This novel was slower than I anticipated so I had a hard time getting into the story. I did end up liking it--but not loving it. Some of the switches from past to present were confusing but I did enjoy the different locales and the history of those places. Obviously a well-written and well-researched novel...just not my cup of tea.

Karna’s Wheel is fascinating, to say the least, and the incorporation of legends from Mahabharata gives it a certain quality. There is also a uniqueness to the method of writing; some parts are written in conventional fictional narrative style, and others incorporate screenwriting style i.e. camera movements and focus change.

Let’s go through the parts I enjoy first. I appreciated Michael Tobert’s humour. The author has his characters do several *nudge nudge wink wink* statements that are sure to crack a smile. For instance, the dialect used by Dundees in dialogues is spelt as it’s heard in this book. Observe:

‘Ull keep haud o this,’ she says as she reaches for it, ‘wi dinna wanna gay an drap it.’

This was a simple example. To be perfectly honest, I have no idea what some of those dialogues actually say. It gives it an authentic feel but it does get old because I have to slow down and read so hard to try to understand what’s being said. Soon enough, one of the characters says the following – he was talking with the main character Stephen about the book they’re writing together about Stephen’s grandfather:

‘And, by the way, I’ve taken out all the Dundee lingo stuff, except on occasions when I think it has to be in there. We don’t want the audience demanding their money back because they can’t understand the half of what they’re hearing.’

Now the things that made me decide on the rating for this book.

I guess there’s a point somewhere in all the highlight about Indians and Muslims and their beliefs being odd or different in the eyes of the Anglo-Saxon fair-skinned colonist. And the Muslims and Indians misplaced motivation in doing horrible things apparently in name of their religion, and them hating each other. It’s not just a thought that surfaces once in one of the character’s mind, in fact, it does so multiple times. I just don’t see it having a place in this novel. It’s probably because there is a multi-layered plot. With everything going on at once, these bits get distracting, leaving me wondering why they’re there rather than inviting me to ponder about it. I’m, however, not against the author have an exotic and non-mainstream setting for this historical fiction. I’m simply missing the point, and this is honest feedback from a reader based on her own experience reading this book.

I found it harder to maintain interest in the plot. Usually, authors have a way of convincing readers that whatever conflict they’re going through, readers have a stake in it too, something that makes the pages turn on their own. However, in this case, it doesn’t feel that way. It really feels like I’m having someone pour out their thoughts and opinions on me. Almost like a stranger unloading his troubles of the day on me on the train, but I just can’t will myself to become invested in his story even though usually I welcome a conversation on a train. I’m simply not the right audience even though I tried to listen.

I know I shouldn’t feel bad at all about this but it drags my mood down and deflates my reading motivations that I have to write a discouraging review like this so early in the year.

As historical fiction, it’s well written, bound to entertain given the right audience is reading. Unfortunately, I’m simply not one of them.

The writing style was not for me. Too overly descriptive, and I kept getting lost and having to go back and repeat over paragraphs. The synopsis sounded very intriguing to me, and I usually love books set in foreign countries to myself. It is simply just a style mismatch.

Unfortunately, a DNF for me.

I wish the author all the best and hope the right readers connect with this novel!

Thanks again to Netgalley and John Hunt Publishing for the ARC.

Stephen Smith’s mother has died. He has inherited the few things she owned- which include some boxes of her father’s memoirs. His flatmate, Seamus, talks him into reading them and then using them as the basis of a screenplay. Turns out Stephen Smith (using the same name for two characters caused a fair bit of confusion for me), having tired of working in the jute mills in Dundee, packed it in, moved to Calcutta in 1923…. To work in the jute factories there. The journals cover a lot of years, and they reveal the nasty racism that was rife in the white owned factories- and pretty much everything else the whites ran in India.

A couple of side plots in the current time run alongside this reading of the past: One is Stephen’s fraught relationship with Julia; the other is the investigation of Stephen’s mother by Detective McCorquodale. The detective thinks Stephen’s mother was selling drugs, and wants to go through every single thing she owned, including tearing out things in her flat. Stephen learns a lot about his family- and himself- through the novel.

The story was interesting, but it moved very slowly. I got confused several times, switching between times and characters. There was a lot of detail in the Calcutta sections, and those were the parts I liked best, although they were horribly grim. I got bored at times, and even desperately wanted the story to come to an end a few times. There are good things in the book, but somehow they just didn’t come together for me. Three stars.

