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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN: 9780374174224
ISBN: 0374174229
Label: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Manufacturer: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 528
Publication Date: October 14, 2008
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Release Date: October 14, 2008
Studio: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Alternate Versions: Click to Display
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Editorial Review:
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.
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
I hesitated to read this novel. I looked at the glossary at the back, perused the pages, recognized all sorts of foreign words, and almost judged the book too quickly, thinking it pretentious and difficult. Suffice it to say, I loved the book. The plot was gripping, the characters were compelling, complex, and familiar, and the historical detail was highly informative. As for the foreign words? They work like a delicate spice, adding a brilliant complexity to the world Ghosh creates. Besides, just as the reader is confused at times by the dialects and idioms, so too are some of the characters. The word play made me smile, and, at times, laugh out loud. A lovely, rewarding, and important book!!!!!
Rating: -
This is one of the most intriguing book I have ever read. Amitav has used "realistic linguistics" to describe many English words. What this means is that he used non-English local words to describe English ones. For example, Asian sea soldiers/sailors are `lascars', indentured labourers are `girmitiyas' and so on. Being an Indian, I had some advantage as many local Hindustani words are known to me. However, the author has used lot of local dialects which requires frequent trip to Chrestomathy(a section in back of book which explains favored few words).
Apart from this, author has used pidgin (simplified language that develops as a means of communication between two or more groups that do not have a language in common), Frenchified English and Indian English. Don't get discouraged by these linguistic variations. Once you start reading this book, it will take you on different ride.
The novel is set in period of Opium War between Britain and China (late 1830s). There are ... Read More
Rating: -
In this amazingly rich work, Amitav Ghosh has created a fantastically entertaining and moving novel. He promises two more parts to complete this masterpiece, but this work alone has vaulted him into rare literary ethers. He has threaded a needle and woven together a terrific group of characters who originate from the banks of the Ganges to the cities of London and Paris to the port of Baltimore. In vivid detail, the lives of a bankrupt Raja, a widowed tribeswoman, an American "metif," a low caste giant, and many more come together on the decks of the former U.S. slave ship Ibis. They all are sailing across the Black Waters to Mauritius with a cargo of indentured laborers, two convicts, and a crew of "lascars" (Indian sailors and soldiers).
Uncompromising in its ingenious and sometimes puzzling use of language and its ubiquitous references to Eastern culture, "Sea of Poppies" takes place in 1838 during the inception of the opium war with China. There are many plot summaries ... Read More
Rating:  -
I like novels that illuminate history, and Sea of Poppies is set in early nineteenth century India, during the opium wars, when the only super power on earth was Great Britain. The characters include a self-righteous English robber-baron who owns a fleet of ships that take Indian opium to the unwilling addicts in China, and bring Chinese tea back to the British Isles. A brilliant native woman, Deeti, is rescued from death on a funeral pyre by the mostly taciturn but enormous Kalua. They float down the Ganges together, escaping from their relatives and neighbors who now consider them outcasts and out castes. Paulette Lambert, the daughter of a very modern French botanist father and his black colleague, is raised in Victorian fashion at the Burnham's palace in Calcutta, where her playmate is Jodu, a Bengali boy who ran away from home to become a sailor. Meanwhile, aboard the Ibis, one of the ships in the Burnham fleet, another teenager of mixed parentage, from Baltimore, has become ... Read More
Rating:  -
I loved Amitov Gosh's book "The Hungry Tide" but he doesn't do as well with history.
Their is nothing I liked about this book.
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