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Simon Winchester's Calcutta
Calcutta is a city in a state of permanent surprise, where amazement is around every crumbling corner, and astonishment lurks over every rickshaw-puller's shoulder. It is a city that never ceases to shock those who pass through, and it is also a city that manages to delight and enthrall those who are stalwart enough to stay and brave enough to make an effort to look, and to see. Best-selling writer Simon Winchester explores his love-hate relationship with Calcutta, a city that provokes intense reactions in all who visit. Collaborating with his son Rupert, Simon muses on his time spent in Calcutta, reflecting on his experiences, preconceptions and own individual fascination with the city. The Winchesters' personal essays are presented with a selection of wide-ranging extracts penned by other visitors to this surprising city. The result is a personal view of one of the world's most resonant destinations that also acts as an essential introduction to the wealth of writing on the subject. Includes extracts by V.S. Naipaul, Paul Theroux, Rudyard Kipling, Geoffrey Moorhouse, Rabindranath Tagore, N.C. Chaudhuri, Gunter Grass, Dominique Lapierre, James Morris, Mark Twain and Vikram Seth. Simon Winchester's Calcutta provides a rare insight into the inspiration writers gain from their love for a special place.
302 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2004
About the author
Simon Winchester
94 books2,342 followersSimon Winchester, OBE, is a British writer, journalist and broadcaster who resides in the United States. Through his career at The Guardian, Winchester covered numerous significant events including Bloody Sunday and the Watergate Scandal. As an author, Simon Winchester has written or contributed to over a dozen nonfiction books and authored one novel, and his articles appear in several travel publications including Condé Nast Traveler, Smithsonian Magazine, and National Geographic.
In 1969, Winchester joined The Guardian, first as regional correspondent based in Newcastle upon Tyne, but was later assigned to be the Northern Ireland Correspondent. Winchester's time in Northern Ireland placed him around several events of The Troubles, including the events of Bloody Sunday and the Belfast Hour of Terror.
After leaving Northern Ireland in 1972, Winchester was briefly assigned to Calcutta before becoming The Guardian's American correspondent in Washington, D.C., where Winchester covered news ranging from the end of Richard Nixon's administration to the start of Jimmy Carter's presidency. In 1982, while working as the Chief Foreign Feature Writer for The Sunday Times, Winchester was on location for the invasion of the Falklands Islands by Argentine forces. Suspected of being a spy, Winchester was held as a prisoner in Tierra del Fuego for three months.
Winchester's first book, In Holy Terror, was published by Faber and Faber in 1975. The book drew heavily on his first-hand experiences during the turmoils in Ulster. In 1976, Winchester published his second book, American Heartbeat, which dealt with his personal travels through the American heartland. Winchester's third book, Prison Diary, was a recounting of his imprisonment at Tierra del Fuego during the Falklands War and, as noted by Dr Jules Smith, is responsible for his rise to prominence in the United Kingdom. Throughout the 1980s and most of the 1990s, Winchester produced several travel books, most of which dealt with Asian and Pacific locations including Korea, Hong Kong, and the Yangtze River.
Winchester's first truly successful book was The Professor and the Madman (1998), published by Penguin UK as The Surgeon of Crowthorne. Telling the story of the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary, the book was a New York Times Best Seller, and Mel Gibson optioned the rights to a film version, likely to be directed by John Boorman.
Though Winchester still writes travel books, he has repeated the narrative non-fiction form he used in The Professor and the Madman several times, many of which ended in books placed on best sellers lists. His 2001 book, The Map that Changed the World, focused on geologist William Smith and was Whichester's second New York Times best seller. The year 2003 saw Winchester release another book on the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary, The Meaning of Everything, as well as the best-selling Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded. Winchester followed Krakatoa's volcano with San Francisco's 1906 earthquake in A Crack in the Edge of the World. The Man Who Loved China (2008) retells the life of eccentric Cambridge scholar Joseph Needham, who helped to expose China to the western world. Winchester's latest book, The Alice Behind Wonderland, was released March 11, 2011.
