Those who know me may know that I have long been a fan of Indra Das, whose debut novel The Devourers is always my go-to recommendation when the “what should I read?” question is posed. As such, when I heard that Das was releasing a new book, The Last Dragoners of Bowbazar, I jumped at the chance to read it.
The story as per the publisher’s (Subterranean Press) site:
“Ru is a boy from nowhere. Though he lives somewhere—the city of Calcutta—his classmates in school remind him he doesn’t look like them, and must come from somewhere else. When Ru asks his parents, they tell him they are descended from nomads. But even nomads must come from somewhere. The question, forever on the mind of the boy from nowhere, is where.
“Ru dreams things that wouldn’t seem out of place in the fantasy novels his father read to him when young. Fragments of a culture that doesn’t exist in this world, but might in another, where sky and sea are one, and humans sail this eternal ocean on the backs of divine beasts.
“Ru dreams of dragons, of serpents impossible. Perhaps Ru remembers dragons.
“Alone in a city that’s home but doesn’t feel like it, Ru befriends Alice, his neighbor from the nearby Chinatown. As they grow with their friendship, Ru finds that Calcutta may yet be a home for him. But with his best friend starting to realize that Ru’s house and family hide a myriad of secrets, the question haunts him still—where is his family from? Are they truly from nowhere, migrants to this reality? And if so, what strange wings brought them across the vast reaches of impossibility to here—and what is their purpose?”
As a fan of Das’s work and as someone who has grown up on fantasy and speculative fiction, my first response after completing this book was that it was almost nothing like what I expected—but that’s not a bad thing!
This book lives in a state of ambiguity and discomfort. The way Das uses first person through the construct of the narrator writing the reader a story draws us into the experience of being unmoored. It’s an experience the narrator must live in multiple ways. Ru has, it seems, no homeland, no past, and no solid definition of “self” in the way that the society around him expects him to have. Das does an excellent job of tackling the emotional turmoil this causes while also keeping a bit of playfulness one might expect from a coming of age story. Furthermore, I was thrilled to see that Das kept true to the commentary put forth at the book’s start: that it is the world around us that imposes labels upon our identities and that it is both difficult and freeing to live without them.
I admit, the subject matter and commentary offered in the book is not why I found it unexpected. That, I will attribute to the plot and pacing. There is an ever-present sense of preparation throughout this story. A sense that something is yet to be unveiled and a journey is about to begin. Perhaps that feeling stems from my own bias and the sort of genre stereotyping that says coming of age + dragon = grand quest. Regardless, I believe if I had been tied to that idea, that a fantasy story with a dragon must result in some grand quest, I would have been disappointed.
Rest assured, I was not.
Once I was able to shove those thoughts out of my head and go along with the soft, introspective, and almost surreal flow of the story that Das has created, everything fell into place. The Last Dragoners of Bowbazar is an experience, and not one I’ll soon forget. Das again shows his mastery of language, like in his previous work, and the characters are both relatable and enigmatic. The book, overall, is one that opens the door to a new world but refuses to shove its characters through until they are ready. The story allows us to grow, to understand slowly with Ru and Alice in a way that makes every milestone, every loss, and every joy all the more powerful. While this book does seem to set up the possibility of a “grand quest” in the future—and, while I would be thrilled to read more of this world Das has built, or woven, onto the familiar roads of Calcutta—the story itself feels complete.
Simply put, The Last Dragoners of Bowbazar leads the reader on a journey of a different kind, one of doubt, loneliness, love, and hope for a world of true impossibility.
For more information about The Last Dragoners of Bowbazar, head on over to Subterranean Press (where you can also pre-order a limited-edition signed hardcover copy)!
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