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Customer Reviews (105)

WRONG REVIEW FOR THIS BOOK
This was a tough book for me to like. Not that it wasn't well written, just not my "flavor". There a stories woven within stories, bringing together a diverse cast of characters from many nations, histories and fortunes. Set around a ship, the Ibis, the book coversan array of subjects, and with flowery prose, can make it difficult to follow, many metaphors. As a New York Times reviewer put it "By the time this book ends, the reader has been caught up in a plot of Dickensian intricacy, the Ibis readied for whatever its mission may be, and the characters firmly enveloped in new, self-created identities."

I wish I could report more, bust I just could like this book enough to finish it so I hope my 3 star review is considered "neutral" and not a negative review.

sea of misfits
My reading of this book was a long and arduous task, partly due to the zillions of foreign and slang words.(There's a dictionary at the back, but almost all of the words I looked up were not there.)The story has potential, with a group of diverse characters having been thrown together in one place, like Bel Canto.In this case, the place is the Ibis, a ship sailing from Calcutta to Mauritius in the early 1800s.However, the ship doesn't sail until about three-quarters of the way through the book, giving us a chance to become well acquainted with the main characters before the debarkation.Deeti is married to an opium addict, and Kalua is a cart driver who helps Deeti escape her evil in-laws after her husband dies.Neel is an aristocrat on the brink of bankruptcy who can't fathom the lengths to which his creditor will go to acquire his lands.Pauline is the orphaned daughter of a botanist, whose childhood friend Jodu has secured a position as a crew member on the Ibis.The American Zachary Reid, whose mother was a quadroon freedwoman, is the second mate of the Ibis, and there's a budding love story between him and Pauline.For reasons unrelated to her feelings for Zachary, Pauline will stop at nothing to somehow join this voyage.Perhaps the most exasperating aspect of this book is that it is intended as the first episode in a trilogy.As such, the ending is a teaser that left me wondering why I had bothered, because I'm not sure I can wade through two more books like it.The story does transport the reader to another place and time, but it progresses at a snail's pace, evocative of the effect of opium, India's cash crop of the day, at least until its export to China is banned by the government.The theme that seems to pervade the book is the injustice of not only the caste system but racial prejudice in general, and how power atop the perceived hierarchy is used to keep those at the lower rungs of the ladder in their place.There's an interesting reverse-discrimination scene near the end where the lowlife 2nd mate, Mr. Crowle, drops his intense dislike for Zachary and tries to recruit him for a coup, when he finds that Zachary has African blood.Also, who knew that "canvas," originally woven from hemp to make sails, is a derivation of the word "cannabis"?

Superb!
here are many books I give five star ratings because they are well written and I have thoroughly enjoyed them, but even so, not all five star books are equal. Sea of Poppies deserves that extra sparkle on its rating and has entered my 'hall of fame' reads with flags flying.

Here's a condensed summary from the inside flap:
'On an old slaving ship named the Ibis, fate has thrown together a truly diverse cast of Indians and Westerners. The motley crew of sailors, coolies, and convicts include a bankrupt raja, a Chinese opium addict, a lissom French runaway and a mulatto freedman from Baltimore. As their old family ties are washed away, they come to view themselves as jahaj-bhais or ship-brothers. An unlikely dynasty is born which will span continents, races, and generations.
The backdrop to this historical venture is the Opium Wars, when the British East India Company lured China into a fatal dependency on opium from its Indian territories.

About 2/3 of the novel takes place away from the Ibis, setting up how the various characters come to be on board as she sails for Mauritus with a cargo of coolies. The characters, their stories and the geographical and social backgrounds are particularly well painted, and although there is a large cast, it is easy to identify who is who and to become involved with every single one of them - and that is rare in storytelling. There is a lot of pidgin English and slang in the novel, but I found it enriching and at times amusing and entertaining. There is an Indian sailor with a very dubious past called Serang Ali, who takes second mate, American mulatto Zachary Reid under his wing. Their exchanges, with Serang Ali speaking Pidgin, are high entertaining and one gets the jist.
'A week later, Serang Ali accosted Zachary again. 'Malum Zikri! Captin-bugger blongi poo-shoo-foo. He hab got plenty sick! Need one piece dokto. No can chow-chow tiffin. Allo time do chhee-chhee, pee-pee. Plenty smelly in Captin cabin.'
Throughout the novel there are laugh out loud moments, indignation on behalf of the character moments and edge of the seat moments. There is high adventure, but not of the throw away James Bond kind. It's all character driven even in the midst of the action. A particularly strong scene for me was of an Indian wife going to fetch her husband from the hellish interior of an opium factory. The description of the workings of the place and the hell for those involved in the toil was vivid and disturbing.
My only cavil with the novel is that is obviously set to be part of a larger work and it ends in mid-stream, or perhaps that should be mid-sea. There is no real ending, more of a 'to be continued.' I found this slightly annoying, but it doesn't detract from the absolute brilliant of the story telling.
Readers who have enjoyed The Far Pavillions and are at home with M.M. Kaye and Dorothy Dunnett will find this a very rewarding read I think.
5 stars plus sparkles. :-)

