:: Amitav Ghosh - Review ::

The Glass Palace

Ruth Scurr

There is something daunting about a novel of more than 500 pages (unless you are a speed reader or infinitely leisured). And long historical novels raise a further question: why read fiction instead of fact? Fortunately, Amitav Ghosh is such a fascinating and seductive writer that any doubts have blown over by page 5 of The Glass Palace. The novel begins in Mandalay on the eve of the Anglo-Burmese war in 1885. The British motivation was commercial: control of a lucrative teak trade. The invading force was composed largely of Indian recruits. Their contentious position inside the British Army was destined to become still more confused on foreign ground. And Burma, at this time, was a courtly society, free from abject poverty or illiteracy, ruled by a revered king and queen capable of legendary cruelty. Some novelists let history rumble on discreetly in the background. But Ghosh sets his sights high, aiming to reflect the broad sweep of historical change over three generations and three countries: Burma, India and Malaya, from the end of the 19th century to the aftermath of World War II.

His narrative follows a line of loosely connected characters, moving like shadows across a panoramic picture. The effect is breathtaking. At the head of the line are two children, Rajkumar and Dolly. Both are orphans, but their similarities end there. Rajkumar is an Indian working on a food-stall in Mandalay and Dolly is one of the Burmese queen's trusted courtiers, responsible for caring for the young princesses. When the royal family is exiled, first to Madras, then to a remote coastal village between Bombay and Goa, Dolly is one of the few servants to accompany them. Her striking beauty is spotted by Rajkumar as he loots and grieves with the crowd. He grows up and makes a fortune in the teak trade, expanding under British direction. He goes in search of Dolly, now in her thirties, living in squalor with the languishing royal family. They marry and settle in Rangoon. Their sons grow up with far-flung connections and interests in the rubber plantations of Malaya, the escalating campaign for independence in India, the imploding British Army and the complex economy and politics of Burma. Even more astonishing than his ambitious plot is Ghosh's technique for executing it. The key to this is the pace. Characters meet and marry within sentences. They become pregnant and give birth two pages later.

Power in Burma changes hands in a paragraph. World War I begins and ends in less than ten pages. But if it is fast, The Glass Palace is also rigorously controlled. Ghosh is a deeply serious writer, sure of his human and historical insights, and confident in his ability to communicate them. I cannot think of another contemporary writer with whom it would be this thrilling to go so far, so fast.

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