Tania James’ Loot opens in Srirangapatna, Mysore in 1794. The French are its colonial rulers. Abbas is 17 and a gifted woodcarver. He’s sent to Tipu Sultan’s Summer Palace to apprentice with Lucien Du Leze, a brilliant French engineer and watchmaker. They create a wooden automaton depicting a tiger devouring a British soldier. It’s all good fun, and the finished marvel delights Tipu. Du Leze returns to France.
French rule is weak, and Britain’s East India Company invades with its army. The battle is bloody; Tipu is killed; the city destroyed and renamed Seringapatnam; and its precious artifacts are looted. The automaton is awarded to Colonel Selwyn, who sends it to his country estate in England. His wife collects artifacts taken from all the territories the East India Company had conquered.
Abbas has lost everything. He leaves for France, which is a long journey around the African continent. He makes it and discovers Du Leze is dead. Fortunately, Jehanne, Du Leze’s beautiful, half-Indian, adopted daughter, is alive. Romance buds, but they’re poor. Jehanne learns where the automaton is located, so she and Abbas travel to England to steal it and become rich.
Wow, Gladiola, this synopsis makes Loot sound like an exciting global adventure; historical fiction at its best. Yes, it could’ve been, but here’s the problem. James knows all the necessary elements of the hero’s quest. She mechanically checks them off, as if this is an exercise in a graduate-level creative writing program, but she’s created a heartless automaton, which is a shame because the story does have potential.
Abbas travels around Africa in 1802, but the horrors of the slave trade are fleetingly acknowledged. India is being looted, but imperialism’s greed gets a slap on the wrist. Literally. Loot is a card game Jehanne plays with Selwyn’s widow. When Lady Selwyn, who’s surrounded by all the treasures her husband looted, pulls the winning card, Jehanne reflexively slaps her wrist.
Imperialism’s misappropriation of cultural artifacts has been a hot topic globally for decades. Loot was published is 2023, but James barely mentions the issue, which is all the more surprising because Abbas is Indian and Jehanne is half Indian. Loot dutifully marches to its banal happy ending, but the reader is left with a nagging sense that this is a superficial novel full of missed opportunities.
Gladiola Overdrive, Chief Editor
Pungent Sound Journal of Pulp Poetry 