Almost 4 stars, but not quite...
This is a tough book for me to review. I recall I tried "Glass Palace" and gave up 20 pages into the book irritated by the what I thought was an overdose of stereotypical characters.A favorable review in the "Economist" as well as the fascinating theme lead me to give Ghosh another try, and I'm glad I did. "Poppies..." was loads of fun, a "thrilling yarn" in a rich, fascinating context. The key subplots are powerful and kept me rivetted to the very end, and the end of this first part in the trilogy was enthralling enough to leave me wishing the book kept going on.Yet I attribute 3 stars to "Poppies" mostly because I don't know if I will go on to read the next segments of the trilogy. I can sense the sterotype building into the characters and I fear another 800 - 1000 pages of growing sentimentality will end up with me giving up a bit frustrated somewhere along the way.

an excellent book
I really enjoyed reading this book, I was assigned it for an Asian History course and found it to be very interesting as well as educational. You will learn a bit about Hinduism and Islam, and some about various clothing, music and food throughout the story. The characters are all diverse and fascinating, ranging from Americans to British, French, Indians and Chinese, and the villains are especially cruel and manipulative.Romance and chivalry are well played-out, as is use of humor. Various dialogue between characters and monologues reveal insights into different cultures and religions, as well as helping the reader understand a character's motives and values.The ending was a bit of a cliffhanger, but there are supposed to be sequels underway, which I expect to be just as exciting.I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in international history or Eastern culture. ... Read more

Product Description
Reprint of a classic novel that makes the reader political boundaries and cultural assumptions. Excellent on history,Egyptian and Indian culture. by the author of Shadow lines and Glass Palace. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (28)

Beautiful
What an interesting book! Very different from conventional novels. Partially because it can fit into so many different categories/genres, but mostly because of the Indian-Hindi/Egyptian-Muslim insight into life, religion, history, and culture. In other words, it's an interesting look into different groups of people through eye's that aren't western. This book is the story of a 12th-century Indian slave named Bomma, but Author Amitava Ghosh weaves his research of Bomma with his own experiences as an anthropology student in Egypt. It was really a splendid experience reading this book.One word to describe it, BEAUTIFUL, that is what I felt after finishing it.

The Lone And Level Sands Stretch Far Away
This book takes its title from the first line of Shelley's poem "Ozymandias": "I met a traveller from an antique land". None of the other reviewers, for whatever reason, have mentioned this extremely piquant fact.The reason for its piquancy is that Ghosh here explores the same theme as Shelley does in his poem:The passing of all things earthly.

Though it is more evident in Shelley's poem, the dual narratives in the book, one set in Aden, Malabar and other entrepots of a millennium past, one amongst the "fellahs" of Egypt in the decade leading up to the Persian Gulf War in 1990, point the reader to contemplate the ever-shifting sands of history and temporality, the ever-changing relationships of religion to religion, country to country, person to person.

The passage on Malabar, once a great trading centre, is exquisite:

"There is nothing now anywhere in sight of the Bandar to lend credence to the great mansions and residences that Ibn Battuta and Duarte Barbosa spoke of.Now the roads and lanes around the wharfs fall quiet after sunset; shipping offices shut their doors, coffee-shops pull down their shutters, and only a few passengers waiting to cross to the sand-spit remain.The imagination balks at the thought that the Bandar once drew merchants and mariners from distant corners of the world."

And, likewise, at the end of the book, during the onset of the Gulf War, when a great exodus of Egyptians - including Ghosh's friend Nabeel - are trying to make it back into Egypt, the scene portrayed on the TV set, conveyed in the last sentence in the book, is equally Shelleyan:

"There was nothing to be seen except crowds: Nabeel had vanished into the anonymity of History."

Though, at points, annoyingly disjointed, this volume manages - when considered as a whole - to convey the fleeting nature of human endeavour and so to remain true to its title's source.

Pedantic drivel
I'm a history nut -- a couple of months on India then a few on China...then on to Russia, etc. I'm nearly always reading a history book. I had this book in my wish list when my brother bought it for my birthday. A complete waste of his money and my time. Pedantic drivel of an author who deems himself reflective and his thoughts important...and who must love the sound of his own voice...going on and on... I, unfortunately, suffer from the concept that once a book is started it must be finished. So, 3/4 through the thoroughly forced read and still not a glimpse of the "Indian slave, name unknown, who some seven hundred years before had traveled to the Middle East." So I don't even know if he ever does make an appearance...and certainly don't care.

Interesting narratives
In an Antique Land was a unique book for me, as its two threads focus on a small town that I grew up in for the first 20+ years of my life and a Country that I have lived in for the last 3 years. So I had a unique connect with this book.

