Oh god, the sheer, soul-crushing boredom of this book. The sheer, soul-crushing sense of history that asks, nay demands that I enjoy these pages, because if I don't, what sort of a post-colonial, liberal soul am I? But I couldn't. I tried hard, harder than I thought was possible, and at the end, could not bring myself to like this.
I wonder what happened to the Amitav Ghosh I love. The Ghosh I used to idolize. The one who wrote 'Shadow Lines' and 'Glass Palace' and 'Calcutta Chromosome' and took my breath away with his words and his sparkling, razor sharp wit.
Somewhere down the road on his quest to become a literary figure, Ghosh seems to have lost the sense of fun that stories, simply told, can bring.
My thoughts exactly. He lost IT with this series. I tried reading the first one and gave up within four pages.
ReplyDeleteI agree. I had to force myself to finish this book. The prose seemed laboured, and I wondered what happened to the lithe prose that I loved so much. It's like he's so explanatory in this book. Like he's writing for an European audience.
ReplyDeleteYes. Yes. YES.
ReplyDeleteIt felt like a PhD dissertation. Gyaan dewar jodi etoi ichche, academic article lekho na kano?
Maney...I get it that you have done a lot of research, but is it necessary to flaunt that in every paragraph? Uff.