Clarinda

(3)

Language:

English

175

145.25 (17% off)

Unavailable

Ships within 48 Hours

Free Shipping in India on orders above Rs. 1100


Clarinda written in English is a novel set in the mid-18th century. The story is based on a historical figure, a real Clarinda, the widow of a Maratha Brahmin, who had been one of the King's servants in Tanjore, and after her husband's death became theconcubine of an English oficer of the name Lyttleton. She asked Rev. Schwartz to baptize her when he visited Palayamkottai. He refused, however, because of her 'irregular union'. Some years laterm after her husband's death, she was accepted into the chruch. From these bare facts, Madhaviah creates a fictionlized early life of Clarinda as she grows up in the principality of Tanjore. The imagined story of this unusual woman, who gradually takes control of her life, gives Madhaviah the opportunity to work out some of his favourite themes: woman's education, the question of sati and widow re-marriage and the encounter between Hinduism and Christianity. The cross cultural, inter-religious relationship which is at the heart of the novel is unusual and profoundly interesting.

Read more

ISBN
9798126019167
Pages
322
Avg Reading Time
11 hrs
Age
18+ yrs
Country of Origin
India

Format:

This Book is out of stock
This Book is out of stock

Piracy Free

Express Delivery

Secure Payment

About the Book

Clarinda written in English is a novel set in the mid-18th century. The story is based on a historical figure, a real Clarinda, the widow of a Maratha Brahmin, who had been one of the King's servants in Tanjore, and after her husband's death became theconcubine of an English oficer of the name Lyttleton. She asked Rev. Schwartz to baptize her when he visited Palayamkottai. He refused, however, because of her 'irregular union'. Some years laterm after her husband's death, she was accepted into the chruch.
From these bare facts, Madhaviah creates a fictionlized early life of Clarinda as she grows up in the principality of Tanjore. The imagined story of this unusual woman, who gradually takes control of her life, gives Madhaviah the opportunity to work out some of his favourite themes: woman's education, the question of sati and widow re-marriage and the encounter between Hinduism and Christianity. The cross cultural, inter-religious relationship which is at the heart of the novel is unusual and profoundly interesting.

Book Details

  • ISBN
    9798126019167
  • Pages
    322
  • Avg Reading Time
    11 hrs
  • Age
    18+ yrs
  • Country of Origin
    India

Recommended For You

Customer Reviews

Be the first to write a review...

(3)

4.33 out of 5

Book

67%
33%

Clarinda reconstructs the life of a real Maratha Brahmin widow in mid-18th-century Tanjore, whose trajectory from royal servant's wife to English officer's concubine made her a figure of scandal and spiritual longing. After her husband's death, she enters an "irregular union" with an officer named Lyttleton, then seeks baptism from the German missionary Rev. Schwartz at Palayamkottai—only to be refused on moral grounds. Her story unfolds at the friction point of caste orthodoxy, colonial power, and evangelical gatekeeping, where a woman's desire for religious belonging is denied not by doctrine but by conduct. The novel animates the silences around her: what drove her to conversion, what price she paid for survival, and how missionary records rendered her a moral footnote rather than a full person. It asks what devotion means when the church, like caste, polices entry by purity.

What kind of reading experience does Clarinda offer?

This novel offers a quiet, morally complex reading experience that resists easy sympathy or judgment. It moves between the widow's interior world—her grief, pragmatism, and spiritual yearning—and the doctrinal rigidity of missionary gatekeepers. The tone is reflective rather than melodramatic, rewarding readers who appreciate psychological nuance and historical ambiguity. You will leave with questions, not resolutions, about what faith, freedom, and survival meant for a woman navigating caste, widowhood, and colonial desire in 1700s South India.

Who is this book best suited for and what does it expect of its reader?

This book suits readers drawn to historical fiction that centers marginalized figures and moral friction rather than grand events. It expects familiarity with—or curiosity about—caste dynamics, early Christian missions in India, and the gendered vulnerabilities of widowhood under colonial rule. Readers willing to sit with ambiguity, sparse documentation, and a protagonist whose choices defy tidy categorization will find the novel most rewarding. It is not plot-driven; it asks you to inhabit a specific historical consciousness and accept that some lives remain half-legible.

What is the cultural significance of this story about a widow seeking baptism in colonial India?

The story resonates with ongoing debates in India about conversion, agency, and the policing of women's bodies across religious and caste boundaries. A Brahmin widow's turn to Christianity—framed by missionaries as tainted by her sexual "irregularity"—speaks to how both tradition and reform have judged women's survival strategies as moral failures. In contemporary India, where conversion remains politically charged and widows still navigate social ostracism, Clarinda's refusal of baptism by a European missionary reveals how exclusion works even within ostensibly liberating systems.

What makes this author's treatment of Clarinda's life distinctive?

Rather than romanticizing conversion or condemning the widow's choices, the author honors the historical record's gaps and moral contradictions. By centering a figure known only through missionary correspondence—a woman judged but not heard—the novel reclaims her as a subject of complex desire and faith, not merely scandal. The narrative respects the scarcity of evidence, resisting the impulse to invent melodrama. This restraint makes the novel feel like an ethical act of recovery, not invention, grounding fiction in the ambiguity of real colonial archives.

What does Clarinda leave the reader with long after finishing it?

You carry away a haunting awareness of how historical visibility depends on who writes the record—and how survival often looks like compromise to those who judge from safety. The novel leaves you thinking about the women written into history only as footnotes to male morality, and about how faith institutions have demanded purity from the vulnerable while extending grace to the powerful. Emotionally, it lingers as a quiet ache: the knowledge that some lives were lived fully but documented only as cautionary tales, their devotion real but deemed unworthy of blessing.

View on Rachnaye →

Hurry! Limited-Time Coupon Code

WORDPOWER
* Terms and Conditions applied.

Offers

Best Deal

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.

whatsapp