Not so suprisingly, the description of my hometown did not ring a bell as it focussed mostly on the town as it existed 800+ years ago. The description of rural Egypt created a veritable clang in my head as I kept thinking to myself "How true" or "Yes, I know someone who would have reacted the exact same way"

This is a book of non fiction. Amitav Ghosh chanced upon a letter between Abraham Ben Yiju, a Jewish merchant living in Mangalore, India, and Khalaf ibn Ishaq from Egypt, written in 1132AD. Part of this narrative focuses on Ghosh's search for more documents relating to Ben Yiju and part of the narrative tries to imagine the world that Ben Yiju lived in.

The other narrative in the book, covers Ghosh's stay in rural Egypt (Mashawy and Lataifa) and it was this section that I found infinitely more interesting and hence hope to pick up his book of essays The Imam and the Indian which promise to shed more light on this phase of his life.

It is in this second narrative that Amitav's gift of story telling is showcased, while in the first narrative it feels stilted, focussed on facts and doesn't flow as naturally. Blending history with a a current travelogue is an art perfected by William Dalrymple and sadly in comparison, Ghosh didn't match up.

While Ben Yiju did spend time in Egypt and his letters were written to people living there and most of the surviving documentation came from the Geniza Documents cache from the Ben Ezra Synagogue in the Coptic Cairo area of modern day Cairo and Fustat of Ancient Cairo, this is the only point at which the two narratives seem to meet. For the rest of the book, they just continue parallel to each other.

In the final chapters, when Ghosh heads out towards the tomb of a Jewish Saint in rural Egypt venerated by Muslims and Jews alike, I hoped it would bring about a meeting of the parallel stories, but unfortunately it didn't.

Both narratives on their own are great and very illuminating, I just didn't see the point of putting them together.

Its a great read for someone visiting the Fustat area or interested in observations/revelations from the Geniza Cache or life in Rural Egypt.

Middle Eastern and Indian interlinkages over time
The book tells two parallel stories, one taking place in 1980-1990 when the author spends time in Egypt as a graduate student of anthropology; the other in the 12th century depicting the booming trade between the Middle East and India through the eyes of a North African trader based in Aden, Mangalore and Egypt. The latter, fascinating story has been reconstructed through painstaking archival research and study of surviving correspondence and documents from the time. Amitav Ghosh, a renowned Indian novelist, proves his skills as an Oxford-educated academic, as well as a keen observer of everyday life. He demonstrates how the peoples around the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean have long interacted in myriad ways. Ghosh brings out the big picture by focusing on the lives of individual people. This is an erudite book that brings past and present together in an intriguing manner. ... Read more

Product Description
Set in Burma during the British invasion of 1885, this masterly novel by Amitav Ghosh tells the story of Rajkumar, a poor boy lifted on the tides of political and social chaos, who goes on to create an empire in the Burmese teak forest. When soldiers force the royal family out of the Glass Palace and into exile, Rajkumar befriends Dolly, a young woman in the court of the Burmese Queen, whose love will shape his life. He cannot forget her, and years later, as a rich man, he goes in search of her. The struggles that have made Burma, India, and Malaya the places they are today are illuminated in this wonderful novel by the writer Chitra Divakaruni calls “a master storyteller.” ... Read more

Customer Reviews (86)

Rewarding merger of history and fiction!
The Glass Palace is indeed history masqueraded as finely crafted
fiction, and politics discussed is ever relevant. At its core, the
Glass Palace is the story of ordinary people's life being taken over
by politics and drowning them into insignificance.

What I found mostly remarkable is how the build-up of each character
is paced, with often illustrious and heavy detailing during the first
and middle part of their stories, however their exit from the book is
mostly tapered, and seems sometimes even abrupt. I personally found
this to be impressive and amusing, especially it brings out questions
like "what if such-and-such event never had happened?", and then causally
and logically linking it to "why did it happen?".

I thoroughly enjoyed the style of the author. The prose is ornamented,
but always concise and terse. At certain instances, author take short
detours and gives us vivid and beautiful description of the various
environmental details like natural surroundings in which story is
being progressed, the local customs and practises, the crafts
practised by various characters currently in spotlight etc, and end
effect is a lovely ambiance and aura being created across the story.

A Captivating Read to Learn about the History of Parts Burma, Malay, and India
The Glass Palace is the story of three generations of Indians that weaves its way through Burma, Malay, and West and East India.The plot itself has been covered in other reviews, so I will limit my comments to the story-telling and character/history development.

As the story develops you learn the history of the Burmese people, their rulers, and culutre.Amitav Ghosh, as usual, provides fascinating insights into each of the characters and what develops their perspectives.I have always found historical fiction to be one of the most enjoyable ways to learn the history of a region, and Ghosh rarely disappoints.The narrative flows smoothly throughout the book and you find yourself cheering on each of the characters as businesses rise, and fail; few of the characters are left undeveloped, leaving the reader feeling invested in each character's actions.

