Book Review: Colossus

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ColossusColossus_MECH_01.inddby Colin FalconerSt. Martin's, 2015Fresh from Elif Shafak's spellbinding historical novel about a special elephant and his mahout, The Architect's Apprentice, we have that same relationship at the heart of another novel, Colin Falconer's fantastic new book Colossus, but there the similarities generally end. The elephant at the heart of The Architect's Apprentice, though briefly pressed into war, is a very beautiful and peaceful creature who lives out his life as the pampered mascot of the 16th century Ottoman capital. Colossus, the elephant at the heart of the book that shares his name, is neither beautiful nor peaceful – he's an enormous and joyfully belligerent war elephant who's been drafted into the army of Alexander the Great as he occupies Babylon in 323 BC.But the bond between mahout (here mahavat) and elephant is the same, and Falconer – in so many very enjoyable ways a writer in the same bare-knuckled school as Simon Scarrow, Steven Pressfield, and Ben Kane – regularly steps out of the action-oriented mold of Colossus in order to conjure in very sensitive terms the complicated and equal affection between human and elephant. The mahavat of Colossus, a native of India named Gajendra, never doubts that his enormous charge likes him, even when a third party, a spirited young female refugee (and former pampered little princess) from sacked Carthage named Mara who disguises herself as a boy when she's taken into Gajendra's service and quickly develops a rapport with Colossus in which she finds some measure of irony:

For all the terror he creates in those around him, he is a good-natured beast, even though his affection can be measured in pints of elephant slime. Once she would go nowhere without precious ointments and oils, smelling like summer. Now she reeks of elephant day and night and she has snot in her hair.

In Falconer's thrilling narrative, we follow Gejendra and Colossus into battle after battle, and as man and animal gain notoriety, they increasingly come to the attention of Alexander himself who, as almost always happens in novels where he's intended to be a supporting character, routinely threatens to take over the novel. Gajendra, familiar with dangerous animals, has no illusions about the kind of person the conqueror is:

In public Alexander's generals are all smiles, riding behind him like peacocks. But rumour has it there have been drunken arguments in Alexander's pavilion, food thrown, daggers produced. Everyone knows how Alexander once put a handy spear through one of his best friends when he dared to challenge him. He is dangerous sober. In his cups you might as well bait a tiger.

Falconer excels in action sequences and the running incorporation of historical exposition into his story (it's done here even more skillfully than in Pressfield's superb 2006 Alexander novel The Afghan Campaign), but he's also wonderful at dialogue – for an action-oriented novel, it's amazing how much of Colossus consists of people simply talking – and never more so than in Gajendra's knife-edge encounters with Alexander, who likes to taunt him with his own inflated reputation:

'Some men say that I am Hercules brought back to life. What do you think?''I don't know much about him.''He was a god. Do you think I'm a god?'He can feel the other generals' eyes on him. If Gajendra says yes, they will set on him like a pack of wolves. Alexander seems to be the only one who cannot feel the tension.'Come on now, answer. I rule half the world. I am invincible in battle.''But are gods not immortal?''Perhaps I am immortal. Until a man dies how can anyone be sure?' His flatterers laugh. No one else. 'My father saw my mother consorting with Zeus, did you know that? In the form of a serpent. Gods are shape shifters, elephant boy, or they are in our world.' He pats him on the shoulder, like a son, lowers his voice. 'Nearchus wants your head, you know. He says you are uppity. An uppity Indian.' He laughs. 'Nothing worse.'

Colossus follows the upheavals Gajendra and Mara – and Colossus, of course – played out against the well-known backdrop of Alexander's doomed Babylon campaign, but it rapidly becomes much more than a simple adventure story. It's also a first-rate Alexander the Great novel, and even more so, it's a wrenchingly touching novel about, of all things, love.