A Mine of Faults

In ancient India, a king raised as a warrior has sworn off women entirely, convinced that feminine company is a weakness he cannot afford. Then he meets the daughter of King Mitra, and everything he believed about himself crumbles. But here is the twist that makes Bain's 1909 novel linger in the mind: he doesn't fall for her despite her faults, but through them. Drawing on Hindu mythology and the divine romance between a goddess and her consort, Bain constructs a philosophical argument dressed in courtly romance. The prose has a curious, beguiling quality, part orientalist fantasy, part genuine inquiry into why imperfection might be more seductive than perfection. King Chand must reconcile the warrior's disdain with the lover's surrender, and the reader is left wondering whether his prejudice was ever really about women at all, or about his own fear of vulnerability. For readers who enjoy romantic philosophy, Hindu-influenced fiction, or Edwardian fantasy with a literary edge.