Amitav Ghosh's prose is descriptive and helps the reader to truly be able to picture the scene, whether past or present, in their mind.This is especially helpful when the story turns to a location that the reader has never visited or studied on their own.Further, Ghosh really helps the reader to understand the cultural developments of the time, and some of the idealogical struggles that Indian soldiers went through under the British Raj.

The only reason I gave this book four instead of five stars was my sense that Ghosh felt the length of the book and cut off the story more quickly.The last generation in the story is given much less time and development than the first two generations, and made feel as if I never became invested in them, or knew them, the way I knew the earlier generations.On its own, the final generations story probably would have been fantastic, but compared to the beginning 4/5 of the book, it felt rushed and not as polished.

Fine but flawed
I bought and read this book for a class I took on Southeast Asian history. It begins as the British army invades Burma roughly 1885 and ends in 1996. The action primarily takes place in Burma and India with brief trips to Malaysia/Singapore.

Summary: Rajkumar is a poor orphaned Indian boy in Burma as the British invade. He sees Dolly, a servant of the Queen and vows to find and marry her. As the story continues he becomes a rich man, marries Dolly, and the plot shifts to their children.

I was engaged by the story almost immediately and found it a pretty easy read. It moves quickly and is pretty good historical fiction although if you might have problems if you are unfamiliar with the region. I was studying this in class but if I was reading it on my own I would definitely want to do more research. The reader meets many characters who represent some of the people, actions, and reactions of the region to war, colonialism, and economics. Interestingly while much of the book takes place in Burma the main focus is on Indians rather than the Burmese.

I had two problems with this book. First there is not enough time spent on each character and too many characters are introduced too rapidly meaning that sometimes the relationships were blurred in my head. Second huge amounts of time are passed over in sentence or two. 1914-1929 goes by in a blink and post-WWII receives only cursory attention while still important to the story. Although the book is already quite long (my paperback is 470 pages), I felt it could have been longer and then the story could have been fuller.

Overall: 3 1/2 out of 5 I enjoyed it and I'm recommending it to my mom but I feel there are serious flaws that detracted from the book.

History Personalized through Family History
This pageant of history reminds me of James Michener's sagas. It traces over 100 years spanning colonialism, the end of the Burmese monarchy, two wars and the ultimate implantation of a police state in Burma through the fictional stories of people bound together by business, marriage and friendship.

There are several protagonists, each involved in and affected by the events of their respective times. Through them, Ghosh draws a picture that helps readers like me, who have little knowledge of this area's history, understand its dynamics.

The characters have various relationships with the exiled Burmese royal family, they build teak and rubber industries, become involved in independence movements, they are early users of new technology (the motor car, the camera) and debate the issues for their countries following World War II. Fittingly, the novel ties up the family stories as it ends in Rangoon with a description of Aung San Suu Kyi's speeches and her philosophy.

The author has obviously pruned issues that span these 3 countries (Burma, India and Malaysia) and serveral eras to something manageable. For this I am glad, since this was about the limit I could absorb.

I was surprised by the high level of literacy and nutrition accorded to the age of the monarchy. It stands in total contrast to Burma today, best described in Finding George Orwell in Burma

I highly recommend this book to those anyone who enjoys big epics. I hope, one day, to see this on film.

Good history, a bit jumpy, torrid romance.
As historical fiction that describes the conflicting loyalties of British colonialists and their subjects in India and Southeast Asia before, during, and after WWII, this is a great and informative read.Ghosh provides us with a fascinating account of the Japanese attack on Malaya (now Malyasia), Burma, and Singapore and the varied responses of the several races of people who were caught up in that turmoil.I learned a lot about the attitudes that drove many ethnic Indians to join the Indian Independence military units that joined the Japanese in fighting Allied units, including units of Indian troops, in Malaya and Burma.
The disappointing aspects are that he jumps, usually without warning, five or ten years at a time in his story, and that he frequently resorts to torrid romantic scenes to enliven a text that doesn't really need them. As in any work of fiction you will need occasionally to suspend disbelief over improbable twists of fate, but Ghosh requires us to do so more than is acceptable by having his characters run into each other in places hundreds of miles apart in crowded cities where such encounters would be extremely unlikely.The intertwined romances and marriages of the several families that inhabit this novel defy the extremes even of TV soap opera standards. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (44)

Excellent fiction and natural history, too
-Another five-star vote for this novel which contains wonderful natural history as well as an entertaining and rather endearing story.
-During a recent trip to India, I was frequently advised to read Ghosh, and promised one person that I would. Glad they recommended it.
-You can read about the plot outline elsewhere, but after doing some research and asking some questions, it seems the author has done his homework quite well, and this was well-appreciated.I often find modern fiction rather hard to believe and overstated, and if you feel the same way, give this book a try. The main characters seem well-developed and interesting, without simply being templates for the author's viewpoints. Well-done, and I hope to read some more of his work.