- source Wikipedia
In 1969, Winchester joined The Guardian, first as regional correspondent based in Newcastle upon Tyne, but was later assigned to be the Northern Ireland Correspondent. Winchester's time in Northern Ireland placed him around several events of The Troubles, including the events of Bloody Sunday and the Belfast Hour of Terror.
After leaving Northern Ireland in 1972, Winchester was briefly assigned to Calcutta before becoming The Guardian's American correspondent in Washington, D.C., where Winchester covered news ranging from the end of Richard Nixon's administration to the start of Jimmy Carter's presidency. In 1982, while working as the Chief Foreign Feature Writer for The Sunday Times, Winchester was on location for the invasion of the Falklands Islands by Argentine forces. Suspected of being a spy, Winchester was held as a prisoner in Tierra del Fuego for three months.
Winchester's first book, In Holy Terror, was published by Faber and Faber in 1975. The book drew heavily on his first-hand experiences during the turmoils in Ulster. In 1976, Winchester published his second book, American Heartbeat, which dealt with his personal travels through the American heartland. Winchester's third book, Prison Diary, was a recounting of his imprisonment at Tierra del Fuego during the Falklands War and, as noted by Dr Jules Smith, is responsible for his rise to prominence in the United Kingdom. Throughout the 1980s and most of the 1990s, Winchester produced several travel books, most of which dealt with Asian and Pacific locations including Korea, Hong Kong, and the Yangtze River.
Winchester's first truly successful book was The Professor and the Madman (1998), published by Penguin UK as The Surgeon of Crowthorne. Telling the story of the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary, the book was a New York Times Best Seller, and Mel Gibson optioned the rights to a film version, likely to be directed by John Boorman.
Though Winchester still writes travel books, he has repeated the narrative non-fiction form he used in The Professor and the Madman several times, many of which ended in books placed on best sellers lists. His 2001 book, The Map that Changed the World, focused on geologist William Smith and was Whichester's second New York Times best seller. The year 2003 saw Winchester release another book on the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary, The Meaning of Everything, as well as the best-selling Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded. Winchester followed Krakatoa's volcano with San Francisco's 1906 earthquake in A Crack in the Edge of the World. The Man Who Loved China (2008) retells the life of eccentric Cambridge scholar Joseph Needham, who helped to expose China to the western world. Winchester's latest book, The Alice Behind Wonderland, was released March 11, 2011.
- source Wikipedia
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
July 11, 2024
My parents, before coming to the USA, were born and raised in Kolkatta, India. As I am planning a visit to India to travel in several months, I've been doing some reading.
Simon Winchester's "Calcutta" is a collection of short essays and excerpts from stories that encapsulate the essence of the complex and chaotic city of Kolkatta. Some of the stories are from the British Empire times, while others are from the 1960s or even more recent times. The selection of authors is myriad from former British Raj officials, famous Indian writers and poets, as well as small stories of various foreigner's musings about their travel to Kolkatta.
An entertaining book. It is at times shocking as Kolkatta is shocking, but the essays are all well written and capture snippets of Kolkatta in different parts of its existence. If you're interested in Kolkatta this is a good selection of essays for you to read.
Simon Winchester's "Calcutta" is a collection of short essays and excerpts from stories that encapsulate the essence of the complex and chaotic city of Kolkatta. Some of the stories are from the British Empire times, while others are from the 1960s or even more recent times. The selection of authors is myriad from former British Raj officials, famous Indian writers and poets, as well as small stories of various foreigner's musings about their travel to Kolkatta.
An entertaining book. It is at times shocking as Kolkatta is shocking, but the essays are all well written and capture snippets of Kolkatta in different parts of its existence. If you're interested in Kolkatta this is a good selection of essays for you to read.
March 11, 2023
Calcutta - Simon & Rupert Winchester.
Rating 3.5/5
I took quite a long time to read this book, owing to it (out of the many reasons, primary) being monotonous and stereotyped.