An interesting, and at times disturbing story, of a man exploring the mysteries of his roots. A half Scottish half Indian young man, peeling back the layers which conceal his past, his grandfather's dark years in India, and his mother's tragic life. Well researched, and certainly told in a creative manner: partially a movie script, partially decoding old letters, as well as laced with current time love story and the main character finding his own special soul mate. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this e-reader copy for my review, all opinions are my own.

Once again I would like to give my appreciation to NetGalley for providing a kindle copy of this book for me to read and impartially review.
According the 'Blurb' associated with this book, this is a story of Secrets present. Secrets past. Secrets in India, where Stephen’s grandfather is a lowly functionary in the engine room of the Raj. Secrets at home, held tightly by Stephen’s half-Indian, half-Scottish mother. And it is only by uncovering what has been hidden that Stephen can win Julia, a woman with secrets of her own which Stephen has to earn the right to hear.
Set in St Andrews, among the jute mills of Dundee (1915-23), in the industrial underbelly of colonial Calcutta (1923-46) and on the epic plains of ancient India, Karna’s Wheel is a poignant story of love, inheritance, and the things which make us what we are.
Upon the death of his Mother Our hero Stephen inherits four boxes of his grandfathers memorabilia, and egged on by his somewhat eccentric roommate Seamus they set about exploring this family history to produce a 'screenplay'. Whilst unravelling this story Stephen discovers some surprising facts, solves some of the secrets past and present, some good some bad with lots of surprises along the way, especially when the police get involved following his mothers death.
This is a complex and for those of us whose memory is not what it was sometimes confusing story, as it alternates between past and present, but ultimately clever entertaining and often witty. Well written with superb characterisation and a real feel for the times portrayed.
Recommended.


READING PROGRESS
Finished Reading Add a date
November 28, 2018 – Shelved

I was able to get a few chapters in, but no farther. The writing style was all over the place and I felt it had no direction. I was constantly finding myself confused and going back to find out what I had missed as events seem to come out of the blue with no lead in. The characters were intriguing and I wish I could have learned more about them, but there are too many books to read to slog through a muddled manuscript.

I have to be honest, this was a DNF for me. I tried really hard, but there were too many things that jarred with me;
swathes of dialogue is Scottish dialect (I had to work very hard to understand it), a story which was told in part told in playscript, and a protagonist who I didn't particularly like.
Anyway, am sure other's will appreciate it, it just wasn't one for me.

This is a book of two time periods - 1990s Scotland and the early 20th century Glasgow & India jute trade. We follow Stephen Smith as he traces his Grandfather's (also caused Stephen Smith) life in the jute trade leaving Glasgow for India and back again.

The big issue for me with this book was the style of writing. I found it overly flowery and descriptive - why use 5 words when you can use 25? This led me to get ratrher bored at times & very close to giving up. To be honest I did give up a couple of times but went back later to finish it. Don't get me wrong, I like description, particularly historical description but this was way over the top. The writing rather meadered off the point. Coupled with the use of parallels time periods which changed without clear deliniation between the two. This was compounded by having two characters with the same name, one in each time period.

There is an interesting book in there but I just couldn't get on with the writing style.

I received a free copy of this book via Netgalley.

A multiple layered book. Stephen the grandfather, Stephen the grandson and the movie. Grandfather S. lived in Scotland and worked in a hemp factory owned by the Irvines. He falls out of favor with the boss after a major incident which results in violence and so he decides to move to Calcutta to start a new life. He ends up working for the Irvines again, but this time he is responsible for the discipline. A position he abhors. The writer has obviously researched the appalling working condions in the hemp factories in the 1800's. G. Stephen documents his life in words and drawings and stuffs them into boxes. Much to young Stephens surprise he inherits these 4 boxes after his mother dies.

On receiving these boxes his somewhat strange roommate gets excited and decides the only thing to do to preserve his grandfathers life is to write a script and make it into a movie. The movie parts come and go throughout the the book, making it a little confusing at times.

Both Stephens have their lovers, the complications of which add to the story in their own way. Different times, different lives. A novel worth reading, yet I found hard to rate. It's complicated, a skill the author has to be commended for as he brings it all together at the end.

