Amitav Ghosh Books

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".

This book kept me up past my bedtime last night, although I found it not entirely convincing. Still, parts were enthralling. Ghosh throws together an American cetacean researcher of Indian descent, a translator from New Delhi, an illiterate fisherman, and the turbulent landscape of the Sundarbans, and comes up with a tale that is part adventure story, part romance, part history and resonates with the hybrid mythology of its location throughout.

But while there is much to be savored in this novel, it flounders a bit in describing straightforward adult interactions--people explain themselves (in their thoughts and out loud) rather woodenly.

Still, it kept me reading, and I was glad to learn about a part of the world I'd barely even heard of. But I've enjoyed other Ghosh books more.

Ghosh's writing transported me and them immersed me in another place that was completely unfamiliar and yet clearly portrayed. Good characters, interesting intertwined stories, worth your time if you like good writing. I wanted more when I finished. Now to decide which Ghosh novel to take up next...

I have to admit I love books about India and tigers. "jungle child" by norah burke especially. first the good things about The Hungry Tide: 1.It was written as a series of flashbacks all equally interesting: american girl, snobby Indian fellow and his sad-sap uncle. 2. it takes place in an unknown-to-me-part of the world: an archipeligo off the eastern coast of india/bangladesh. 3. It concerns ecology and the preservation of animals whose existance is fatally threatened by humans. It kind of makes the case for the humans vis-a-vis endangered species. Like why shouldnt people move into crappy low-life places where tigers roam free and then why shouldnt the people kill the tigers who have nothing left to eat so they eat the settlers? So that's the good part. Now for the drawbacks: 1. the author is not really an especially good writer. I still dont understand how islands can be totally submerged when the tides come in and still have huge tigers running around when the tide goes out. Do the tigers sit on the tops of the trees half their lives or what? 2. The characters were not especially inteligible. None of them ellicited any emotions. They were just cardboard characters. Like: hey look here is a american girl with short hair who is a cetologist. she also eats power bars and rejects local food for months and months. thats a lot of power bars in her back pack. 3. The relations between the sexes were bitter and mean in every single case. Does that mean something special or is the author just a grouch?

This is the third book by Amitav Ghosh which I have read now, after "In an Antique Land" and "Glass Palace". Each time I was not only gripped by the plot and the vivid descriptions, but I felt truly enriched by the many references to burning issues of our world. Among those three books I consider "The Hungry Tide" as the most finely worked-out novel. It provides a much-needed meditation on the relationship between man and nature, and between East and West.

I think they say that character is plot and plot is character. This book proves that theory. The meticulous detail lavished on developing each character including Piyali Roy, Kanai Dutt, Fokir and countless others is what gives this book it's raison d'etre. The descriptions of the Sundarbans are exquisitely embroidered into a vast tapestry of emotions, characters, places, animals, nature, and philosophy. Definitely worth reading.

If I have to name the singlemost life altering reading experience, The Shadow Lines will be it. Given the present political situation, every Indian with even half a claim at intelligence must read this book. But despite its grounding in politics and history, the story is a most personal account of a little boy's life who drifts back and forth between Calcutta and Dhaka...and his journey where he encounters lines and barriers of all kinds, only to find that they're all but...shadow lines. Amitav Ghosh writes with a flair and a command over the language that most other authors can only dream of.

"The Shadow Lines" by Amitav Ghosh was written when the homes of the Sikhs were still smoldering, some of the most important questions the novel probes are the various faces of violence and the extent to which its fiery arms reach under the guise of fighting for freedom. Ghosh's treatment of violence in Calcutta and in Dhaka is valid even today, more than ten years after its publication. What has happened recently in Kosovo and in East Timor show that answers still evade the questions, which Ghosh poses about freedom, about the very real yet non-existing lines, which divide nations, people, and families.