The book contains extracts from various authors' writing. These writing have appeared as a part of other books. Multiple authors include Tagore, Kipling, Vikram Seth, Naipaul, Nirad Chaudhari, Alan Ross, Geoffrey Moorehouse, Jan Morris.
Apart from the font being small, the other thing which stopped me from enjoying the book was the direction which many of the authors' articles took.
Many authors' extracts speak about dirty, unhygenic and unclean Calcutta with its own set of unsolvable problems.
Problems which extracts spoke about included
- Calcutta weather - Refugee influx - Politics - Hygiene - Population - Job market.
One side there is a heavy debate on problems of Calcutta and quality of native peoples' lives while on the other side there is a heavy praised inferred on the imperialistic contributions and aristocratic lifestyle comprising of servants, guards, help etc.
Not much is mentioned about people of Calcutta in terms of their contribution, their resilience, their contribution to freedom struggle and many other fields. For few minutes felt this book was targeted towards Western audience. But then again, its my personal opinion.
So, the book failed to balance out the ecosystem and in the end turned a bit boring for me, how much can I take Calcutta bashing.
Some of the extracts were fun, especially Vikram Seth and VS Naipaul. I did enjoy Nirad Chaudhari's observations, though I forgot the intrinsic details which he mentions. Buddhadev Bose writing on Tagore demise portrays two sides of the coin.
Simon and Rupert Winchester's concise history of Calcutta is very enjoyable where he speaks about Bengal Renaissance and various events and figures like Ram Mohan Roy, Tagore, Ray.
There is one incident which happens to be mentioned multitude of times, The Black Hole. I feel in front of 200 years of tyranny The Black Hole appears to be a slightly overspoken.
Strangely, if I can accurately remember, not many of the extracts (was it infact none?) speak or touch base with the Indian Independence, freedom struggle. Also, it can't be denied that Alan Ross, Geoffrey Moorehouse, Jan Morris haven't said anything pleasant about Calcutta, its just that, its beyond the scope of this book and this I suppose we have to be content with.
All in all - an okayish read. I also found it hard to remember all the British contingent mentioned here, Hastings/Clive/Curzon/Charnock/Wellsley, I can recollect few but then, not all. One good thing about this collection is that it speaks about many events of the history many involving Calcutta. Shifting of capital from Calcutta to Delhi, Battle of Plassey, 1857 Mutiny are few notable one's
Cheers,
Rating 3.5/5
I took quite a long time to read this book, owing to it (out of the many reasons, primary) being monotonous and stereotyped.
The book contains extracts from various authors' writing. These writing have appeared as a part of other books. Multiple authors include Tagore, Kipling, Vikram Seth, Naipaul, Nirad Chaudhari, Alan Ross, Geoffrey Moorehouse, Jan Morris.
Apart from the font being small, the other thing which stopped me from enjoying the book was the direction which many of the authors' articles took.
Many authors' extracts speak about dirty, unhygenic and unclean Calcutta with its own set of unsolvable problems.
Problems which extracts spoke about included
- Calcutta weather - Refugee influx - Politics - Hygiene - Population - Job market.
One side there is a heavy debate on problems of Calcutta and quality of native peoples' lives while on the other side there is a heavy praised inferred on the imperialistic contributions and aristocratic lifestyle comprising of servants, guards, help etc.
Not much is mentioned about people of Calcutta in terms of their contribution, their resilience, their contribution to freedom struggle and many other fields. For few minutes felt this book was targeted towards Western audience. But then again, its my personal opinion.
So, the book failed to balance out the ecosystem and in the end turned a bit boring for me, how much can I take Calcutta bashing.
Some of the extracts were fun, especially Vikram Seth and VS Naipaul. I did enjoy Nirad Chaudhari's observations, though I forgot the intrinsic details which he mentions. Buddhadev Bose writing on Tagore demise portrays two sides of the coin.
Simon and Rupert Winchester's concise history of Calcutta is very enjoyable where he speaks about Bengal Renaissance and various events and figures like Ram Mohan Roy, Tagore, Ray.
