THE BLACK HUNGER

An epistolary novel about an apocalyptic Buddhist sect’s untimely reemergence in 19th-century Tibet.

Awaiting his inevitable demise, studious, loquacious Orientalist John Sackville, the Lord Dalwood, summons the energy to narrate in painstaking detail the story that brought him to his proverbial deathbed. In a lengthy diary entry dated Feb. 18, 1921, Sackville describes his romanticized childhood (“I would doze off to Walter Scott novels and old collections of Arthurian folk tales”), his arrival at boarding school, and his blossoming relationship with Garrett Benson, a younger, poorer schoolboy introduced to Sackville through the practice of “fagging,” whereby underclassmen performed the roles of servants for older students. Sackville and his manservant-cum-lover journey to Tibet, where the former’s research in Urdu, Hindi, and Sanskrit lead him to discover an underground Buddhist order, the Dhaumri Karoti, which seeks the destruction of the world. Intimate depictions of Sackville’s relationship with Garrett comprise the most compelling portions of the novel, and Pullen also drops occasional and refreshingly blunt social commentary: “The Empire relies for much of its strength on brutalising children in the system of organised violence and torture that we call the Public School System.” But for all its fastidious attention to Tibetan lineages, regional Asian power struggles, and obscure Buddhist dogma, Pullen’s novel too often wavers between baroque info dumps and stilted dialogue. The novel eventually finds its form, picking up steam as disturbing reports roll in from across the Himalayas, but a marked fixation on physical appearances borders on fetishization. And while the characters’ racist, outdated attitudes may ring true for the era, they can strike an uncomfortable tone. It’s one thing to have a privileged English aristocrat remark on an Indian peer’s linguistic proficiency (“I admired the idiomatic fluency of his English”). It’s another to put those words into the mouths of deferential imperial subjects themselves: “There is much to learn from the British. If we’re ever to make something of India….” Readers with a penchant for ornate tours through colonial academia and slavish dedication to verisimilitude will appreciate this title.

Impeccably detailed if sometimes didactic, this book reads like the creative indulgence of an erudite scholar.