One Last Look FROM THE PUBLISHER
Calcutta in 1836: an uneasy mix of two worlds - the patient, implacably unchangeable India and the tableau vivant of English life created of imperialism's desperation. This is where Lady Eleanor, her sister Harriet, and her brother, Henry - the newly appointed Governor-General of the colony - arrive after a harrowing sea journey "from Heaven, across the world, to Hell."
But none of them will find India hellish in anticipated ways, and some - including Harriet and, against her better judgement, Eleanor - will find an irresistible and endlessly confounding heaven.
In Lady Eleanor - whose story is based on actual diaries - we have a keenly intelligent and observant narrator. Her descriptions of her profoundly unfamiliar world are vivid and sensual. The stultifying heat, the sensuous relief of the monsoon rains, the aromas and colors of the gardens and marketplaces, the mystifying grace and silence of the Indians themselves all come to rich life on the page. When she, Harriet, Henry, and ten thousand soldiers and servants make a three-year trek to the Punjab from Calcutta under Henry's failing leadership, Eleanor's impressions of the people and landscape are deepened, charged by her own revulsion and exaltation: "My life," she says, "once a fastidious nibble, has turned into an endless disorderly feast."
Harriet, whose passivity conceals a dazed openness to the true India, and Henry, with his frightened adherence to the crumbling ideals of empire, become foils to Eleanor's slow but inexorable seduction.
FROM THE CRITICS
The New York Times
What Ms. Moore does so well in this book is what she did so well in her early novels set in Hawaii: she conjures the heat and light and color of this hot, beautiful land, its smells and sensual allure...Ms. Moore also chronicles with subtle emotional detail the effect that India—in both its exotic extravagance and its harrowing poverty—has on the narrator and her family...With One Last Look, Ms. Moore has worked a satisfying variation on many of her perennial themes and produced a compelling and richly textured story.—Michiko Kakutani
The Washington Post
How marvelous is a book that educates but does not preach! One Last Look is a cautionary tale for smart women...and dumb men...but the beauty of the prose and the complexity of the narrative here far outweigh any edifying messages.—Carolyn See
The New Yorker
There is a certain kind of historical fiction which excels at evoking time and place—the dresses and the narrative voice just so, the moans of the mango bird in the tree exquisitely described—but, like this novel, Moore’s fifth, fails to build into something larger. Henry Oliphant, the new British Governor-General of India, comes to Calcutta with his two sisters in 1836. They discover the country’s emeralds, brocades, and phalanxes of servants, but are sheltered, at least for a time, from its grotesque poverty, and from political dynamics that will cause Henry’s downfall. The narrative takes the form of a journal kept by the elder sister, and Moore has relied on contemporaneous accounts by British women in India both for factual details and for her prose style. The over-all effect, however accomplished, is so studied that it brings to mind the virtuoso performances that the narrator herself records: the snake charmer, or the monkey who climbs tall trees to pick tea leaves.
Publishers Weekly
Moore's captivating fifth novel takes the form of entries in the diary of Lady Eleanor, a British aristocrat who travels in 1836 to Calcutta with her sister Harriet and her brother Henry, who has been appointed Governor-general of the colony. Like the narrator in Moore's 1995 thriller In the Cut, eloquent but snobbish Eleanor is not especially likable-she's convinced of her own superiority, even over her own "inordinately sensitive" sister. But she's a fascinating heroine-not only because she teases readers with hints of her unusually close relationship with Henry. During her six years in India, Eleanor undergoes a striking transformation, realizing that her "life-once a fastidious nibble-has turned into an endless disorderly feast." The Eleanor who likened Calcutta to hell becomes a woman able to admire her sister (who quickly falls in love with India), appreciate her exotic surroundings and recognize the folly of her stuffy fellow Englishmen and their attempts to recreate British culture on the subcontinent. She starts to question the idea of empire and to respect Indian culture; by the time Henry's tenure is up, she mourns the loss of her "elation of toiling through isolation and wonder." In precise, elegant prose, Moore vividly evokes the country's beauty and overwhelming otherness, but her exploration of character is even more interesting. Moore spent two years studying England and India in that era, and her novel was inspired by the diaries of Emily Eden, an Englishwoman in Calcutta; as a result, her protagonist is nuanced and convincing. As Eleanor writes in her diary, "The writing of women is always read in the hope of discovering women's secrets"; Eleanor and her creator reveal just enough glimpses to keep readers transfixed. (Oct.) Forecast: This is another departure for Moore, who before In the Cut was associated with coming-of-age narratives anchored in her native Hawaii. Some readers may be thrown by her unpredictable trajectory, but others will appreciate her ability to apply her distinctive voice to different eras and genres. 75,000 first printing. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
KLIATT - Nola Theiss
When Henry Oliphant is appointed Governor-General for India in 1836, his sister Eleanor travels with him as his official hostess, as does their younger sister Harriet. They find themselves in India: Henry in his official duties; Eleanor through her travels; and Harriet by finding the reality of India beneath the English sensibilities. After six years, each sibling realizes that life is not what it appears and that finding the truth can be dangerous. The modern reader will think Eleanor is unaware of some of her own motives, but will be moved by how much she grows because of her experiences in India. KLIATT Codes: SA—Recommended for senior high school students, advanced students, and adults. 2003, Random House, Vintage, 288p., Ages 15 to adult. Read all 7 "From The Critics" >
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