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Sea of Poppies: A Novel | 
| Author: Amitav Ghosh
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Category: Book
List Price: $26.00
Buy New: $17.16
You Save: $8.84 (34%)
Rating:  45 reviews
Sales Rank: 865
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 528
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.7
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.5 x 1.3
ISBN: 0374174229
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN: 9780374174224
Publication Date: October 14, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1 to 3 weeks
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Product Description
Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize At the heart of this vibrant saga is a vast ship, the Ibis. Its destiny is a tumultuous voyage across the Indian Ocean; its purpose, to fight China’s vicious nineteenth-century Opium Wars. As for the crew, they are a motley array of sailors and stowaways, coolies and convicts. In a time of colonial upheaval, fate has thrown together a diverse cast of Indians and Westerners, from a bankrupt raja to a widowed tribeswoman, from a mulatto American freedman to a freespirited French orphan. As their old family ties are washed away, they, like their historical counterparts, come to view themselves as jahaj-bhais, or ship-brothers. An unlikely dynasty is born, which will span continents, races, and generations. The vast sweep of this historical adventure spans the lush poppy fields of the Ganges, the rolling high seas, the exotic backstreets of Canton. But it is the panorama of characters, whose diaspora encapsulates the vexed colonial history of the East itself, that makes Sea of Poppies so breathtakingly alive—a masterpiece from one of the world’s finest novelists.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 40 more reviews...
 "If it is God's will that opium be used as an instrument to open China to his teachings, then so be it." October 16, 2008
22 out of 24 found this review helpful
(4.5 stars) When the Ibis, a "blackbirder," leaves Calcutta and sets out across the Bay of Bengal carrying "indentured migrants," the seas darken and become stormy. As the ship tosses and conditions deteriorate, the ship becomes a microcosm for life on land, full of tumult and unexpected twists of fate, as each person's heart is laid bare. Everybody aboard is escaping from something, so anxious to put their problems behind them that they see no choice but to submit to the atrocious living conditions and sometimes sadistic overseers.
Set in India in 1838, at the outset of the three-year Opium War between the British and the Chinese, this epic novel follows several characters from different levels of society who become united through their personal lives aboard the ship and, more generally, through their connections to the opium and slave trades. Deeti Singh, married as a young teenager to a man whose dependence on opium makes him an inadequate husband and provider, is forced to work on the family's opium field outside Ghazipur by herself, though she fears her sadistic brother-in-law. Zachary Reid, a young sailor from Baltimore has left America because his status as an octoroon has led to constant harassment by other American sailors.
At the opposite end of the scale is Benjamin Burnham, who owns the Ibis and engages in the opium trade. Formerly a slave trader, Burnham now transports exiled prisoners and coolies, and he has acquired enormous wealth and a lavish lifestyle impossible for him in England. Among his acquaintances is Raja Neel Rattan Halder, the zemindar of Raskali, who, accustomed to the unimaginable opulence that upper caste Brahmins assume is their right by birth, has paid little attention to his dwindling resources, and he has now accumulated debts.
Ghosh depicts the lives of these characters and their acquaintances in extravagant and thoroughly researched detail, bringing to life Deeti's misery, the expectations for her within her husband's family, and the customs which she must honor, for example. He fully describes buildings, their contents, bath facilities, dining customs, religious practices, the inside of a slave ship, and even the importance of omens, but he never forgets his obligation as a story-teller, continuously presenting one highly dramatic moment after another. Stories of piracy and cruelty, often growing out of the opium trade, exist side by side with more personal stories of love and nobility. Ghosh's use of local patois creates a rich and colorful atmosphere, and episodes of humor live side by side with episodes of terror. The first book in a projected "Ibis trilogy," this historical novel pulses with life, and as the novel comes to a satisfying close, Ghosh keeps several doors open, suggesting the direction he will take with this novel's sequel. n Mary Whipple
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The Hungry Tide: A Novel
 I admit it; I'm too lazy to continuously look up all these foreign words. November 2, 2008
22 out of 30 found this review helpful
I see this novel has received stellar reviews, so I am the only one, so far, to disagree. The problem for me was the frequent use of foreign language or jargon that was impossible to follow. Example from Page 45: "This was India, where it didn't serve for a sahib to be taken for a clodpoll of a griffin: if he wasn't fly to what was going on, it'd be all dickey with him, mighty jildee. This was no Baltimore - this was a jungle here, with biscobras in the grass and wanderoos in the trees. If he, Zachary, wasn't to be diddled and taken for a flat, he would have to learn to gubbrow the natives with a word or two of the zubben." Throughout the book there is much use of language that is simply incomprehensible. There is a glossary, but after a while, reading this book became too much like work and too little like pleasure, having to constantly look up meanings. Guess I'm just too lazy, but perhaps there's such a thing as being too authentic. Also, when the story strays into too much detail about sailing and ship jargon, I grew somewhat bored. I never was able to finish but, perhaps, I'll give it another try sometime when the electricity goes out or I'm held captive by a kidnapper with only this book to read.