Wonderful Magical Realism
Amitav Ghosh is one of my favourite writer's in the exploding "Indian English Novel" sub-genre.He is able to take massive and substantial themes, such as whether people across cultures and languages can truly understand each other, and make those substantial themes into grand narratives.

"The Hungry Tide" takes place in tide country, approximately 1.5 hours from Kolkata.The main characters include Pia, a U.S. raised Indian woman who has dedicated her life to tracking and understanding dolphines; Fokir, a man who has been fishing in the tide country his entire life; and Kanai, a wordly, know-it-all translator from New Delhi who has come to fetch the last writings of his passed away uncle.Through a series of chance meetings and accidents, these three characters become inter-twined in each other's lives in the deepest way possible: love.

Ghosh deftly takes the readers through the development of each key relationship, and truly takes the time to develop each character in a meaningful way.None of the three main characters feel undeveloped, and even the majority of the "minor" characters are beautifully brought to life.As is typical with many of Ghosh's novels, the reader begins to feel as though they know the entire history of the Tide Country and wide swaths of Bengal.

Ghosh effectively continues the Rushdie-like tradition of using "magical realism."This is mostly implemented through the telling of myth of "Bon Bibi" and her role in the development and protection of the tide country.With Kanai the skeptic, Fokir the believer, and Pia in the middle, the reader gets the full range of emotions about the role of ancient, and not so ancient, myths in culture making and development.

Overall, a fantastic literary novel that will keep the reader interested, entertained, and thinking.

Amazing novel
This is a fantastic novel with memorable plot and characters. I have read many books by this author and they are all highly recommended. I have just completed the Sea of Poppies. I cannot wait for the other two books in this trilogy.

Magical realism and a love story
Amitav Ghosh, the author of The Circle of Reason and The Shadow Lines,weaves a complex fabric with some of the fundamentals of the deepest corners of our mind: the animistic instinct, the urge to discover, and the magnetism of finding one's roots.All this woven against a primitive landscape of water and silt, time set against tidal surges and mangrove forest, a flat land low against a stormy sky in the Bengal delta, a place that Ghosh brings alive with the apparent deftness of long familiarity.The plot is brilliant--a young woman smitten with the bug of a naturalist's passion is looking for the elusive fresh water porpoise in the riverine Sunderbans, an uneducated fisherman youth, his youthful wife and the locals with convoluted past in the backdrop of 1970s Bengal, create a drama that is wholly compelling yet mysteriously magical.Ghosh draws with broad swaths of a charcoal, as it were, constructing a dark world of primitive elements that probe deeply into our human self with the ease and flourish of a master craftsman.Magic is in the air and water, in the sky and in dolphin's breath.The story attains a crescendo in the form of a huge storm that changes not merely the landscape.A book written with deft craftsmanship and intimate knowledge. Read it.

Very enjoyable
I found this book fascinating. I felt transported into a world I knew nothing about. The depictions of people made them seem real and each very different. Except for some peripheral government goons, there were no obvious "good guys" and "bad guys," just humans with different perspectives, desires, and upbringings. I listened to it in audiobook form and the actor was outstanding. I was impressed with both the literate style of writing and the depth of the research, which interwove real historical events and modern day science with two or three love stories, if that's the right term for them. Like Indian movies as compared to American ones, the sexual attraction and "action" is much more subdued and understated. I found that refreshing. I don't like the crudity you find in almost every modern detective/police novel. This book is often filled with action and suspense, but, dare I say it, also romance. ... Read more

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Good piece
A collection of articulate essays written at different times and on different places and about different experiences. Though the piece on 9/11 was disappointing. It lacks depths of the other essays. The reader gets a glimpse of different places, different people, different politics, and of course how the "incendiary circumstances" have changed/affected/moulded peoples lives across borders. A superb pastime reading indeed !

Some excellent writing
This book is a collection of essays, written from a variety of locations around the world for various magazines, over the past fifteen years or so, by the Indian journalist Amitav Ghosh.To my taste they were uneven in quality.The first piece in the book, covering the effects of the 2004 Tsunami on the Indian inhabitants of some islands to the southeast of the Indian mainland, is beautifully written, engrossing and stands out as a masterpiece.It was very worthwhile reading a piece about life in India by a gifted Indian writer.

I learned a good deal from a number of the other pieces as well.However the quality of the pieces seems to go down in relation to the distance Ghosh is removed from what he knows best (India and Indians), he has a habit of trying a little too hard to have profound insights, and seems a little preachy at times.On the other hand, as someone from a different background, I found the book quite useful for improving my knowledge of Indian viewpoints on topics dealing with politics and society. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (30)

Taught Disappointment
The star rating is insufficient here. I taught this text to college sophomores recently and realized too late just how difficult the text is. True, there are marvelous complexities and wonderfully wrought ironies and historical insights. But there are also pages of confusion with relatively little pay off. This text might well be taught in conjunction with a detailed Indian (or Pakistani or Bangladeshi) history. Without it (and without an immense amount of time), this book is better left for graduate study.

