Changes

At over 500 pages, this is a big book and it's also a big book in terms of the subject matters that it covers; the whole colonial situation regarding parts of the East as well as the properties and problems of the poppy's product - opium. Ghosh also crams in a wealth of very different and diverse characters so that the novel has the feel of an exotic and at times, an enchanting pot-pourri potpourri of a read. I have to say at the outset that I find authors such as Rushdie wordy, very wordy. I have Ghosh's ''The Glass Palace'' in my ever-growing 'to read' pile. I wonder if the latter will be as wordy as the former. Time to find out...

The first section ''Islands'' concentrates on the island of Mauritius and of a family's rather arduous journey to visit a shrine - Deeti's shrine. Deeti is getting on in years now but to understand where she is today, we have to delve back in time, right back to her childhood. She lived a very poor life near the great Ganges river in a modest mud hut. Ghosh fills us in with the minutest of details here; nothing is left out. And as early as page 9 we touch on colonial history as we learn that Deeti worked for a Frenchman. He was her master and it was he who was responsible for transporting the young Deeti and others from their homeland, to Mauritius. He described it as an adventure. I suspect that Deeti would see the whole 'adventure' quite differently. Without going into too much detail (I'll leave that to Ghosh) and spoiling the story, basically a storm erupted and Deeti survived to tell the tale. Again and again and ... She marries, has children and the story is perpetuated.

We find out lots more about Bahram. About his life, his loves, his children and here Ghosh introduces some pidgin English as spoken by the locals. This is welcome, on my part, as it breaks up the rather dense narrative and gives the reader a little light relief, if you like. A little light and shade is are always good. Bahram is an interesting and complex character. He lives one kind of life back home with his family in India (the dutiful and devoted husband) but when absent for these long spells, well, he becomes someone else -literally. He has another life with another woman and other offspring. He even uses a western name.

You could easily describe this novel as a great, big historical adventure. It's packed full with of characters who do weird and wonderful (and not so wonderful) things all over the place but for me. I felt it had too much dense text on the page. Page after page. So, in this respect I did find similarities with [[:Category:Salman Rushdie|Rushie]], for example. While I appreciate that this is Ghosh's own personal style, if it failed to charm me completely. Yes, there are some terrific lines and sentiments expressed which made me stop and think for a moment, particularly concerning colonialism generally, but then there's an awful lot of meandering sentences. Too flowery for my personal taste but I can see this novel being a hit with fans of intricate, historical novels.

I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy to The Bookbag. We also appreciated [[Flood of Fire (Ibis Trilogy 3) by Amitav Ghosh]].