a magnificent historical epic October 5, 2008
20 out of 21 found this review helpful
When the former slaving ship, the Ibis, sails off from America to India, Zachary Reid enlists as a ship's carpenter to escape his American fate as a son of a freed slave girl and her master. Little does he know, how much his life will actually be transformed by this decision...
The year is 1838, and Asia is on the eve of the Opium Wars. The fates of several people become intertwined, as they make their way onto the Ibis. Deeti is a peasant who grows crops of opium, and a wife of the opium factory worker, addicted to the drug. When her husband dies, grey-eyed Deeti has to escape the attention of her vicious brother-in-law. Her only idea is the sati - but unexpectedly, she is snatched from the funeral pyre and becomes an outcast together with her savior, Kalua, the village strongman from the caste of untouchables. They decide to become indentured workers ("coolies") and seek their happiness in the Mauritius. Paulette Lambert, the daughter of a French botanist, is orphaned and cannot bear the strange behavior of Mr Burnham (who happens to be the owner of Ibis), and his family, when he takes her under his protective roof. Neel Rattan, the Raja, finds himself unable to adjust to the changing ways of the colonial world, and, bankrupt, is send to exile. In jail, he meets the half-Chinese Ah Fatt, convicted for robbery. Baboo Nob Kissin (the funniest and probably the most tragic of the main characters), the company's accountant, filled with religious spirit, is overcome by the need of establishing a shrine. All of these original, hilarious characters come to see the overseas trip as an escape. And so their journey is the new beginning.
Amitav Ghosh wrote a great, magnificent, epic novel, a beautiful, complex story revolving around central characters, original and colorful, a great choice of the representatives of the nineteenth-century society in colonial Asia. There are also many great secondary characters (the ship's first mate, Jack Crowle; Jodu, the peasant turned lascar; Serang Ali - the lascar's boss with the gloomy past; the flirtatious girl Munia; and many others), who add a lot of flavor.
The historical details are thoroughly researched - for me, coming from Europe and ignorant of the most part of Asian history, it was a great lesson. The global problems tackled by the author, colonial politics, wars, caste and race, remain significant even today. The geography and landscape descriptions, from India, Calcutta, Mauritius (real and imaginary) to the Sundarbans , one of Ghosh's favorite locations, are also alluring.
The incredibly rich language adds the whole other dimension to the novel. I have to admit that at the beginning the linguistic peculiarities characteristic for each character made the novel difficult to read and I needed to adjust for a while. The sea pidgin, Bengali, Hindi and other dialects of India incorporated into English, with some French added on top of all that, create a unique mix of idiolects. There is a lovely bonus at the end in a form of meticulously done appendix containing Neel's dictionary of sea pidgin, called Chrestomathy.
Fate also plays an essential part in this novel - there are characters, like Deeti, who has a vision of the Ibis, or Baboo Nob Kissin, obsessively devoted to Krishna and his female guru so that he sees signs and omens everywhere, who follow their fate, and there are those who try to run away or do not believe in it... It is intriguing to observe how the fate is present in everyone's story.