That said, I will repeat what others have said ad nauseam: there is a large amount of difference between enjoyment and appreciation. Some of Mr. Ghosh's work is indeed remarkably worth appreciating; it is sometimes less than enjoyable. As a result, I'd leave it for more advanced courses than the one I taught.

Opinion of "The Shadow Lines"
This was a wonderfull book, an interesting book about Indian culture, a love story, and a stylistic journey.
Everyone that likes to read should read Ghosh

Complex and Compelling!
I read this book for a graduate course in global English literature.It was one of the more enjoyable reads in that class.The novel is set in India and Pakistan both before and after Partition.It deals with the effects that Partition had on the cities of Calcutta and Dhaka.Ghosh's prose is clear and lucid.Told from the perspective of a young child, the novel has a lot to do with the power of story-telling and the connection of story-telling to identity.Ghosh addresses the issues of nationalism and transnationalism and of borders (both real and imagined).He forces the reader to deal with the connections between nationalism and violence.

A journey through space and time
This is a wonderful piece of work. I was off to a slow start - but after the few pages I got so engrossed in the book, I couldn't put it down till I had finished it. Events from different eras, and happening in different parts of the world are beautifully woven into a coherent narrative. I was really impressed by this unique style of traversing space and time in a non-linear fashion. The main characters are well etched out.
The book would be best appreciated by those who have spent time in India (and know of its unique lifestyle!) and have also had a taste of the western world. However, it is a wonderfully told story, and I would recommend it to one and all.

Not upto par
I wanted to read this book as it was being praised as a 'great partition novel' and I had previously read a couple of novels set during the independence of bangladesh. However, this book turned out to be more of a love story, with very little mention of the partition of Bangladesh almost till the very end. However for the most part, it's a well written novel. ... Read more

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4 books all in one package

The 4 books I ordered from this seller came packaged neatly together, without excess packing materials. Just the way I like it.

A well woven story.
I became a fan of Ghosh after reading "Sea of Poppies." That was his most recent novel and "Circle of Reason" was his first. The two books cannot be directly compared - they're about different times and places.

This book, though a little rough, is very well written for a first novel. Typically Indian, the book has tons of detail and takes a while to make any point. What is untypical, though, is that you don't have to have a glossary at hand. There are a few words from Hindi, but compared with most books by Indian authors, this is amazingly "English" throughout.

The book is about the people. They wander from India to the Middle East and on to Africa. Their lives and relationships move the story along. Well developed, there is quite a mix brought together by the events.

I kept turning pages from start to finish. I don't think you should pass on this one just because it's not as polished as his later books. It's well worth your time.

Keep Google handy
After hearing the author, Amitav Ghosh, in a National Public Radio interview, I was eager to read one of his books. I chose to start with 'The Circle of Reason'. The phrase which best describes the experience for me is "could have been". The story could have been compelling for non-asian readers (I'm American), except for the regional vocabulary. The book is littered with clothing, descriptions, places, holidays, and foods that a native of India would probably recognize, but I was totally at sea. For example, in the book, a man pulls up his lunghi in front of a woman and shocks her. Was it his socks? His shirt? A body part? Whatever it was, is it considered rude to pull it up in front of a woman? I had to Google the term to find out it was a kind of skirt worn by men and women in India. I Googled dozens of terms during the reading of the book.

The plot could have been more exciting, but there wasn't enough drama.The book had the potential to be a kind of Indian 'Les Miserable', but instead meandered, concentrating on this inconsequential character and then that one. Meanwhile, the pursuer seemed to be perfunctory in his chase and the pursued didn't seem to be trying that hard to escape.

Perhaps in his later works Mr. Ghosh did, or will, consider his international readers by including some unobtrusive descriptions that explain the regional terms. For example, if I were to write that my grandmother enjoyed cooking in a spider, knowing that's a New England term, I'd mention that a spider is a large frying pan.

So, in summary, if you are very familiar with Indian culture, 'The Circle of Reason' may easily hold your interest. For other readers, see the title of this review.
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From Victorian lndia to near-future New York, The Calcutta Chromosome takes readers on a wondrous journey through time as a computer programmer trapped in a mind-numbing job hits upon a curious item that will forever change his life. When Antar discovers the battered I.D. card of a long-lost acquaintance, he is suddenly drawn into a spellbinding adventure across centuries and around the globe, into the strange life of L. Murugan, a man obsessed with the medical history of malaria, and into a magnificently complex world where conspiracy hangs in the air like mosquitoes on a summer night.

Customer Reviews (50)

Excellent narration with science fiction and history
There are plenty of nice things to take away from this book.

First off, its science fiction. I realised this pretty late.

Secondly, heres a book that stays with you well after you've turned the last page.

In summary, I liked the bold effort to fuse 3 timelines - past (Ross'), middle past (Murugan/Shonali/Urmila) and future (Antar/computer). The idea of re-incarnation is brought in towards the end - though not very convincingly.