The story of the family and friends of the nameless narrator who for all his anonymity comes across as if he is the person looking at you quietly from across the table by the time the story telling is over and silence descends. Before that stage arrives the reader is catapulted to different places and times at breath taking tempo. The past, present and future combine and melt together erasing any kind of line of demarcation. Such lines are present mainly in the shadows they cast. There is no point of reference to hold on to. Thus the going away - the title of the first section of the novel - becomes coming home - the title of the second section. These two titles could easily have been exchanged.

The narrator is very much like the chronicler Pimen in Pushkin's drama Boris Godonow. But unlike Pushkin's Pimen this one is not a passive witness to all that happens in his presence, and absence. The very soul of the happenings, he is the comma which separates yet connects the various clauses of life lived in Calcutta, London, Dhaka and elsewhere. The story starts about thirteen years before the birth of the narrator and ends on the night preceding his departure from London back to Delhi. He spends less than a year in London, researching for his doctorate work, but it is a London he knew very well even before he puts a step on its pavements. Two people have made London so very real to him - Tridib, the second son of his father's aunt, his real mentor and inspirer, and Ila his beautiful cousin who has traveled all over the world but has seen little compared to what the narrator has seen through his mental eye. London is also a very real place because of Tridib's and Ila's friends - Mrs. Price, her daughter May, and son Nick. Like London comes alive due to the stories related by Ila and Tridib, Dhaka comes alive because of all the stories of her childhood told to him by his incomparable grandmother who was born there. The tragedy is that though the narrator spends almost a year in London and thus has ample opportunity to come to terms with its role in his life, it is Dhaka which he never visits that affects him most by the violent drama that takes place on its roads, taking Tridib away as one of its most unfortunate victims.

Violence has many faces in this novel - it is as much present in the marriage of Ila to Nick doomed to failure even before the "yes" word was spoken, as it is present on the riot torn streets of Calcutta or Dhaka. But the specialty of this novel is that this violence is very subtle till almost the end. When violence is dealt with, the idea is not to describe it explicitly like a voyeur but to look at it to comprehend its total senselessness. Thus the way "violence" is brought into the picture is extraordinarily sensitive: The narrator says, talking of the day riots tore Calcutta apart in 1964, "I opened my mouth to answer and found I had nothing to say. All I could have told them was of the sound of voices running past the walls of my school, and of a glimpse of a mob in Park Circus." I have never experienced such a sound, but God, how these sentences get under the skin, how easy it is to hear that sound, how the heart beats faster on reading these sentences!

Ghosh is also a humorous writer. It is serious humor. Single words hide a wealth of meaning, for example, the way Tridib's father is always referred to as Shaheb, Ila's mother as Queen Victoria, or the way the grandmother's sister always remains Mayadebi without any suffix denoting the relationship. Also look at this passage that describes how the grandmother reacts on discovering that her old Jethamoshai is living with a Muslim family in Dhaka is outstanding and must be read to enjoy

The main characters are very real, almost perfectly rounded. I specially love the grandmother. She is the grandmother many of us recognize. In her fierce moral standards, Spartan outlook of life, and intolerance of any nonsense - real and imagined, she is as real as any patriarch or matriarch worth the name. And there is this very loveable character of the narrator. It is that of a boy who warms your heart, it is that of a man who knows and has lost love - more than once in his life - and thus makes you feel like hugging him close to your heart.

Some of the most important questions the novel probes are the various faces of violence and the extent to which its fiery arms reach under the guise of fighting for freedom. Ghosh's treatment of violence in Calcutta and in Dhaka is valid even today, more than ten years after its publication. What has happened recently in Kosovo and in East Timor show that answers still evade the modern world. On all scores, Ghosh's novel is excellent reading and would make a very impressive film. Excellent Must Read!

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.

A wonderfully nostalgic tale of growing up in Calcutta, going to college in London, and unrequited love in between.

Also depicts the tragedy of the Indian Hindu-Muslim riots of the sixties. Read it!

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.

I found this book extremely dry and slow moving. All the other reviews focus on the master-slave relationship. I kept waiting for this part of the plot to get moving, and it was 200 pages before it even happened. "The Hungry Tide" is a far better work by this author.