I loved the flow of this novel and was completely immersed in the plot, so that I laughed laud at Baboo Nob Kissin and could not repress melancholy and anger when I read some passages. If I could compare it to any other book, it would probably be Barth's "The Sot-Weed Factor" - a picaresque novel of the sea and sailors, which, although set in a very different point in time and space, came to my mind when I was reading "Sea of Poppies".
The open ending left me a little disappointed, because I yearned to know more about the fates of the characters I got to know so well. Therefore, I was very happy to learn that "Sea of Poppies" is the first novel of the planned "Ibis" trilogy. I will await the second one impatiently, hoping that the author can keep up with the first one and will not disappoint the readers!
One of his best July 10, 2008
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
Amitav Ghosh's books create an ambience that doesn't belong to this era.
This books deals with the genesis of the opium trade, the way it grew and how it helped the East India Company use the riches generated by it to control not just India but also others. Ghosh's ability to create a highly detailed picture of those times at various societal levels and their interactions (with all their polictical intrigues and social interactions) points to well done, in-depth research on the subject. His maturity as a writer is evident since the book never becomes judgmental.
The book involves the reader at various levels - as an engaging story and as a historical novel.
I wouldn't like to reveal much of the story and rob you of your enjoyment but this is one book which is sure to leave you with a sense of fulfilment. It is like a rich, royal literary feast.
 Sex, Drugs and Swearing October 9, 2008
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
The tile of this review may sound like an invitation, but is actually an indictment. I have a great regard for Sh. Amitav Ghosh's powers of observation and his subtle approach to his subject, and was therefore surprised to see extensive use of explicit swear-words, mostly in Hindustani (a mix of Hindi, Arabic and Persian). This can be sometimes a strain, as it is unpleasant and often difficult to understand. Mixing colloquial Hindustani with English makes it even worse. Nevertheless, Sh. Ghosh has done a lot of research on this, and there are quite a few nuggets here for those interested in language and etymology.
The plot of the book (part of a trilogy) revolves around a woman displaced by British colonisation of India. Mr. Ghosh adds several characters, from different social and economic backgrounds, develops them, and then brings them together on a voyage to Mauritius through a set of coincidences, mostly unfortunate. The backdrop is the forced cultivation of opium (poppy) in India, and the economic deprivation that it caused. The British East India Company apparently earned huge profits from the trade, and eventually went to war with China for the right to sell opium there. To visualise the irony, imagine Afghanistan invading USA to ensure that its traders are able to sell cocaine (a modern derivative of opium) there. And through this story, Mr. Ghosh brings to the surface an important point: the root cause of West's distress with drugs lies in its own past excesses in the East.
The five central characters so far are a high-caste but impoverished, yet charismatic widow, a low caste fugitive with enormous physical and moral strength, a young, unconventional French woman, an American of mixed parentage, and an Indian rajah who has fallen on hard times. Each of the three Indians is going through a social and economic ordeal, which helps bring out the best in him/her. The French woman and the American provide a kind of contrast with the British, who are mostly presented as rapacious and warped in various ways.
While there is very little explicit sex in the book, it always hangs around in the air, and is mostly of the 'forbidden' variety, in the sense that it goes against social norms of the time or of present times. This adds to the difficulties of each of the characters at various times. Curiously, it also appears that people often had a more relaxed attitude about sex and 'depravity' in private.
As can be expected with Mr. Ghosh, the book is not fast-paced, and it is mostly difficult to figure out how the story will turn. Yet Mr. Ghosh manages to keep the reader engaged, by tying him/her up with the fate of protagonists. And as always, the historical insights are injected so smoothly in the plot that one does not even notice when one's view of history has changed!
The edition I read was published by Penguin India, had a decent hardcover binding, and good printing. The typeface was large and comfortable to read even for those over forty. However, the paper was a little coarse and tended to absorb ink. The book is a little on the thicker side and therefore somewhat of a lug on journeys.
A very good book - I would have given five stars, but for the extensive swearing which I found quite jarring.
I await the sequel eagerly.
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