History made simple often becomes another way of creating fiction. Many novelists have used history, some have deferred to it, while others have simply hijacked it for purposes of plot and characterisation. There is also a vast and popular, often entertaining though not always good, school of historical fiction, writes Eileen Battersby
English writer Philip Hensher's engaging and vivid fourth novel reflects only the very best use of history as a narrative canvas. This stylish, graceful novel certainly casts an ironic glance at the motives, reality and consequences of empire-building, but its main preoccupation is the various ways in which lives go wrong through the pursuit of goals and desires.
The action moves between Kabul, the great city of Afghanistan, and London, an enclosed society world in which reputations are made and lost on the spin of a fragment of gossip. The action also takes in Calcutta and St Petersburg as well as the sleepy English countryside, although the novel, for all of its movement and variety, is dominated by the contrasting empires of Britain and Afghanistan.
It is a long novel, yet such is Hensher's lightness of touch that the narrative flows fast, fluently and quite brilliantly. Nothing is straightforward; there is no real hero as such, although a sense of the heroic as well as an awareness of honour are vital to it.
Into the glamour and strange beauty of Kabul, where resides the Amir Dost Mohammed Khan, father of 54 sons - many still living at the time of the novel, others already dead - arrives a small party of foreigners noteworthy mainly by their pale faces and poor horsemanship. These are the English, lead by a Scot, Alexander Burnes.
At first it seems as if the clash of cultures is going to be mainly about customs and diet. But it turns out to be more sinister than that. Burnes is an adventurer. His first trip to Kabul provides him with sufficient stories to ensure his welcome in the many smart parties of a London society besotted by tales of travel to exotic places. His second journey there ends in a bloodbath.
There is nothing fake, pretentious or fashionable about this wonderful, recently Booker-longlisted novel. Hensher is an intelligent, imaginative writer, too gifted to be bothered by trendy gimmicks. The Mulberry Empire is as individual as are his previous novels, the finest of which, Pleasured (1998), failed to secure inclusion in an admittedly strong Booker shortlist that would have been further consolidated by Hensher's presence with what remains an exciting and sophisticated love story acted out in Berlin in 1988 at a time of change.
Nineteenth-century history has retained its established appeal for British writers and readers, as is evident from the success of Matthew Kneale's Whitbread Book of the Year, English Passengers (2001).
Hensher takes a traditional genre and, while deferring to the conventions, introduces energy and humour. While the prose possesses a consistent period tone, it never falters into pastiche and the dialogue is often sharp and always good.
There are also some engagingly ironic, well-pitched authorial asides, such as: "At this point, the scholarly reader will be wondering what, exactly, was going on, and what, precisely, lay behind the forthcoming meeting of pretenders to the throne of Kabul. The relevant correspondence may be found in the library of the India Office, I expect."
IT IS a descriptive novel of action, drama and comedy, with much of Hensher's achievement lying in his subtle celebration not only of story but of the conventions of classic 19th-century fiction. There is even a long sea journey and a revealing private, if never-to-be-read, journal. Yet where the novel continually soars most magnificently is through the inspired characterisation. A large cast of convincingly drawn characters, most impressively of all a realistically disappointed heroine, comes to life throughout the narrative.
Considering the current fuss generated by Jon McGregor's over-rated but trendy If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things, also Booker-longlisted, it is worth looking at The Mulberry Empire as honest storytelling. Much of the best of contemporary British fiction at least appears to look more towards the traditional than the experimental. Ian McEwan's Atonement triumphed for many reasons, not least through its grasp of the concepts of traditional English narrative.
Earlier this year, another outstanding British novel, Scots writer Janice Galloway's Clara - based on the life of the composer and concert pianist, Clara Schumann, wife of composer Robert Schumann - was published. Unfortunately, it failed to make the Booker longlist.
Hensher's novel, deservedly, has. His lively, polished and unpretentious performance is one of those "story" novels it is impossible to read without urging everyone else to do so as well.
It is also a book that, in keeping with the 19th-century fiction tradition, reads well off the page and will be read aloud for readers of all ages.
The Mulberry Empire. By Phillip Hensher. Flamingo, 537pp, £17.99 sterling
• Eileen Battersby is Literary Correspondent of The Irish Times