I had read this book few years ago , but recently I had a conversation with a freind about it. I just thought I would like to have a copy and read it again.
A book that I will recomend .

If National Geographic stories reconstructing a stone-age human from its fossilized remains dug out of the ashes of a volcano (such as in physical anthropology) fail to engage your fascination, chances are that this story will seem more academic to you than the home work assignment to watch History Channel. I am one such history-averse person and the book was too slow to start. However, I finished it with a renewed respect for social anthropology and its relevance to the world we live in. The way a story of a 12th century Egyptian trader can be relevant to the social, cultural, political and business of our times is hard to ignore and not take heed of. Besides, it is fascinating to learn how a small set of information sources with varying degrees of reliability can be connected like dots that reveal the story of a 800 year old human life in all its aspects.

Some of the revelations in the book that left me agape were: the rich history of trade between Indian and Egypt that made a lasting impact on the evolution of both countries and her peoples; the complex way in which the social temper and cultural identity of a country are entrenched in religion, thus making religion the primary tool for governing powers to achieve political and business goals in ways that are irreversibly divisive; the power of a united few with a disruptive agenda over the divided many with a peaceful one.

Apparently, this book is part of the course reading for anthropology students at UC, Santa Cruz (and possibly many other universities worldwide), as I found out from a student sitting next to me in the plane. However, Amitav Ghosh's extensive research goes beyond anthropology and throws light on relevant topics of today such as Iraq & the Middle East, the cultural divide between Jewish, Muslims, Christians and Hindus, the Indian identity, and the massive social changes that conservative rural Muslims are grappling with.

I enjoyed this book immensely as I have lived and researched in the Kanara Coast of India where a main character in the book spends a great deal of his life and where there have been from early times trade relations with the Middle East. Although I have not researched in the Egypt I can relate to many research experiences of the author. It was a real treat for me. Martha B. Ashton-Sikora

Although I was immediately fascinated by the historical and literary detective story of the 12th century Jewish merchant and his Indian servant, I did not fully understand Ghosh's mission in writing this book until nearly at the end. Then it became clear to me. This book is an elegy for a way of life that is forever lost. In the 12th century, Jews, Muslims, and Hindus worked in tandem as traders and merchants, with the only reprisals being angry remonstrances rather than armed violence. What we call sophisticated Western civilization has changed all of that.

Just as Portuguese and Dutch invasions of the Indian Ocean ended the medieval way of cooperation, the quiet life of the Egyptian villages in which Ghosh lived also ended -- within our lifetimes. As televisions and refrigerators came to those villages, so did anger, strife, and urbanization. There was money to be made during the Iran-Iraq war if you were a young Egyptian man, but you would never return to your village.

This book was slow-moving in places but ultimately unforgettable.

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 !

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.

Although The Glass Palace is not as sharply written as In an Antique Land, what is wonderful about Amitav Ghosh is his ability to present a beautifully written novel about historical events, and make one feel the strong presence of history in our lives. I knew little about the history of Burma or Malaysia before reading this book, but I have become compelled and inspired to learn more. I really appreciate
how Amitav Ghosh presents us with the idea that borders have and always will be translucent at best, and that many people are not citizens of a country or culture, but a collective citizen of many places, times, memories, personal connections, and experiences.

The author prose is very intelligent. A very different read, the information on Burma's king (Myanmar now) and the country now and then (WW-II) was captivating. I haven't read much of Amitav Ghosh; this was my first read but would love to read more of his work.

Sorry this book promises much (and does have some good historical research), but it soon lowers itself to melodrama and soap opera. Too many coincidences and cheesey scenes which spoils the deeper story. One of the very few books I have given up on before finishing.

I have been an avid reader of Indian Authors for a long time now and have now probably read at least dozens of books by various authors ranging from the phantasmagorical Salman Rushdie, the cheeky Upamanyu Chatterjee, the solemn Anita Desai and even the operatic Vikram Seth. However Amitav Ghosh's 'The Glass Palace' stands out even amongst this august company as a novel of unmatched complexity.

