It is early 1956 and the British Empire is crumbling. But for nine-year-old Ella, living with her parents at the British High Commission in Peshawar, Pakistan, the walls of class, snobbery and racism are still intact. Growing up is a lonely, painful experience, and Ella withdraws, recording the hypocrisy of adult behaviour in her diary, A History of Insects, where she hides a secret that could shatter the lives of the people around her.
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Amazon Review
Yvonne Roberts' third novel, A History of Insects, is a compelling, and painful, vision of childhood. It's 1956, in Peshawar, Pakistan, a city torn between Muslim and Sikh, Christian and the British Raj. Ella Jackson, child of the colonial administration, lives out a lonely life on the fringes of an adult world riven with political, racial and sexual conflict: "Eye to the crack in the door, she could see most of the brightly lit room. A grown-up, blindfolded and wearing a party dress, was crawling around on her hands and knees, one arm outstretched, squeaking." From its opening pages, the strangeness of grown-up behaviour, the young girl's struggle to make sense of what she sees around her, drives Roberts' novel. This is a story with a secret, one that belongs to a child but also to a community desperate not to acknowledge that it is built on something rotten, something that perverts the relations between ruler and ruled, husband and wife, adult and child.
Central to Roberts' exploration of what is wrong in Peshawar is the (often vicious) relation between Ella and her mother, Alice. "I hate Mummy. I wish she were dead": a child's loneliness, her bitterness at a world full of broken promises, finds expression on the opening page of her exercise book. Discovered by a servant, handed over to Alice, those lines represent one of the moments of anger and danger between mother and daughter that begins to teach Ella the value of concealment. It's a secrecy symbolised by the title she gives to her new journal--"A History of Insects by Ella Jackson, aged nine and five months"--and one that compels this novel towards its disturbing, and ambiguous, conclusion. --Vicky Lebeau --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
For previous novels 'Provocative, entertaining ... delightfully funny novel' Daily Express 'A thoughtful and witty first novel' Daily Telegraph 'Both an entertaining satire on contemporary sexual mores ... and a touching portrait of a woman's search for self-respect' Vogue 'Yvonne Roberts is a natural. She's wonderful; the wittiest, most inventive novelette writer in ages' Image Magazine for HISTORY pb 'A HISTORY OF INSECTS is pure magic' Bookseller 'This novel is better than most because the author draws on her own colonial childhood in Pakistan, and the dialogue, food and manners seem absolutely authentic' Daily Mail 'Roberts picks her way through the cultural and psychological minefields of the plot with impressive grace' The Times 'A story of great charm... [Roberts] brilliantly evokes a country fractured not only by swelling anti-British sentiment but by religious conflict' Sunday Times 'Reminiscent of Behind the Scenes at the Museum. The writing is sensitive and intelligent, but the plot is so well constucted that it hooks the reader from the very first page. Engrossing' Yorkshire Post 'A memorable vision of the remnants of the British Raj caught on the cusp of change in Pakistan in 1956 as the backdrop...a masterful conclusion that marks this out as a must read' The Scotsman 'An engaging story' The Good Book guide 'An illuminating and evocative account of the loss of innocence' Western Mail Cardiff "Brilliently evokes a country fractured not only by swelling anti-British sentiment but by religious conflict' The Sunday Times 'Brilliently and poignantly evoked' Woman & Home 'Intelligent, involving novel' The Scotsman
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
So many books have come out of India in recent years, but this is the first I've read based in Pakistan.
I found it an interesting reflection of history at the time of the partition and an eye-opener into the claustrophobic society of the British High Commission.
Ella, a lonely child, with no other playmates on the compound, is an adorable characterisation and carries the story as the central character.
I didn't so much enjoy the era when she was away at school, but it worked with the story and illustrated some of the problems of race relations.
I really felt for Ella in her difficult decision as to what to do with the information she had, adults must have seemed very confusing and unpredictable.
Altogether well worth while read and a long way from her previous , rather fickle "The Trouble with Single Women".
I found it an interesting reflection of history at the time of the partition and an eye-opener into the claustrophobic society of the British High Commission.
Ella, a lonely child, with no other playmates on the compound, is an adorable characterisation and carries the story as the central character.
I didn't so much enjoy the era when she was away at school, but it worked with the story and illustrated some of the problems of race relations.
I really felt for Ella in her difficult decision as to what to do with the information she had, adults must have seemed very confusing and unpredictable.
Altogether well worth while read and a long way from her previous , rather fickle "The Trouble with Single Women".
