Hmmm...

Look at me. Blogging without an audience. Anywho, this is a book review I did for English. I got level six and if you don't know what Outcomes Based Learning is, I won't bother explaining. It's crazy. By the way, I'm in year ten.

Worth the look
Rose Murch

One Last Look
Susanna Moore


A harrowing sea journey. The most clichéd beginning for a period drama since the birth of the novel. But Susanna Moore’s early 19th century saga is anything but. It follows the arduous journey of Lady Eleanor Oliphant as she evolves to accommodate the painful transition between upper class London and the dull sparkle of India.

Lady Eleanor’s brother Henry had been posted to the colony as governor-general and along with their sister Harriet and cousin Lafayette, they must remould their life into the society of Calcutta. Eleanor is shocked by all she sees about Government House. Etiquette has been abandoned and replaced by more practical means. In trying to deal with the heat, disease and missionaries, the Oliphants soon discover that all they were brought up to know, and how they were brought up to behave is rendered completely useless and all they can do is drop their airs and graces and act as everyone around them does. Eleanor is at first appalled at the the number of servants she has waiting on her hand and foot (for the presumption that she is incapacitated in some way, she finds the servants quaint), and at the intimacy some ladies share with them. All too soon she becomes as dependant on her household staff, particularly her jemandar Zahid, as a child to it’s mother. Harriet adapts into a pseudo-Indian lifestyle, taking up the religion, ideas and even smoking a hookah. She devotes her time to her adopted animals and due to increasingly odd remarks, there is a general fear for her sanity. Henry and Lafayette barely seem to notice the change, each being distracted by a heavy workload and a dancing girl called the Lotus respectively. India holds many battles for the whole family and as Henry's failing reign was drawn to a close, none of them find they want to leave. London life seemed impossible to step back into.

Moore’s description of British India shows both the rituals and pageantry of the rich English and the exotic Rajas, and the non discriminative death and disease that attacked the rich as much as the poor. Throughout the book, at every turn, each journal entry contains a nasty shock as some secondary character or other meets their maker. It is significant of the era as death at that particular time was “celebrated” above all things, but even mourning for dead children was uncommon. As displayed vividly through the book, there is a time and a place for everything and no amount of Shakespeare will make early Victorian India either.

Susanna Moore is an American author with many highly acclaimed books to her name, and One Last Look is no exception. The description of Indian life is balanced perfectly with the natural discretion one of Lady Eleanor’s upbringing would carry. With facts come subtle hints and, in her delicacy, Lady Eleanor gives the reader a stunning insight into the seedy underbelly of Calcutta, and the outline of an idea which explains why a spinster in her late thirties is so devoted to her brother, and clues to what their relationship may be. An absolute page turner, you won’t be able to put this masterpiece down without picking it back up again.