No Simple Dalrymple
Someone should give a gold medal to William Dalrymple for what he has done for the publishing industry here. By now he's acknowledged as an exemplar on how to launch a book: is there a reader out there who couldn't possibly have heard of The Last Mughal? But now he has done something even more important: he's popularising his back list. In an industry where publishers treat books like jhoom cultivators—reap, burn, move on—the dramatised version of City of Djinns in the Capital last week ensures that this is one back list number that will never go out of print.
Costly Act
What's the difference between a dramatic rendering of City of Djinns and a reading from the book? A disappointed Dalrymple fan provided the answer: "You pay through your nose for the play, and it's just a long reading without the cocktails." The big difference, according to her, was that you had real eunuchs tapping your shoulder for a tip while you try and follow Tom Alter reading aloud long tracts of the book.
