Deeper than Indigo: Tracing Thomas Machell, Forgotten Explorer, by Jenny Balfour Paul
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Deeper than Indigo: Tracing Thomas Machell, Forgotten Explorer, by Jenny Balfour Paul
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The author’s quest begins when the word ‘indigo’ draws her to the illustrated journals, now in the British Library, of Victorian explorer Thomas Machell. She finds her life to have striking echoes of his, not least his travels to and within India, a career in indigo, and a passion for journal writing. She is also intrigued by his aspiration to write ‘a novel in the form of an autobiography’ and by his quirky watercolor sketches. Machell of Crackenthorpe, born in 1824, first demonstrated his yearning for adventure when only twelve, and at sixteen left the family rectory to follow his dream of traveling to the East. By chance, he witnessed many important historical events, including the infamous ‘First Opium War’ and the ‘Indian Mutiny’. He spent most of his adult life in India; the author follows him to indigo plantations of rural Bengal and Bangladesh, to coffee estates in Kerala’s Malabar Hills, to unexplored regions of central India and to the city of Calcutta. Machell also traveled up the Indus River to Kashmir and the North-West Frontier and undertook an intrepid sea voyage with Muslim merchants. When the author voyages aboard the last freighter to take passengers from UK to India, she faces the same threat of pirate attack in the Red Sea as Machell. She also follows in his wake by cargo ship to the most remote Polynesian islands, setting for his passionate love affair, and she seeks his colorful descendants in the New World. This remarkable tale of East-West connections brings to life the untold story of a spirited outsider at the height of the British Raj. Serendipity, intuition and an enchanting relationship, as well as the author’s quest to uncover the missing years of Machell’s life, give this book its magical extra dimension. Thomas Machell, explorer, writer and artist, was born near York in 1824. As a teenager he sailed around the Cape of Good Hope to India and on to China where he experienced the ‘First Opium War’. His next voyage was around Cape Horn to the Polynesian Islands of the Marquesas, on a ship carrying coal and guano. Returning to India, he worked in indigo in Bengal, coffee in Kerala and with bullock transport in central India. He also traveled up the Indus to the North-West Frontier and Kashmir and in the Arab world by land and by sea with Muslim merchants. He died in India in 1864, aged 39.REVIEWS 'The author’s alliance with Thomas is an amazing and magical thing…this book must at all costs be read, because the author’s voice – her passion and her mission – is utterly captivating.’- Gillon Aitken of Aitken Alexander Associates‘A deeply moving, totally enchanting account of a great metaphysical mystery.’- A N Wilson ‘… the story of a forgotten pioneer whose startling diaries shed a surprisingly progressive light on European colonialism.’- Western Morning News: Hannah Finch
Deeper than Indigo: Tracing Thomas Machell, Forgotten Explorer, by Jenny Balfour Paul- Amazon Sales Rank: #529266 in Books
- Brand: Balfour Paul, Jenny
- Published on: 2015-06-01
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.00" h x 1.20" w x 5.90" l, 1.78 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 352 pages
About the Author Jenny Balfour Paul A writer, artist, international lecturer and intrepid traveller, she is author of two books on Indigo, and numerous other writings. She was consultant curator for the Whitworth Art gallery’s 2007 touring exhibition ‘Indigo, a Blue to Dye For’ and consultant for two documentary films. Jenny is an Honorary Research Fellow at Exeter University; a Fellow of London’s Royal Geographical Society and Royal Asiatic Society and New York’s Explorers Club; and President of the UK’s Association of Guilds of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers. She is involved in research into dyes recovered from shipwrecks, is a partner in ‘Silk Road Connect’, an educational initiative launched by cellist Yo Yo Ma’s Silk Road Project in New York in 2009, and promotes revivals of natural dyes throughout the world.