The Root and the Flower (20th Century Classics) [Paperback]

L.H. Myers (Author), Penelope Fitzgerald (Introduction)

Book Description

Series: 20th Century Classics | Publication Date: March 13, 1986

First published in 1935, this trilogy is set in exotic 16th-century India and records a succession of dynastic struggles during the reign of Akbar the great Mogul. It is an absorbing story of war, betrayal, intrique, and political power, as well as a moving study of the spiritual strenghts and weaknesses of Myer's characters. "An exciting exotic adventure story...a remarkbable work of imagination."--Iris Murdoch

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The Root and the Flower, British writer L.H. Myers's strange, mystical historical trilogy, was first published in the 1930s, and will now be reissued in one volume with an introduction by Penelope Fitzgerald. Set in a dreamlike version of Moghal India, it follows the adventures of a prince, his wife and their son Jali, each struggling separately with temptation and spiritual malaise. Lyrically written and exquisitely imagined, it is a haunting minor classic.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

From Library Journal

Myers's epic of India was originally published as three novels between 1929 and 1935. Large in scope, the novel covers political, religious, and ethnic conflicts that have ravaged that country for years. This edition includes an introduction by Penelope Fitzgerald.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 582 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (March 13, 1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0192819119
• ISBN-13: 978-0192819116
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 4.7 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,442,304 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Art and The Philosophy, August 7, 2006

By 

Daniel Myers (Greenville, SC USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Root and the Flower (New York Review Books Classics) (Paperback)

First off the mark, a slight disclaimer: I am of a very, very removed (to the nth degree, one might say) relative of this author, and while I was always aware of him and his father from an early age as the only authors in English literature slightly related to me, I always shied away from them because of 1) A dislike of the Theosophical twaddle for which the father is known and 2) A superstitious fear of what I might find that reminded me of myself, a fear that "blood will out" as it were.

That having been said, I found this trilogy both enchanting, and tediously tendentious, by turns. The writing is superb throughout and the scenes depicted deliciously evocative. Even at its most tedious and ham-handed, the writing (almost) always manages to pull one through. A review of the three separate books on its own merits is, I think, the best way to go about reviewing this trilogy. They are very different, indeed, despite a superficial show of having the same characters in play and having the same Asiatic backdrop. Before embarking on this, however, it is necessary to put to rest a criticism that has been voiced concerning all three books: To wit, that Myers never went to India (though he did travel extensively and to nearby Ceylon) and is therefore unqualified to write a book about it. The book is set during the reign of the Emperor Akhbar in Sixteenth Century India, where nobody has been for quite some time. You may as well criticise an author for not travelling to 16th Century England or America. As is commonplace: "The past is a different country. They do things differently there." So, on to the books:

1.) The Near and the Far---This is my favourite of the three, though clearly, I think, not what my distant relative meant to be the best. This trilogy has been dubbed a philosophical novel, quite rightly so. But in this book, the philosophy, such as it is, complements rather than obtrudes into the beautiful passages and contains the characters to whom most mortals can relate: Hari and Sita. Both characters are flawed, in a sort of moral sense, that is. On the other hand, they are the only three-dimensional, fully fleshed out characters in the whole trilogy. As Sita puts it to herself, "She preferred to love, even if loving meant suffering." And who of us doesn't?
2.) Prince Jali----Here, things start to unravel for the book as a work of art. Prince Jali is thirteen years old and though the book is described as a "Bildungsroman" by Penelope Fitzgerald, with whom I disagree on just about everything, in the Introduction. It isn't. Jali is thirteen at the beginning as well at the end of the book, there is really no detectable change or growth or "coming of age" of the character, which is what a Bildungsroman is all about. The critics are right about this one: It's a very flimsily veiled philippic reflecting Myers's own experience with Bloomsbury and "artistic" groups in general. Also, a caveat for homosexual readers: You are bound to be offended by Myers's depiction of Prince Daniyal and his "Camp" of catamites, which is really what this book is about. To my mind, it should have been entitled The Camp.
3.) Rajah Amar----Here the philosophy becomes overbearing and the writing heavy-handed and we are, indeed, a far cry from the deftness of touch in The Near and the Far. Clearly, Amar, with his renunciation of the world and unworldly affect are clearly what Myers admired most and desired most to effectively convey. But, really, it just won't do. The English humanist, Smith, for example, is so clearly a take on Bertrand Russell that the book seems to be a bit of a sham. Furthermore, the confusing political machinations that have always been in the trilogy come to the fore here and make for, perhaps deliberately, unpleasant and confusing reading. It is clear that Myers was attempting to contrast all this worldliness with Amar's calm (until the end) renunciation of it, but he just doesn't pull it off to good effect.

Summation: My distant relative once said, "Why should anyone want to go on living once they know what the world is like?" This thread of melancholy pessimism and renunciation is especially evident in the last book. It comes as no great surprise, to this reader at least, that said distant relative took his own life. What is surprising is that he was, nevertheless, able to write about the beauty of life and love so poignantly. Even in the third book, which I find generally disappointing, there are stirring passages like this:

Later, when all was quiet again, he and I walked down the bare spur of a hill to a point where we could look out over the plains. The night had been dark, but now the moon, which was nearly full, came out and hung above the low mists that lay like a sea beneath us. That ghostly sea was ruddy as if dust and mist were mixed up together; and it foamed against the globe of the reddening moon as she sank. Spectral and lurid she sank, and all that region of the sky about her became the scene of a silent symbolic tragedy. P.492

This sort of brilliance and enchantment is what keeps one reading and makes the work remarkable, for all its faults. As Amar says, "When Art is great, it is by virtue of something that is not itself..." What Amar is talking about, of course, is the transcendental. And it seems to me he is spot on. From Proust to Thoreau to Shelley to, well, any great artist, we know this trait when we feel it as the mark of great literature. I humbly submit that, especially in the first book of this trilogy, Myers, with his bewitching descriptions meshing human love and enchanting beauty has attained to this realm and deserves to be ranked as one of the (perhaps lesser) immortals.