Loot by Tania James

Published by Knopf on June 13, 2023

Blending historical drama with an adventure story and spiced with forbidden romance, Loot is difficult to categorize. That’s one reason the novel is so special. The story is anchored by Tipu’s Tiger, a popular attraction at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum. While the tiger exists, Loot is an inventive work of fiction.

The story begins in the Kingdom of Mysor. Before it fell, the kingdom was in the southern peninsula of India. In 1794, it is ruled by Tipu Sultan. Lucien Du Leze, a French clockmaker and master of automated figures, has been living for some time in the Sultan’s court. He is impressed by toys carved from wood by a boy named Abbas, including a horse that moves its legs when its tail is lifted up and down. Through no fault of his own, Abbas has incurred the Sultan’s wrath and would likely be executed if not for Lucien’s intervention.

The Sultan has instructed Lucien to make an automaton in the shape of a tiger. The Sultan wants the tiger to be eating an infidel. As conceived by Lucien, the infidel’s arm will move and he will moan in pain when a crank is turned. Bellows and an organ in the beast’s belly will produce the moans, while tunes can be played on an external keyboard to entertain the Sultan as the tiger lunches on the infidel’s throat. Lucien can handle the automation, but he needs Abbas to carve the tiger.

The first part of the story develops the character of Abbas as he apprentices with Lucien, separates from his family, learns to speak French, and vows to learn the secrets of clockmaking and automation. After some time, as the East India Company is poised to invade Mysore, Lucien arranges his return to France. Abbas is not ready to accompany him; he wishes to serve the Sultan in his doomed defense of Mysore. The decision is unwise, but Abbas will survive a harrowing battle and later embark on a journey to reunite with Lucien.

More adventures follow as Abbas becomes a ship’s carpenter in the hope of finding passage to France. Pirates, British naval vessels that conscript crew from other ships (not much different from pirates, really), and disease are all barriers to the achievement of Abbas’ goal.

When he was still in Mysore, Abbas carved a top for a little girl named Jehanne. Lucien came to be her guardian after her mother died in childbirth. Jehanne has traveled to France with Lucien, where she assists him with a shop that sells curios and clocks. Abbas will eventually make his way to Jehanne.

The tiger, on the other hand, has made its way to England. Like palace jewels and attractive women, it became part of the “loot” with which conquering soldiers were rewarded. The tiger was gifted as a spoil of war to a British officer named Selwyn who knew it would delight his eccentric wife.

After Abbas reunites with Jehanne, he wants to recover the tiger, or at least a part of its internal mechanism, as an end to achieving his larger goal of learning the skills that Lucien promised to teach him. To that end, Abbas travels to England with Jehanne with a plan to scam Lady Selwyn.

Lady Selwyn is secretly sleeping with Rum, an Indian servant who is suspicious of Abbas and Jehanne. His suspicions are well founded, but Lady Selwyn is taken with Jehanne. Interracial romance adds to the intrigue in the novel’s last half and, in the case of Jehanne and Abbas, contributes to the novel’s tension — will they or won’t they? They both bear “a wound that the other understands, being severed from their bloodlines, their homeland. Each is all the other has, and this can sometimes be a burden, but also a solace.”

It’s impossible to convey an adequate flavor of a plot that travels in some many directions and touches upon so many subjects, from war to romance, from subjugation to the struggle for self-realization. Despite its average length, the novel feels like an epic. The French Revolution and British colonialism shape many of the novel’s events, but Abbas is barely aware of the political and discriminatory forces that drive his life. He only knows that his experience working on the tiger with Lucien changed his life, left him wanting more, a “more” he initially defines as a life of clockmaking and automaton creation. Only at the end does he realize that his life is open to so many more possibilities. Other characters come to the same realization.

Tania James’ prose is exquisite. Lyrical descriptions of life in Tipu Sultan’s court and in Lady Selwyn’s estate bring the settings alive, while powerful images of war and life at sea give the story a cinematic feel. Careful research adds an illusion of authenticity. James keeps the story in constant motion, joining tragedy with moments of comedy as the story advances to a satisfying conclusion. Readers in search of something different and readers who value good storytelling might want to add Loot to their reading lists.

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