Sweet, lyrical and intriguing, "Karna's Wheel" isn't the kind of book I'd normally read, so I was pleasantly surprised to be sucked into a beautiful tale of a young man discovering himself and his heritage.

I couldn't help but feel that this would work better as a film, especially since a lot of the book is written in film script format, and it took a while to understand who everyone was and what the time period was. Still, it was well worth sticking with. It's a gentle tale that leaves you questioning the importance of family history and our genetics.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC without obligation.

I have been giving this book a lot of thought. I finished it a few days ago and have spent the intervening time trying to sort out my opinions.

There was a great deal to enjoy. The writing was fluid, beautiful, but easy to read the historical sections felt real and alive. I could so vividly picture everything described, and I greatly enjoyed that part.

The book as a whole has a rather dreamlike feel to it, one thing flows into the next and then into the next. It is very fluid, and sometimes between shared names and that odd flow it could take a moment to sort out just where in the timeline the story was taking place at a given moment. Fortunately the confusion never lasted terribly long, and for all the odd structure of it there was a certain logic to the way time flowed back and forth that likely read far more effortlessly than it was to achieve in writing.

If I were to hit on some of what made this a three star read for me. I felt as though the modern sections of the story didn't carry quite the weight or interest the historical sections did. I liked the characters in Calcutta better, and felt for them more. I am not sure I might not have enjoyed it more had it focused solely on that. Though the element of mystery at the core of the modern story was certainly intriguing as well.

In some ways despite the far flung locales and the delves into history this is at its core an extremely internal book. It was very intriguing to read, but also added to the odd dreamlike feel, like slipping into bits of other peoples' lives. The story itself was terribly tragic but in some ways still oddly beautiful.

Overall this was a solid three star read for me. I very much enjoyed the history, I liked the concept of slowly unraveling a family story, and I think the feel of it will linger in my thoughts for some time, even if parts of the story do not carry as much weight as that sensation.

There are two Stephens in this book - the grandfather and the grandson - both from Dundee, the city of jute. Stephen the younger inherits his grandfather's notebooks when his half-Indian mother mysteriously dies and decides he wants to work them up into a film script. He is assisted in this endeavour by the Leprechaun-like Séamus and at times it is unclear who is writing the script as Séamus takes on Stephen's writing persona and Stephen takes on Séamus's version of himself. Identities are fluid it seems.

Stephen the grandfather works in the jute mills in the early 20th century but after falling out of favour moves to India, only to work in the jute mills there. He falls in love with Ranjana, a radical supporter of Home Rule and finds himself torn between the British Raj and the Indian people fighting for their rights.

Stephen the grandson lives in St Andrews and is obsessed with Julia who says she comes from Provideniye but Julia demands more honesty and openness from him than he is capable of giving. Only by revealing truths about himself and his estranged mother can he draw Julia back to him. However, Stephen's obsession with himself is perhaps greater than his obsession with Julia. His mother, Kitty, had her own secrets, in which Stephen seems largely uninterested, despite a police enquiry into her activities.

No one is quite who they seem in this book and everyone has secrets, or at least hidden aspects of themselves. The language is at times exquisite and at times prosaic. The novel experiments with dialect but gives it up as unnecessary - as indeed it is for the voices of different nationalities are clear enough without it. Form is also occasionally part of the experiment, and also structure, but this is not a difficult book to read. It hints at Joyce but never quite goes down that road.

Mysterious and compelling, the story draws one in and though the sections on Karna, the Hindu god, are often obscure, in the end it is a fulfilling read.

This was a very well written novel with a complex and varying storyline which traces a family history, a budding romance, friendship and storytelling. For me there were times the flow of the narrative faltered and some of the characterisation was not fully formed. However, it was also a very different way of creating the multiple narratives and unique writing style which i am very glad i read. The author really has the feel for modern day Glasgow and the India of the past

Maybe this is the age of the Impatient Reader. There are stories that move at a frenetic pace, grabbing the reader and squeezing until, at sessions end, you're breathless, dazed and panting, wondering what just happened.
Then there are the constructed sagas, brick upon brick, woven, layered and assembled into something solid that stays with you.
Karna's Wheel is a builder. By essence, novels running parallel timelines have to be; or run the risk of losing the reader in a mire of confusing generational shifts. I feel Michael Tobert has done an admirable job in this case.
The truth is if you are a lover of historical fiction, and I am, you sign up for the "constructed novel"; you commit to concentrate as the the background builds and acknowledge to yourself that with this genre, there never really is an "ending".
So for those HF lovers I highly recommend this novel. It's a worthy example.
Thanks to John Hunt Publishing (esp. Ben Craib) and Netgalley for the ARC.