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Another book which is so good I read it in no time at all - 340 pages in two days to be precise. Set in Pakistan in the 1950s, among a group of British diplomats and their families, the books centres on 9 year old Ella, who witnesses a dreadful event, but finds that the adults are so locked up in their stultifying class rituals that they are unable to hear her story. Seen as a "difficult", i.e. normal child, she is packed off to boarding school, but thanks to the intervention of an American woman returns home and finds that the truth will out. Ms Roberts is an excellent story teller, but this book is full of history and insightful character studies. The book has wonderful pace which draws you on through its pages. A fine novel reminiscent of and equal to McEwan's Atonement, or even Hartley's The Go Between, making me want to read more by this highly competent author.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
I bought this while I was in Singapore and much to my friends disgust, couldn't put it down. As an only child bought up by immature parents and conqsequently varying in importance in their lives I related completely to Ella, the child in this novel. Set in Pakistan it gives an insight into what life must have been like living there as well as opening my eyes to how the Pakistan people felt about the British. The characters are very well drawn (I only wish there had been a Betty in my childhood) and I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. Read it.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
I found the book moving but not totally convincing. There is a very dark part in the middle (without spoiling the story too much) which lacked credibility altogether, and some loose ends are not tied up, something I find frustrating. However it is also witty and ironic, apart from the cruellest parts, and presents an interesting view of ex-patriate life in Pakistan at that time.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
Ella Jackson is a nine year old growing up within the confines of the British High Commission in 1950's Pakistan. Ignored or feted depending on convenience, her diary becomes the only safe place she can document the confusing and hypocricical adult behaviour ingrained in those around her but denied by all.
A History of Insects is engaging in its narrative, rich in its atmosphere and sinister in its events.
By John S
Format:Paperback
What stood out most of all in this really engaging story was how plausible the central character was.
It takes exceptional creativity and writing skill for an adult to construct a story from the point of view of a child. For me Yvonne Roberts does it probably flawlessly. I say "probably" purely because I have never been a 9 year old girl; to those of you who were, Ella may display traits that are a little implausible. Yet, I doubt it; nothing in Ella's character depiction seems to me the least bit contrived, improbable, or overly romanticised.
She's clever, creative, precocious and perceptive beyond her years - qualities that many children of her age and intelligence possess. Yet she betrays her years in an inability to make sense of some of the darker adult activities going on around her. This naivety further helps fine-tune an already well-honed character.
More than many novelists I have read in recent times, this author succeeded in firmly planting me into the story. I became an invisible observer roaming the claustrophobic enclosure of the British High Commission in Peshawar. I too felt the place to be stifling, not because of the weather - though that was oppressive, but because of the restrictive, hierarchical, stuffy, snobbish, bitchy, racist atmosphere permeating the clammy air, we all had to share.
Many of the diplomats' wives share that air most reluctantly. To some of them most humans are barely entitled to breathe the same air as they. Despite performing some charitable works, many of them, by choice, inhabit a different planet to most other white people in Pakistan and an entirely different galaxy to all the "natives".... Read more ›
It takes exceptional creativity and writing skill for an adult to construct a story from the point of view of a child. For me Yvonne Roberts does it probably flawlessly. I say "probably" purely because I have never been a 9 year old girl; to those of you who were, Ella may display traits that are a little implausible. Yet, I doubt it; nothing in Ella's character depiction seems to me the least bit contrived, improbable, or overly romanticised.
She's clever, creative, precocious and perceptive beyond her years - qualities that many children of her age and intelligence possess. Yet she betrays her years in an inability to make sense of some of the darker adult activities going on around her. This naivety further helps fine-tune an already well-honed character.
More than many novelists I have read in recent times, this author succeeded in firmly planting me into the story. I became an invisible observer roaming the claustrophobic enclosure of the British High Commission in Peshawar. I too felt the place to be stifling, not because of the weather - though that was oppressive, but because of the restrictive, hierarchical, stuffy, snobbish, bitchy, racist atmosphere permeating the clammy air, we all had to share.
Many of the diplomats' wives share that air most reluctantly. To some of them most humans are barely entitled to breathe the same air as they. Despite performing some charitable works, many of them, by choice, inhabit a different planet to most other white people in Pakistan and an entirely different galaxy to all the "natives".... Read more ›
By V. Mckenna
Format:Paperback
I enjoyed this book hugely. It took me right back to living in Karachi pakistan in the fifties as a child. Yvonne evokes the era that really was the last blast of the British Raj with its burra sahibs and memsahibs, social whirl of parties and days spent at the club poolside. I identified with Ella and her awareness, at such a young age, that both the ex pat community and the upper class pakistani community with their cossetted lives behind their compound walls, lived existences that contrasted dramatically with the harsh struggle that was the lot of their servants . I can remember feeling that servants (not necessarily ours as my parents were fair employers) were often treated unfairly and with scant regard to their culture. Not surprisingly there was a backlash and of course Yvonnes book describes this in the uprising and rioting outside the High Commission compound.
Throughout the novel I sensed that Yvonne is essentially a journalist and felt that her characters are mouth pieces for political positions but I felt that the character of Ella was drawn with a deep understanding of what it is like for a young female to leave behind the innocent world of childhood and enter a world often cynical and dishonest. Ella's character developed beautifully and utterly believably. I particularly recommend this book as a study of child becoming adult .
Throughout the novel I sensed that Yvonne is essentially a journalist and felt that her characters are mouth pieces for political positions but I felt that the character of Ella was drawn with a deep understanding of what it is like for a young female to leave behind the innocent world of childhood and enter a world often cynical and dishonest. Ella's character developed beautifully and utterly believably. I particularly recommend this book as a study of child becoming adult .
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