This could have been dealt with better - the fact that the tantric woman gets re-incarnated and all that .. all in all, a thought provoking book that surprisingly hasn't been very popular.

Secret Science
This book hooked me from page one, and didn't let me down. It's the most suspenseful story I've read in a while, full of conspiracy and Illuminati and sci-fi technology and history. Published in 1995, it's set in the near future, and 1995, and the end of the nineteenth century. It reminded me of Snow Crash and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintainence and maybe even The Da Vinci Code if I'd read it (which I didn't), only in India, and with malaria. Oh, also? It's more William Gibson than William Gibson himself. (Only in India instead of Japan. And with malaria.) The Ava/IIe computer (character?) is one Gibsonesque piece of technology; there are a few others. This book is extremely fun - pure page-turning escapism, and a perfect example of a "wild ride."

Aweful, frustrating Read
The book definitely has all the suspense in the first 100 pages. But then it falls from a cliff. The plot ultimately turned out to be quite meaningless and the end came too abruptly. I do not know if I read it because it has references to Calcutta and New York, 2 cities I love quite a bit, or the story itself was good enough to read. This was an utter disaster and I do not think I will red another Amitava Ghosh in quite a while.

Malaria's a plot point?
When a patient has syphilis, cure them by infecting them with malaria. This amazing piece of medical trivia drives the plot of one of Ghosh's first books. While not as tight as the later books, it's an interesting look at a writer's development. Intriguing to see how the author has changed over time, which also mirrors the meta-levels and subtexts he builds into each book.

Two Nobel prizes [ 1902, 1927] were awarded for the discovery of the transmission of malaria, and the use of malaria to cure syphilis [before the discovery of penicillin]. The researchers are barely known today, giving Ghosh a springboard for invention. As usual, Ghosh's protagonist is an outsider in strange world who discovers another complex of relations in a past world that helps make sense of his current world. Levels within levels and jump cuts thru time, but Ghosh makes it seem natural and compelling.

The hero this time is an Indian man working in a near future NY for a vaguely described world aid organization who gets involved in researching the disappearance of an aid worker who himself was researching the life of Ross, the discoverer of the malarial transmission process. What follows is a mix of medical mystery and soft sci-fi layered with the subtext of culture clashes - British imperialism, and western science, and artificial intelligence, ranged against ancient cultures and a Lamarckian twist that jumpstarts evolution. It all works, and is made more interesting reading it after Ghosh's later works, since you can see the genesis of his style.
It's not a book for everyone -- like much good science fiction, you some basic biology to follow the plot, yet open minded so that you'll allow the author some license with the basic concepts of molecular biology.

Just to reiterate what many others have said.... (spoilers inside)
...this is not a very good book. The first 2/3 of the book are not bad at all, even if the dialogues usually sound fake and too constructed. But there is mystery enough that one wants to read ahead. Unfortunately, a few pages before the end you start realizing that... there are way too few pages before the end to make it satisfactory, and indeed the finale is truly horrible. It's as if the author put effort only in the first 9/10th of the book, while writing the last 20 pages in a rush, maybe to meet a deadline. The ending is trivial, unintersting, rush and unsatisfactory. There will be many loose ends left unexplained.

The enthusiastic comments by professional reviewers are a mystery to me. This is a decent book, but nothing more than that. The huge "conspiracy" underlying the whole story is totally outlandish (I mean, even taking into account that this is a work of fiction) and revealed in a confused way.

What did suprised me positively is the detailed and suprisingly accurate (non-fictional) information about malaria and the real characters involved in the scientific breakthrough described in the book. Of course all the supernatural stuff that the autor added is utter non-sense, but this being fiction it does not bother me per se. It just bothered me because there is non-sense and non-sense, and the non-sense at the base of this story was not very well developed and overall outlandish even in a fictional world.

Anyway, I received this book as a gift, and I read it while traveling, so I did not invest much money or "quality time" in it. I would only recommend this book for light plane reading, maybe after a purchase from a used books stall. ... Read more

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A novel of love, vengeance and political unrest in South East Asia

Irrawaddy Tango, a pepper-tongued, tango-dancing Asian beauty rises from a village girlhood to become the wife of her country's dictator and then a leader of the rebel forces arrayed against him. Tango captures the attention of an ambitious colonel --the self-proclaimed Supremo--while dancing at a talent contest.Once married, she is forced to endure the cruelties of a ruthless and foolish husband, is kidnapped by rebel forces, recaptured and brutally punished by her husband's military clique, and eventually exiled to America.Her return to the fictional Republic of Daya (clearly Burma) brings about the destruction of her husband and his dictatorship.Irrawaddy Tango tells the unsettling tale of powerful men and powerless women.It evokes as well the harshness of exile, revealing the misunderstandings between East and West and by doing so captures the intensity of living between the two.
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Customer Reviews (3)

sleeping with ne win
Wendy Law-Yone is a Chinese/Burmese lady, daughter of a well-known journalist in Burma. This book describes the bizarre and at times brutal and lurid story of a woman in Burma (perhaps it is partially autobiographical!) who circulated in the higher echelons of burmese society in the 60's and 70's, got involved in politics, spent some time in jail and had an affair with the then top guy, the old dictator General Ne Win. I don't know how true the story is or whether it has anything to do with Wendy Law-Yone's own experiences, but it is interesting for me, as a burmese man (who used to read his father's editorials!), to find out what Wendy has to say about Burma. She writes well though (like her dad!). The book is worth the price!