Reading Michael Tobert's new novel, Karna's Wheel sometimes has the feel of a bad acid trip. Perhaps if I was a Hindu scholar who knew, and understood, the epic Mahabharata in which Karna is a central figure some of the seemingly disconnected and delusional events in this story would make sense.

Our protagonist, Stephen, is a professor at a Scottish university. He has a keen interest in wooing and winning an aloof Icelandic female, Julia, who loves stories. His mother, in Dundee, who may be a junkie and a prostitute dies and leaves him boxes full of her father's personal papers. Stephen has never known his grandfather but his academic training allows him to open the boxes in a slow methodical manner and study each document.

He soon learns that his grandfather had left his native Dundee, home of the last century's major jute mills, to work in the jute mills of Calcutta. While working in colonial India he is one of the revered white bosses who can hire and fire the locals at will. He witnesses many abuses of the workers, not just in the working conditions of the mill but also in the form of usury, slum landlords and demanding sexual favours.

While Stephen is working his way through his grandfather's paper's his roommate, who appears to be a deranged Irish leprechaun named Seamus decides to use Stephen's grandfather's life story to write a nonsensical movie script for development in Hollywood. Meanwhile the police have deemed the death of Stephen's mother as suspicious and keep tuning up and asking obscure questions about his childhood.

Eventually all is resolved – the romance, the true identity of Stephen's parents, the future of Seamus' movie – and the reader can return to reality.

I received a free copy of this ebook via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

A wonderfully lyrical if occasionally confusing book following one man's attempt to better understand his family's history , and how that influenced his mother and by extension himself. Stephen can trace his maternal grandfather to the jute mills of Dundee in the early twentieth century, and from there to colonial India where he met and married an Indian woman. Their child , Stephen's mother seems to have struggled her entire life to balance between the two halves of her heritage, and this struggle deeply impacted on her relationship with her son. As he struggles to unravel the past, secrets will be revealed which may explain her struggle, and give Stephen a sense of his true history
Populated by larger than life characters, particularly Stephen's friend and co author Seamus, and with a compelling plot, this book has a lot going for it, including a beautifully lyrical prose style and a central narrative that keeps the reader paying attention. This is important because the book does also have some flaws, most notably the decision to have two characters in different eras with the same name, then jump from one timeline to another without any obvious break, making it difficult at times to know which character is on the page. While I liked the writing, I am sure others may find it too descriptive, and feel like the book becomes meandering at times.
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own.

Secrets past. Secrets present. Secrets in India where Stephen's grandfather is a lowly functionary in the engine room of the Raj. Secrets at home, held tightly by Stephens half-Indian, half-Scottish mother. Only by uncovering what has been hidden can Stephen win Julia, a woman with secrets of her own.

Set in St. Andrews, Scotland before the millennium and in India from 1923 -46. When Stephen meets Juliaits love at first sight. He tries to win her over by telling her a story. When his mother dies, he inherits boxes that contain his grandfathers papers and drawings. Stephen and his flat mate decide to make a movie, the script based around Stephens grandfathers life in Dundee and Calcutta.

There is obviously a lot of history surrounding this book, it the descriptive text makes this a very slow moving plot. In parts, I'm afraid, I found it quite confusing and boring. I know people call their son/daughters after their parent/grandparents (I did it myself) but this just confused me more with Stephen and his grandfather having the same name. The author has certainly done plenty of research for writing this book. Sadly, this book was not for me although I do know a couple of friends who would really enjoy it.

I would like to thank NetGalley, John Hunt Publishing Ltd and the author Michael Tonert for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This novel was slower than I anticipated so I had a hard time getting into the story. I did end up liking it--but not loving it. Some of the switches from past to present were confusing but I did enjoy the different locales and the history of those places. Obviously a well-written and well-researched novel...just not my cup of tea.

The story was very interesting. I just found that it got confusing in some places, especially where it just switched to the past, because the grandfather's name is also Stephen, and boring in others when the fixations on the descriptions were so long. But other than that, it was nice to read.