Based on the life and family of Rajkumar - a street urchin who finds himself penniless and orphaned in Burma - the sweeping story carries the reader across almost the entire 20th century beginning with the British Invasion of Burma in 1885 and carrying on through till sometime around 1990.

One of the central themes in the book is the role of the Indian Subcontinent as a tool of the British Empire as seen both from the eyes of Burmese residents whose country is overrun by Indian soldiers acting as 'mercenaries' of the British Raj and from the viewpoint of Indian Soldiers who later serve in the Army during World War II but find it impossible to come to terms with the duality of their existence - their ethos teach them to fight and die for country and yet they do not have a country to call their own; they are expected to lay down their lives fighting for the Empire but yet are never accorded the status of equals.

Having grown up in India we are taught (fleetingly) of the role of Indian Soldiers that battled loyally with the British - but the author presents an entirely different view point. Without judging he tries to potray how these soldiers - several of them illiterate and having to choose between a life in the Army or a life of penury - served as proxies for COlonialism and how they helped spread the very empire that holds them captive. He presents through his characters a scathing view of colonialism and tears to shreds some of the post-modern arguments that try to potray British Subjudgation of india in a positive light.

Another theme , very pertinent in light of current world events that "the place of politics.. what it ought to be.. that while misrule and tyranny must be resisted .. so too must politics itself" is one that we can all relate to. He makes a sincere effort to present the excesses of various rulers, governments wittout trying to pass judgement on any of them.

It is also very informative as a view of the role of Indians as Labourers across all of Asia - exploited by their very own, working as bonded labourers, illiterate and poor - slaves by any other means. In this light the book is almost akin to "Roots".

I found this book to be moving on so many levels- its potrayal of the complex human relationships between characters; the amazingly lifelke characters that inhabits its narrative - both dark and amazingly complicated; the everyday themes of survival, trying to get ahead, family and love and betrayal.

Thank you Amitav Ghosh for creating a true Epic.

First, I must apologize to the lovely person who gave me this book as a birthday present, with a very sweet inscription at the front. I have to be honest about this book, and I have to convince the world not to read it.

A metaphor struck me about The Glass Palace as I was laboring through its final 20 pages. The book reminded me of my friend's college improv-comedy troupe in a striking way: the group had a structure called "Sit, Stand, Kneel," featuring one sitting person, one standing person, and (you guessed it) one kneeling person. Whenever one person changed his position, the others had to respond -- without telling one another -- by changing theirs. But they couldn't just sit down for no reason; they had to provide an extemporaneous reason for their change in position. And since there's really no good reason for most people to suddenly fall to their knees, most of the humor in the structure came from the absurd justifications for their changes in position. A similar improv structure involved three characters, one of whom had to dunk his head in a tank of water offstage and explain upon his return why his hair was wet.

Imagine 400 pages of Sit, Stand, Kneel, performed by the least-funny three people you know in the most earnest way possible. Characters fall in love instantaneously, get married for no reason, and suddenly acquire traits that only make sense because they justify actions that happen on the next page. These characters don't look like actual humans, because the author isn't actually interested in what happens to them. He is a pedant, trying very hard to shoehorn a non-fiction lecture into a novel. Ghosh smears the thinnest veneer of a novelization atop a badly-written sermon on colonialism and its discontents. Characters have discussions about the philosophy of colonialism (quick synopsis: "The industrial worker and the soldier are just as much stooges of a larger system as the colonial subject is of his masters") that are almost as enlightening as a U.S. presidential debate.

So we have no characters, illogical plotting, empty discussions, and a collection of inelegant set pieces. Do you know people who spend hours -- possibly days -- building up to a joke that telegraphed itself from the moment they began? Do you find them tiresome? Do you take every opportunity to grab a snack or use the bathroom while they're talking? Do you force a yawn to cut out of their parties early? That's pretty much the experience of reading The Glass Palace.

