The Setting Sun: A Memoir of Empire and Family Secrets

by Bart J. Moore-Gilbert

"I've always had difficulty imagining my father as a policeman. He seemed most himself in the informal setting of safari life, clothes disheveled, sometimes not shaving for days. So why did he join the Indian Police, with its rigid hierarchies and complex protocols?"

Setting Sun is the story of the dying days of an empire, combined with gripping family history, in an extraordinary literary voyage across India.

When a letter from an Indian historian arrives out of the blue, informing leading academic Moore Gilbert that his beloved, deceased father, a member of the Indian Police before Independence, partook in the abuse of civilians, Moore Gilbert's world is shaken as his cherished childhood memories are challenged. He sets out in search of the truth—discovering much about the end of empire, the state of India today, and whether his father, as one of the many characters on his quest claims, really was a terrorist.

Crisscrossing western India, and following leads from bustling Mumbai to remote rural scenes, Moore-Gilbert finally pieces together the truth, ultimately discovering that the same story links the past with the present, colonial India with its modern incarnation, terrorism through the ages and father with son.

Genres: India, History, Travel, Nonfiction, Memoir, Biography

288 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2014

About the author

Bart Jason Moore-Gilbert was Professor of Postcolonial Studies and English at Goldsmiths, University of London. He was the author of Postcolonial Theory: Contexts, Practices and Politics, Kipling and “Orientalism”, and editor of Literature and Imperialism, Cultural Revolution? The Challenge of the Arts in the 1960s, The Arts in the 1970s: Cultural Closure?, Writing India: British Representations of India 1857-1990 and Postcolonial Theory: A Reader.

Reviews

[Thaís · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story is well written and compelling, although hard to read at times - some footnotes would have been handy. My issue is that there was a lot of potential to grapple with settler-colonial guilt here, since the book is written by a Professor of Postcolonial Studies who grew up as a priviliged kid in a former UK colony. I was expecting to read some deeply personal reflection about the permanence of colonialism. This potential even seems partially explored when the author contrasts childhood memories with archival information about his father's job, but Bart's reflexivity only goes as far as accepting that his father was flawed and apologising on his behalf. It was disappointing - even more so to read reviews here saying that 'his father didn't do anything terrible'. I was left with an aftertaste of White narcissism, as the book is a lot less about contesting the ongoing subtleties of Imperialism and a lot more about working through the ambiguity of a parent's moral values. But maybe the book should simply have been marketed differently, as it does its job as a family memoir...

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read for my historians craft seminar. Really interesting description of Gilbert's first foray into archival research and his experience as he unearths the truth of his fathers career. Overall, good but wouldn't recommend to my friends (unless history majors lol)

[Evan Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

A a touching memoir of growing up in Africa set alongside a trip to India to learn about the his father's past in the last days of British India.

[Jeremy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this one. I found it riveting and fascinating. The author, a predictably woke left-wing post-colonial studies professor in London discovers that his dad may have been doing bad things as a policeman in India in the 1940s leading up to partition and decides to go to India to find out the truth for himself. The only discordant note was his attempting to tie in a war going on in Gaza at the time of his visit with what happened in India during when his father was there - predictably with israel as the evil aggressor. I therefore thoroughly enjoyed his ongoing discomfort as Indian after Indian that he met reflected nostalgically and positively on the role of the British in India :-).

[Karen Cole · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bart Moore-Gilbert's father died when he was a young boy and his memories are of a brave and honourable man who influenced his son both in life and in death - the loss not only of his father but also his home and everything he knew meant he spent years feeling an exile in England and eventually gave up his childhood ambition to be a game ranger like his dad to become a professor of Postcolonial Studies at London University. When he receives a letter from a colleague asking for information about his father's time in the Indian police as a young man he is at once intrigued. He realises how little he knows about that time, especially after discovering his father may have written a secret memorandum about the Parallel Government (an armed underground movement formed after Gandhi's imprisonment in 1942). Moore-Gilbert decides to visit the country himself to find out more, particularly when his historian colleague's emails start to become more erratic and vague.
However, shortly after arriving in India he is shattered to learn his father may have been involved in the abuse of civilians. What follows is a captivating and compelling look at India, both the country as it is today and how it was in the last years of British rule. His journey is both physical and emotional as he travels across India gradually learning more about his father and the dying days of the British Empire. It's also a memoir about the author's childhood in Tanganyika (now Tanzania) and his relationship with his father as he is compelled to re-examine his memories of that time.
I really enjoyed The Setting Sun, Bart Moore-Gilbert writes movingly and honestly about his relationship with his father and his feelings as he realises he was a more flawed man than the hero of his memories. Both India and the Africa of his childhood are evocatively described and it's also rich and thoughtful look at the politics of the past and their effect on the present. Sometimes the most interesting, thought-provoking stories are those that are from real life and The Setting Sun is one such book; even if you don't usually read much nonfiction I thoroughly recommend it.
Thanks to the author and publishers for my free copy from NetGalley in return for my honest review.

