A Review of William Dalrymple's "The Return of A King"

William Dalrymple has done it again. Once again he takes us on a fairy-tale adventure across two continents with a cast of characters as diverse as Napoleon to Queen Victoria. In his book, he describes the first Anglo-Afghan War of 1839-1842 complete with its background of the Great Game- the Anglo-Russian rivalry in Central Asia. However, this work has a few shortcomings. Dalrymple, in a sense, tries to do too much. The book starts with the meeting of Napoleon and Tsar Alexander I at the drafting of the Treaty of Tilsit. From there it goes towards British and Russian intrigues in locations as varied as Tehran to Hong Kong during the Opium Wars. It also involves supporting actors such as Ranjit Singh and the Polish-Russian adventurer Ivan Vitkevich. As Dalrymple gives a thorough background of each of his characters, the central narrative tends to get drowned in the verbosity. Often it seems that the author is going off on a tangent instead of sticking to the main events discussed in the book. Dalrymple's fondness of descriptive writing is also a bit of a let-down. While he describes the geography and locales very well, the actual description of the battle scenes tend to be flat and lifeless. On that particular point, it seems as if the soldiers do not seem to have any spirit.

However, on the whole, it is a good book worth reading as it draws parallels between the British misadventure of the 1840s with the troubles faced by NATO in its present day war on terror and also includes interesting tidbits such as the Taliban chief Mullah Omar likening himself to Dost Mohammed who resisted the British.