed that.

I will say that this took me a bit longer than I like to get through. There are parts of the story that are extremely dense and read very much like the author is writing for an academic audience (which is part of the charm). But I pushed through and I was satisfied with the ending.

Would I read this one again? Probably not. But I definitely see the appeal and recognize how very different it is from other books I've read. And, more than likely, I'll be checking out Mukherjee's other books as well.

[Ian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic, an intoxicating mix of The Scarlet Letter with what feels like García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, magic and mundane mingling with moments too strange to be fiction so they must be fact. Absolutely loved this, looking forward to reading more Mukherjee

[Haley · Rating 5 out of 5]

We read this book for my American literature class, and I really enjoyed it. It's such a unique story. I've never read anything quite like it before. The contrast between all of the many different cultures that are present in the book and interact with each other was so interesting and something I've never encountered before. Hannah's story and the wide variety of people she meets was just so unexpected and fun to read about.

Beigh's story seemed to take the backseat to Hannah's for the most part, but I did enjoy that aspect of the novel together. I loved the way the two women's stories were weaved together and how Hannah's story affected Beigh. Hannah's story could have been told without Beigh, but I feel like Beigh's story managed to add something special to the story.

I'd recommend this book to anyone who's interested in historical fiction, especially if you're interested in any of the many cultures present in the book.

[George · Rating 4 out of 5]

An entertaining, plot driven historical fiction novel about the adventurous life of Hannah, ‘the Salem Bibi’, during the seventeenth century, as narrated by Beigh Masters, a young American woman in the twentieth century. Beigh uncovers the story of Hannah through Hannah’s diaries, objects and pictures.

Hannah grew up as an orphan with the Easton’s in Salem, USA, she then travelled with Gabriel Legge, her husband, where they lived in England for some time. Gabriel was a compulsive seafarer,leaving Hannah alone in England for long periods of time. They then travelled to the Coromandel Coast, India, where they lived for some years. Here she finds herself behind the walls of White Town in Mughal India.

An interesting amount of historical information on seventeenth century life in India from the perspective of a woman brought up in America and England.

A very enjoyable reading experience.

This book was first published in 1993.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

You wouldn't expect one young woman to become embroiled in both King Philip's War in colonial Massachusetts and the Mughal expansions in southern India, but Mukherjee pulls it off in her tail of Hannah Easton. Hannah is orphaned by the uprisings in the Plymouth colony, fostered to an upright devout Puritan family, escapes the dreary colony by marrying an adventurer, and finally experiences some rather dramatic events in the multicultural plunder of the Indian subcontinent. I was fascinated by the history but somewhat less enthralled with the modern day framing story which involved some version of virtual reality and a Hollywood mogul searching for an enormous diamond. I don't think that the book would have been harmed by losing that subplot.

[Eadie Burke · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a very interesting look into the life of Hannah Easton. The timeline switches between the 1600's and the 1900's and takes us from Salem, Massachusetts, Europe, and then to the Coromandel coast of India. Beigh Masters, an American anthropologist, searches museums for archives of historical objects and she is searching for a perfect diamond that was in Hannah's possession. Her husband helps her by using a virtual reality program. I learned lots of interesting facts reading this book which did enhance my knowledge of life back in the 1600's. In the end, the book was linked to Nathaniel Hawthorn's novel, The Scarlet Letter. I would recommend the novel to those who like history and learning about other cultures.

[Shazia · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was not my cup of tea. I've read a few of the reviews which I suspect are correct, that this is about much deeper things. However, I'm not interested the deeper things if the story on its face doesn't hold my attention. Beigh's story is remarkably un-interesting, and the contrast of her "asset hunting" with her partner's computer-based data accumulation and analysis was heavy handed and not very enlightening. Hannah's story,when it wasn't being interrupted, was full of potential interest. But it was written in the style of a historian being accurate to what the record does and does not show. But this isn't a real history! I wanted the depth of character exploration that fiction allows. I found this book a slow slog. Definitely not a book I'd recommend.