The Collector of Worlds [Hardcover]

When a book opens with a single cinematic sweep, moving from Sir Richard Burton death through the reluctant giving of last rites, to a sharp focus on a burning photograph of the 22-year-old Richard Burton that pulls you into his 1840's Bombay, you know you are in for a treat. This book is The Collector of Worlds by Iliya Troyanov just published in the UK translated by William Hobson but originally published in Germany in 2006. The book is not a Biography, History or a novel but a biographical fiction meaning as the author says that the live and works of Sir Richard Burton inspired him because all

...individual lives are mysterious, particularly those of people one had never met. This Novel is intended as personal approach to a mystery rather than as an attempt at definitive revelation.

This approach shapes the unusual structure of the novel. It is divided into three sections: first is Burton's service in India in 1842-49, second is his travels in disguise to Mecca and Medina as a pilgrim on the hajj (1851-53)and concludes with his journey from Zanzibar to Lake Tanganyika in 1858 as he attempted to discover with a fellow explorer the source of the Nile. So we don't know his life before or after this period or even during this period when away from waving the Flag.

In each section, Burton's reveals his thoughts through a third-person monologue whilst other narrators offer context or even contrasting views. Burton acts as the antagonist to these characters where as his is the culture or landscape of India, Arabia and Africa. In the Indian section, these others are Lahiya, a professional letter-writer, to whom Burton's one-time servant Naukaram goes to have his story written up, in the hope of gaining further employment. It's soon clear to Lahiya that Naukaram is not telling the whole truth and as we see neither is Burton. In the Arabian section, a script like exchange between various Islamic officials, suggests that he spied on military positions. Perhaps he did, or perhaps they fear the loss of rich pickings as the long slow decline of the Ottoman Empire gave opportunities for the politically unscrupulous. The African section narrator is another historical character Sidi Mubarak Bombay, we meet him as a old man telling stories to his friends and relatives. He was a slave working in India before gaining his freedom and returning to Madagascar and becoming a key figure in most of the big exploratory expeditions of the time into East Africa. Through him, we explore the conflicting motives and styles for the Speke and Burton expedition to find the source of the Nile.

The language is poetic with scene after scene evoked with powerful physical detail and a constant parade of realistic characters from a long faded 19th Century that engage us in both Burton's life as well as the other narrators. Together each section reveal a complex ambiguous man who loved language, disguises, adventure, learned to love sex, and wanted to understand cultures for the wider benefit of the Empire without perhaps realising the irony that Empires once they see the worth of other cultures the right to rule begins to crumble.

I strongly recommend the book for a highly enjoyable read and an introduction to a man well worth reading and in many ways a man ahead of his time.

Troyanov does a very good job at pointing the reader to Burton's innerlife, but he also allows one to draw one's own conclusions.This book, which is grounded in the historical record, offers a much more resonant sounding of this remarkable man than the usual biographies which get caught in the surface patina of Burton's "outer" story.

This novel is about three episodes in the life of that fascinating 19th century character, Sir Richard Burton (1821 to 1890), soldier, amateur anthropologist and explorer.

The first, which takes up about half the book, covers his life as a soldier in India (1842 to 1859). Thoroughly bored by the routine and by the narrow vision of his fellow officers, he first began learning several of India's native languages, and then took pride in his ability to disguise himself as an Indian so as to be able to mingle with them and get closer to understanding their way of life. Initially, when he was stationed in Baroda, he studied the Hindus; but when he was moved to Muslim Sindh, he became particularly fascinated by Islam. The conqueror of Sindh, General Napier, got Burton to use his skills to gather intelligence for him; but Burton thought the General's wish to impose British values on the natives wrong and counter-productive. This made him unreliable in the opinion of the army and would block any promotion. He left India and the Army.

The second part covers his pilgrimage to Mecca in 1853, disguised as Sheikh Abdullah and having made himself so perfectly familiar with the theory and practice of Islam that nobody penetrated his disguise; and the Muslim world was duly shocked when on his return he published an account of this experience. This part of the story gives a vivid account of such a pilgrimage - the dangers of attacks by plunderers, the fulfilment when the goal has been finally reached, but also the sickness and death that was the fate of so many exhausted pilgrims.

The third part covers Burton's expedition of 1857, together with his colleague and rival, John Hanning Speke, to find the source of the Nile. Again the many ordeals of the expedition are well described: the terrible terrain, frightful diseases, tribute to be paid to the chief of every village through which they passed, encounters with brutal Arab slavers.

The narrative alternates, in part 1 with comments of his Hindu servant; in part 2, rather tediously, with the attempts of Ottoman officials to find out, after Burton had published his account of his journey to Mecca, what his purpose might have been: they suspect it was gathering information for Britain's imperialist purposes; and in part 3, with an African guide who recounts to his friends his memories of the expedition, and who is the most interesting of the three. This device enables Troyanov to show Burton as he might have been seen by others, but I found it somewhat distracting, especially as you have to read some of the dialogue between several characters more than once to make sure who is speaking.

Altogether, I was a little disappointed by this book. Burton's personality did not come out as vividly as I think it might have done; the prose is sometimes striking, but at others it goes, I think, a little over the top (the book has been translated from the German by William Hobson); and the three episodes represent only a fraction (though a large one) of Burton's life. After a decent interval, I may return to him again, this time through a proper biography like Fawn Brodie's The Devil Drives.