There is one incident which happens to be mentioned multitude of times, The Black Hole. I feel in front of 200 years of tyranny The Black Hole appears to be a slightly overspoken.
Strangely, if I can accurately remember, not many of the extracts (was it infact none?) speak or touch base with the Indian Independence, freedom struggle. Also, it can't be denied that Alan Ross, Geoffrey Moorehouse, Jan Morris haven't said anything pleasant about Calcutta, its just that, its beyond the scope of this book and this I suppose we have to be content with.
All in all - an okayish read. I also found it hard to remember all the British contingent mentioned here, Hastings/Clive/Curzon/Charnock/Wellsley, I can recollect few but then, not all. One good thing about this collection is that it speaks about many events of the history many involving Calcutta. Shifting of capital from Calcutta to Delhi, Battle of Plassey, 1857 Mutiny are few notable one's
Cheers,
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 7, 2016
This is a book with a history of Calcutta written by Simon Winchester and his son, which to be fair is quite detailed, but fairly dry. After this and a couple of short essays by the Winchesters, there are a load of excerpts on the topic of Calcutta. Some are great, some not so.
There are some heavy hitters included - Clark Blaise & Bharati Mukherjee, William Dalrymple, Dominique Lapierre, Adrian Levy & Cathy Scott-Clark, VS Naipaul were the better for me. Others included Geoffrey Moorhouse, Paul Theroux, James Morris & Mark Twain.
The small type in the edition I read didn't help... it really was small print.
There are some heavy hitters included - Clark Blaise & Bharati Mukherjee, William Dalrymple, Dominique Lapierre, Adrian Levy & Cathy Scott-Clark, VS Naipaul were the better for me. Others included Geoffrey Moorhouse, Paul Theroux, James Morris & Mark Twain.
The small type in the edition I read didn't help... it really was small print.
June 16, 2019
This book begins with a nice and short history of Kolkata, something all Calcuttans should be aware off. Rest of the book is a collection of chapters on Calcutta and the impressions it made on great authors like Naipaul, NC Chowdhuri, Vikram Seth and other renowned authors .. possibly taken from their famous novels... being a true Calcuttan who is strongly connected to my city roots till today ... I wish the author added some perspectives which saw the city in more positive light rather than drawing on pessimistic and negative anecdotal collections... after all Calcutta has given almost all the Nobel laureates from india apart from globally renowned authors and lifetime achievement academy award winners who were born bred in this city.....
February 14, 2023
The book starts with two essays by Winchester and his son, recounting their personal experiences in Calcutta and summarizing the city's history. These are wonderful. The rest of the book is a collection - perhaps hodge-podge is a better word - of memoirs, excerpts from novels and stories, and at least one poem, all touching on life in Calcutta. These are presented in no identifiable order, without context, introduction or analysis. They are repetitive and quickly become tedious. It almost seems as if some editor wanted to pad out the Winchesters' essays to make a book and grabbed anything in the catalogue that related to the topic.
Read
July 25, 2011Published by Lonely Planet, this is clearly a book meant to give a tourist a fairly quick overview of Calcutta/Kolkata, perhaps on the train to Howrah. It is a decidedly mixed bag, however. Some of the essays offered here are actually excerpts from the works of some classic writers on Calcutta. These include both Indians such as Vikram Seth and Rabindranath Tagore as well as older foreign writers who experienced Calcutta or researched its history, such as Mark Twain, Gunter Grass and William Dalrymple. The excerpts from these are often throughtful and fun, as are the pictures of life in the earlier British Raj provided by parts of journals and diaries of British figures during this period.
Interspersed with these, however, are some "travelogue" type of essays by modern tourists who seem to want to speak with authority about a city and society which is frankly unknown to them. The anecdotes invariably veer to not merely the negative, but the patronizingly negative. While Calcutta certainly has its problems, serious ones, it seems to me that more balance might have been exercised in the selection of especially modern material for this book.
