Page 389 - EW September 2023

able to isolate any patho- Chinese and the Order are ‘Extract from the GTF of 300 items and ‘bonus
gen which could be causing looking for something hid- Dossier Reporting on the chapters’ not included in
the variety of symptoms den in Calcutta by British China Mission’, explain- this book.
the patients develop. The explorer Thomas Manning ing the science behind the This fast-paced thriller
only common factor is (1772-1840). fictional ‘mirror microbe’ blends mythology, sci-
that ‘patient zero’ in each Events happen in and its antidote based on ence fiction and historical
country seems to have had accurately described snake venom. facts so smoothly that the
some contact with China. actual places, such as The novelist observes, reader feels it is a factual
As was the case with the Bodleian Library and “There are a lot of facts account, especially because
Covid-19, the fictional Chi- the Radcliffe Camera in — scientific, historic Doyle gives precise dates
nese government refutes Oxford, or the Dorchester and others — that I have of past events. Sanskrit
all allegations of a Chinese Hotel, London. Testing the used to craft this story. verses from the Mahab-
origin for the disease. new, artificially created However unbelievable harata are printed in the
There is also another pathogen on the Uyghur some facts may be, they Devanagari script, bestow-
mystery: the disappear- population sounds very are true. Here’s where I ing an air of verisimilitude
ance of Alex Wilson, real (the inhuman condi- help you to distinguish on all quotations.
author of a biography of tions in China’s Uyghur fact from fiction.” The nine The epigraph is a long
the explorer Alexander von detention camps have been pages of ‘Last Notes’ are quotation from the Owen
Humboldt. An anony- widely reported). The final devoted to science, history, Manuscript by Susruta,
mous organisation stops chapters of the book take the Mahabharata and with an image of a palm
publication of his book by the reader on a tour of Cal- other issues like China’s leaf manuscript. But for
threatening to blow up the cutta; the novelist paints a treatment of Uyghurs. the very informative ‘Last
publisher’s offices. Vijay word picture of the city as Readers who want to delve Notes’, the reader would
suspects that the Order is it is now and as it was in further into the sources are be unaware that no such
behind this. By examining the first quarter of the 19th invited to join the free-of- manuscript exists.
old documents in librar- century. The novel ends charge ‘The Quest Club’ SHYAMALA A NARAYAN
ies, they conclude that the with a six-page report, which has a bibliography (The Book Review)

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