7/8/2023 0 Comments The city of djinns![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() On the one hand Dalrymple records astutely and kindly (if sometimes a little patronisingly) his dealings with simpler sorts of Delhi-wallahs. Instead the book hangs upon two more organic strands. Well-digested outside influences were apparent in In Xanadu - notably that of Robert Byron, the guru of English literary travellers - and one notes from the acknowledgements that City of Djinns was read and commented on by at least 21 people before its author committed it to publication. For all his easy prose, Dalrymple is not a very spontaneous writer. The kind of book he has chosen to write this time, the form in which he has written it, even the style itself - all, one feels, have been carefully chosen to avoid the notorious pitfalls of the Second Book. It must have been a cruel challenge to write a sequel to such a virtuoso performance, and it is a pleasure to be able to cock a snook at that damned bird, and report that Dalrymple has pulled it off again. Flapping morosely around this volume, a schadenfreudean albatross, is the reputation of In Xanadu, William Dalrymple's entrancing and wildly successful first book. ![]()
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