[Gillian · Rating 4 out of 5]

For most children their parents’ past lives are mysteries—mysteries that, too often, die with them. In Bart Moore-Gilbert’s case, the sudden death of his father, when the author was still a boy, means that his father’s past is even more elusive. The memories he has of his father, a game ranger in Tanganyika, are glorious and golden. He is his hero, brave, knowledgeable, compassionate, and a man with a strict moral code by which he lives and which he expects those around him to follow. So, it is tremendous shock when as a professor in London, he receives an email from an Indian academic who is writing about an uprising during WWII which seems to imply that his father who had previously been a member of the Indian Police had been involved in atrocities against civilians.
As an historian and skilled researcher, Moore-Gilbert does what comes naturally to him and sets off to India to find out more about his father’s life there and to try and find out the truth about his father’s actions.
His search through modern India and its past is by turns, frustrating, exhilarating and disturbing. He also muses on his childhood memories and these sections, which are interspersed throughout the book, are particularly affecting. As he remembers, there are hints to the reader that his heroic father was not perfect, events and actions which the child could not understand until an adult himself. Along the way, Moore-Gilbert skillfully draws vivid pictures of the people he meets, the very different places to which he travels. The book, however, is more than just a travelogue; it is also a meditation on the nature of terrorism, moral accountability, family secrets, and the slippery nature of memory.


Discclaimer: I received this as an e-ARC through NetGalley

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book to be a rather slow read, as the text was really dense, but it definitely got easier to read the more you got into it. I really enjoyed the snippets of memories about his father as a game keeper in Tanzania and his growing up there, which were interspersed among the narrative about the author and his father’s past. Although I know about the expansiveness of the British Empire, I sometimes forget that were British citizens living in Africa, outside of South Africa.

What would you do if you found out that your father, a man you always idolized, was not who he seemed to be? That is just what happened to the author, after being contacted by an Indian historian researching the Parallel Government, right before the Indian Independence from Britain. So the author sets out on a quest to discover the truth about his father, who was stationed there during the last days of the Raj (the period of the British dominion in India), and his role with the Indian Police from 1938-1947. Through the course of the author’s investigation into his father, I learned more about British-controlled India and the Indians’ first attempts at becoming their own separate country, and about how terrorism is perceived throughout the world. Because of his trip to India, the author is able to have some closure on his father’s death, and reconcile how he saw his father versus how his father really was as a man and as a professional. 3 stars.

Disclaimer: I received this book via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

[Annie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bart Moore-Gilbert, a professor at London University, has fond memories of his father, Bill. Bill was a game warden in Tanganyika (now Rwanda) and Bart's childhood was full of safaris and poachers and hot sun. Bart was away at boarding school in England when Bill's plane crashed, killing him. The family relocated to England permanently after that. Bart didn't have much more to do with the former Empire except for his lingering love of post-colonial literature. Out of the blue, an Indian historian contacts Bart and asks him if he or his brothers have any old documents from Bill's time as an officer in the Indian Police. The question kicks of an overdue quest by Bart to find out what kind of man his father was before he became a family man. Bart recounts his research trip to India in The Setting Sun: A Memoir of Empire and Family Secrets.

Read the rest of my review at A Bookish Type. I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley for review consideration.

[Sanjeev · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author has tried to weave two stories in this book. One is his research into his father's role in the Indian Police Service in the fading days of British Empire in India; and the other is about his boyhood in Tanzania, Africa. He alternates one with another. It appears that he is trying to weave them together, but the effect on the reader is jarring, made worse by the fact that the two stories are in different font. I did not find that stories connected well with each other

After about the first 100 pages I started concentrating on one story at a time and then I enjoyed it. The story about his father "Bill" in the the Indian Police and his role in brutalities inflicted on freedom fighters and author's search to find his father's colleagues in Western India, 50 or so years later, is very interesting. He has captured the functioning of Indian bureaucracy well.

If you find the two stories disrupting the flow, like I did, then read one at a time and then it is very enjoyable.

[Celia · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was disappointed in the book. I expected the author to find out something very terrible about his father which the author did not find.

I prefer autobiography to be more straightforward, The author is very British-not that there is anything wrong with that but it makes his family history hard to understand. What were his grandparents doing in Africa? I was not familiar even with the term Raj.

I was brought up to believe that the British occupation of India was wrong so to me it was hard to imagine that the father could be seen as a hero in something that I was raised to believe was wrong. Also I felt put off by the author's pro Arab point of view in the Mideast conflict.

The book works best as a book about an eleven year old who lost his father when he was young. However, the way the book was advertised I expected something more historical and political.

[Katarina · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author's writing brings the sights, smells and sounds of the different places alive, from England to Africa and India.

This book is more than a memoir. I enjoyed reading the childhood memories given as flashbacks throughout the book. They are so vividly written.
In addition, there's the author's investigation into his father's past and solving that mystery.
A very well-written book, at the same time introspective, raw, vivid, sweet and honest

[Neer · Rating 3 out of 5]

A blend of mystery, archival research, travelogue....

More here:

http://inkquilletc.blogspot.in/2015/0...

[Laura]

Available at NetGalley. Members in UK are preferred.