This slim little volume is a study of the psychology and reality of India's and Pakistan's nuclear policies, and it is scary indeed. Ghosh begins by describing the nuclear test by India in 1999, conducted aboveground in total disregard for the safety of the people in surrounding areas. Amazingly, celebrations in the streets of towns and cities followed. Ghosh says that for these two countries the weapons are a status symbol allowing them to take a place at the table of "world powers." As he traveled and interviewed people on the subject, he found their views of the tests a mixture of fantasy and niavete. He feels India has made a tragic error in its struggle with its historical enemy--relying on nuclear weapons, India has given up its historical advantage of superior conventional forces, leaving it to defend itself with a weapon that will only invite a horrible counter-attack. Ghosh ends with a minute analysis of the aftereffects of an attack on New Delhi. Interestingly, the immediate death toll, he says, would only (only!) be in the 200,000 range, but the destruction of the infrastructure, the loss of records, and most of all the suffering of those unlucky enough to survive, would precipitate a horrible national collapse. One can only ask "Why?"

Following the lead of other reviewers, I'm one of those who loved this book. A fascinating and nicely paced mix of genres: sci-fi (which I don't read much at all), thriller/mystery, post-colonialist and others, this book takes the reader economically and fluidly through a variety of characters lives and ideas that interwine around unlikely bedmates of ideas: malaria, cyber-avatars, pukkha British colonialst medical dilettantes, emigree life, mysticism and the supernatural, and phantom trains. Ghosh is a brilliant writer: always surprising, complex but always captivating to read. The scenes at the rail station and at Ross' old resisdence in Calcutta are unforgettable. I can understand how some readers carp about the abrupt and open-ended finish, but upon reflection, it seems the best way to end the novel - with so many unsolved and unexplainable occurences and coincidences, not only can there not be a tidy terminus to the book, it would not fit in with the mystical element in the book. I guess if to name the thing is impossible, then so it is. Conspiracy elements lead me to compare it to Eco's "Foucault's Pendulum," as does the multi-layered plot. An excellent and memorable novel, one which I look forward to re-reading.

...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.

This clearly has to be one of the most off-beat books I've read till date. It is an intriguing concoction of science fiction, mysticism, malaria, enchanting Calcutta, quest for immortality and the divine. There are many entwined stories and some of them are set in different time periods (influencing each other) that make for some very interesting albeit difficult reading.
Like most fellow readers, I was confounded by the end and think it is very sudden and open ended (as if leaving the door open for a sequel). However, the difficulty and (occasional) frustration in understanding the intriguing story is richly rewarded by the stunning chapter on Phulboni's stay at the abandoned station in Renupur. It'll evoke vivid colorful mental imagery and send chills down your back, blurring the distinction between the real and the surreal.

How this book ever won the Arthur C. Clarke award is way beyond me. I found it amazingly contrived, repetitious, boring, confusing, embarrassingly overwritten, and ultimately a big nuisance. In short, I didn't like it. I kept giving Amitav Ghosh, who wrote the engaging "The Glass Palace," the benefit of the doubt. "The Calcutta Chromosome," however, seemed like a very early effort on his part to write something out of nothing. Yet, try as I might, I found myself holding my nose as I disliked just about everybody in the book, and the "plot," an obscure trolling of malaria research done in India over a hundred years ago, with some bizarre intrigue thrown in for the sake of "science fiction," seemed like nothing more than the ramblings of a juvenile writer. I give Ghosh credit for actually finishing the book, because it often seemed like he had no idea where he was going with it. Unfortunately for me, the reader, the ending wasn't worth hanging around for. I do not recommend anyone even starting this one.

A book of total lost leads, great starts to intrigue, interesting ideas and insights, teasing insinuations, and no meat to be found. A very disappointing book.

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!

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.

... "Irrawaddy Tango" is the nickname of a girl -- "Irrawaddy" from her township, "Tango" from her favorite dance -- who lives the history of a Southeast Asian country called "Daya". Daya is quite clearly Burma, renamed so that Law-Yone can invent Irrawaddy Tango as the wife of "Supremo" (himself quite clearly General Ne Win); then a prisoner and ultimately leader of ethnic rebels; an exile in America; and ultimately return her to an ambiguous fate in Daya.

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