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful. Perfect for the armchair traveller By Alison Mercer Deeper than Indigo is the perfect escapist read for an armchair traveller on a winter's night, a treasure trove full of nuggets of gold. It's the account of a mission bordering on obsession: the writer's quest in search of Thomas Machell, an open-minded and artistic Victorian rector's son who roamed the world to seek his fortune and to prove himself to his family, determined to overcome the physical disability with which he was born.Thomas kept detailed journals describing his travels, and Jenny Balfour Paul makes inspired use of his words to recreate his life in vivid detail and to relay his adventures and the enlightenment and suffering they brought him. All this is illuminated by her own travels in Thomas's footsteps, as she conjures up a vivid succession of times, places and perspectives framed by her own experience.Over the years Jenny leaves no stone unturned as she researches Thomas's life and times and seeks out points of connection with him, whether it's visiting his childhood home in Yorkshire or searching out his grave in India. Deeper than Indigo offers historical fact aplenty, along with reflections and reminiscence, literary, philosophical and religious quotations and aphorisms, and beautiful illustrations and photographs, all woven together with an intuitive, personal touch.Jenny is a natural storyteller, as I realised when I saw her speak about Deeper than Indigo at North Cornwall Book Festival, and she skilfully draws together the contrasting threads of Thomas's life and her own. So, for example, we move between Thomas’s first sea voyage in 1840 and his first sight of the Orient - Madras at dawn - and Jenny as an 18-year-old setting out on the hippie trail in 1970. She crosses the Turkish border into Iran in a Land Rover with its engine patched up with poached eggs, and later sees the Bamiyan Buddhas: 'The fate awaiting this wonder of the world was as inconceivable to me as it would have been to travellers in centuries past.' Thomas witnesses death by drowning and fever, and soon sees military action, witnessing the brutality of the Opium Wars between Britain and China.Thomas goes on to become an indigo planter; indigo is an interest that he and Jenny share across the centuries, and she touches briefly on her extensive travels to research indigo and preserve knowledge of its use as a dye - 'to such places as south-west China, Tokushima Island in Japan, the Dogon cliffs of Mali near Timbuktu, and back to India'. The lonely end of Thomas's story in India is tempered by Jenny's journey to the New World to meet some of his surviving relatives; she is given a warm welcome and finds out about others in the family who share Thomas’s questioning and observant approach to life, including a Theosophist artist and an aeronautical engineer who worked for NASA.Jenny quotes John le Carre in the first chapter of Deeper than Indigo: 'the purpose of life is to make sure our origins are not our destinies'. Thomas could have settled for a quiet existence in the English countryside, but even though he loved his family home he was driven to make a life for himself far from the landscape of his birthplace. However far he travelled, Thomas could not escape history - but looking back on his life as readers, knowing what he could never know and seeing how the past survives in the present, it almost feels as if we can.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. A wonderful book....................so much more than biography and travelogue By randjdean@aol.com This is a wonderful book, which evokes so faithfully the spirit and atmosphere of India, where I spent many happy times in my younger years. Jenny writes with depth and clarity and a refreshing honesty and this book becomes so much more than biography and travelogue as it follows the journeys of the author and her subject, whose lives and experiences intertwine in remarkable, almost mystical, ways. As the title suggests, the author's passion for indigo may have been the starting point for a study of the life of Thomas Machell but her research and exploration lead to unexpected experiences and the book becomes so much deeper than biography. Jenny's insights into her own character as well as the character of Thomas Machell make the book exciting and moving, as the reader is drawn into the magic of two lives lived to the full.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. A very special book By Charlie This is a fascinating book an several levels.The adventures of Thomas crewing on ships and working on the Indian subcontinent in the mid 1800s are exciting and historically interesting.Jenny BP's travels in this centuary are equally interesting and engender excitement leading up to a climax in a beautifully written chapter looking for Thomas's grave in central India.In many ways the world has changed little since Thomas's travels, with similar peaple in the same places and imperial powers acting with violence making similar mistakes.But what makes this book so special is the real friendship that builds between Jenny and Thomas despite living 150 years apart. They share the urge to travel, diary keeping, illustrating their travels and have similar liberal views on religion, politics and fairness.They both managed to do some good in their lives for young people less fortunate than themselves.So this is really a story of friendship (or love story) between two people separated by 150 years, beautifully written and utterly convincing.
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