An Important Book
Irrawaddy Tango is a great read -- not only a rollicking ride but also, at times, shockingly brutal and necessarily honest. As a view into late 20th century Southeast Asia from the eyes of a female exile/refugee, it's a important look into relationships between men and women and those between cultures. For those interested in Burma, Southeast Asia, women's studies, human rights, or postcolonial/transnational literature, Irrawaddy Tango is not to be missed.

Not a dance but a person ...
... "Irrawaddy Tango" is the nickname of a girl --"Irrawaddy" from her township, "Tango" from herfavorite dance -- who lives the history of a Southeast Asian country called"Daya".Daya is quite clearly Burma, renamed so that Law-Yonecan invent Irrawaddy Tango as the wife of "Supremo" (himselfquite clearly General Ne Win); then a prisoner and ultimately leader ofethnic rebels; an exile in America; and ultimately return her to anambiguous fate in Daya.

The book is brutal, explicit and bitter; Tangoherself is not entirely likeable, particularly in her patronizing anddismissive attitude towards fellow refugee Dayans in Washington.But thereis a lot of brutality and bitterness in the scenes Law-Yone describes &no doubt they are not far from life. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Best travelogue on Cambodia and Burma
This is a classic book. Get your hands on it if you can. It transports you to a different world both in prose and in vision. Ghosh writes clear and evocative prose. It is a true pleasure. We used his book as a meta guide for our trip to Cambodia.

Glimpses from the forgotten world
The book comprises 3 pieces: 2 of them based in Cambodia (Dancing in Cambodia and Stories in Stones) and 1 in Myanmar/Burma (At Large in Burma). Like some of his other novels (In an antique land) and Amin Malouf's novels, 2 episodes separated by passage of time are inter-woven but linked a common thread; "Dancing in Cambodia" talks about the first ever visit of Cambodian Dance Troupe to France in 1906 and the authors quest for the remnants of this ancient art in the early 1990s in a country that was devastated by one of the worst holocausts of the present times "the Pol Pot Years". Irony is that some of the closest family members of Pol Pot or Saroth Sar, as he was known amongst friends and family; had to under-go the same ordeal as thousands of others. "They were sent off to a village of `old people', long-time Khmer Rouge sympathizers, and along with all other `new people', were made to work in the rice-fields."
Stories in Stones look looks at Angkor Wat in context with the present day Cambodia.
At Large in Burma, talks about contemporary political process in Burma where outsiders often give judgements before they understand the true nature of the country. Raked by civil war since its independence, Burma is almost a forgotten country on the world map. A country divided today as Myanmar of Yangon influence and of insurgent's territories; Burma is trying to find a future amongst the debris of the ethnic diversity of South-East Asia. "As in many families- rebellion and violence are aspects of intimacy rather than a distance". ... Read more

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Contributed research papers. ... Read more

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Contemporary Indian Writers in English CIWE) is a series that presents critical commentaries on some of the best-known names in the genre. With the high visibility of Indian writing in English in academic, critical, pedagogic and reader circles, there is a perceivable demand for lucid yet rigorous introduction of several of its authors and genres. The CIWE texts cater to a wide audience - from the student seeking information and critical material on particular works to the general, informed reader who might want to know a little more about an author she has just finished reading. Cast in a user-friendly format, and written with a high degree of critical and theoretical rigour, the texts in the series will provide astute, accessible, informed entry-points into a wide range of works and writers. CIWE, we hope, will further strengthen the interest in and readership of one of the most significant components of world literatures in English. Amitav Ghosh, a novelist with an extraordinary sense of history and place, is indisputably one of the most important novelists and essayists of our time.In this volume, John Hawley provides a lucid, friendly and thorough introduction to the fiction and essays of Ghosh. ... Read more

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This book examines Amitav Ghosh's fiction through seperate critical essays by reputed scholars in six countries.It includes a study of the early novels, as well as essays on his most popular novels.These thoughtful, incisive and highly readable essays are grounded in the interests that infuse Ghosh's fiction: history, science, discovery, travel, nationalism, subalternity, agency.A bibliography on Ghosh's works is also provided.Also included is a new essay on Satyajit Ray by Amitav Ghosh ... Read more

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Contributed articles on Shadow lines, novel by Amitav Ghosh. ... Read more

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Contributed articles of critical appreciation on Amitav Ghosh's novels. ... Read more