Interspersed with these, however, are some "travelogue" type of essays by modern tourists who seem to want to speak with authority about a city and society which is frankly unknown to them. The anecdotes invariably veer to not merely the negative, but the patronizingly negative. While Calcutta certainly has its problems, serious ones, it seems to me that more balance might have been exercised in the selection of especially modern material for this book.
June 5, 2016
A truly remarkable set of excerpts from various books about the truly remarkable city of Calcutta, (now Kolkata) all coordinated by Simon Winchester who also contributes a tale, as does his son. Calcutta is unique in that in the heart of one of the most ancient civilizations on earth, it is a relatively young city, founded only in 1690 by the British East India Company to facilitate trade from Bengal. The history of the multicultural city is presented here, (the British took over directly after the Sepoy Mutiny in 1857, making it their capital of British India until 1911, when it was moved to New Delhi) and there is a great deal that needs to be told; of course, the culture shock stories about Calcutta dominate, (the poverty, the living conditions, the overwhelming humidity and the floods from the monsoon) but Calcutta is not just slums. They call it the "City of Palaces". Well worth a read if you're interested in India.
May 14, 2013
The first part of Simon Winchester's Calcutta includes a history of Calcutta (Kolkata) written by Simon Winchester. Some readers might be turned off by Winchester's characterization of freedom fighter Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose as "buffoonish" and "one of the great villains." However, his assessment of Mother Theresa, which draws upon the work of Aroup Chatterjee and the late Christopher Hitchens, is spot on.
The second part of the book features excerpts about Calcutta from the works of a diverse group of writers that include N.C. Chaudhuri, William Dalrymple, Gunther Grass, V.S. Naipaul, Paul Theroux, Vikram Seth, Tagore, and Mark Twain. The different perspectives from these writers make this book worth reading.
The second part of the book features excerpts about Calcutta from the works of a diverse group of writers that include N.C. Chaudhuri, William Dalrymple, Gunther Grass, V.S. Naipaul, Paul Theroux, Vikram Seth, Tagore, and Mark Twain. The different perspectives from these writers make this book worth reading.
August 10, 2008
I really dug the "brief history" that the Winchester father and son duo write about the city. Their research and journalism give the reader a solid foundation on British colonialism, myths,truths, and historical figures. But the rest of this book is sort of a "Calcutta reader" with a bunch of Joseph Conrad-type perspectives on the city from various western travel writers. How many times do I want to hear the redundant insights: Oh the squalor, but I love it so, it's such a powerful city, the roads are crumbling, oh the intellectual history!
But I would say the "brief history" is a must-read for the traveler to Calcutta.
But I would say the "brief history" is a must-read for the traveler to Calcutta.
August 5, 2009
As advertised, the history section is succinct and commendably so, thus, it is successful in providing the reader/traveler an important, albeit brief, background to the city. The rest of the book, as another reviewer pointed out, makes way too much of the contrast/conflict between east and west and all other contrasts that are inevitably present in a diverse community like the megalopolis of Kolkata. The best of these tales, though, is the piece by Bharati Mukherjee and Clark Blaise in which these "conflicts of contrast" play out not only in their interactions with the city but in their relationship as well.
January 9, 2016
I love Simon Winchester, but the introduction seems more written by his son and is not as strong as the rest of the book, which is a collection of excerpts from literature involving Calcutta for the past several hundred years, to capture the essence of the city. While some choices are better than others, many are beautifully written and will serve as sources for later reading. It is a great introduction to Calcutta, especially if you have some basic knowledge of the city.
March 5, 2010
Great fun. Recently read while travelling in Calcutta and Orissa and it thoroughly enhanced the trip. Excellent short history of the city and well-chosen excerpts from other authors from 1700s to present describing their experiences in the city. Would make a good armchair traveller read as well.
January 25, 2016
But for the small type........if only this were an ebook!! This is a wonderful anthology of writings regarding Calcutta (or Kolkata, if you insist!)
Want to Read
February 25, 2016Bought this in Kokaata in Jan 2011, to get a flavour of the city. Some great short pieces. However I did not get past the foreword, so I should not comment...
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews