| Title | : | Flood of Fire |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0719569001 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780719569005 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 616 |
| Publication | : | First published May 26, 2015 |
| Awards | : | The Hindu Literary Prize (2015), Goodreads Choice Award Historical Fiction (2015) |
One of the vessels requisitioned for the attack, the Hind, travels eastwards from Bengal to China, sailing into the midst of the First Opium War. The turbulent voyage brings together a diverse group of travellers, each with their own agenda to pursue. Among them is Kesri Singh, a sepoy in the East India Company who leads a company of Indian sepoys; Zachary Reid, an impoverished young sailor searching for his lost love, and Shireen Modi, a determined widow en route to China to reclaim her opium-trader husband's wealth and reputation. Flood of Fire follows a varied cast of characters from India to China, through the outbreak of the First Opium War and China's devastating defeat, to Britain's seizure of Hong Kong.
Flood of Fire Reviews
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Chasing the dragon is an art, you know- it must be done properly.
I have been thinking about this trilogy almost exclusively since I turned the last page in this epic journey and truth be told I confess I feel somewhat less than equal to the task of writing a review that will in any way do justice to this amazing work. Just thinking about the scope of this piece of history is highly intimidating. Ghosh himself says that he feels as though he has only scratched the surface, perhaps written a few chapters about what happened and why, in a time and place in history that still very much affects international relations in our world to this very day. And no doubt will continue to shape our future. That is heady stuff!
So let’s just talk about this, the last offering in The Ibis Trilogy. Readers of the first two books in this series will be pleased to know that although
Flood of Fire only covers in brief the first opium war, how the Chinese lost Hong Kong and the British raid on Canton, closure can be found here for all the characters we have come to know and care about since
Sea of Poppies.
We are also introduced in more depth to, some lesser known players from the first two parts of this trilogy.
As opposed to listing all the characters and their contribution to this story I feel the need at this point to talk about just one of them and the profound change these historic events that he finds himself muddled in, have on his character. I am talking of course about Zachary Reid. I met him first as the mulatto son of a Maryland freedwoman who joins the crew of the Ibis as it sets sail from Baltimore bound for Calcutta. Based on his own personal, ancestral history and the impact that knowledge has on how others view and treat him, Zachary understands all too well the value in keeping some things secret. Over the course of this trilogy Zachary’s character and moral code are frequently and mightily put to the test, but none more so than in Flood of Fire. If ever there was a character that I loved to love and loved to hate in almost equal measure Zachary Reid fills that bill. I applaud Amitav Ghosh’s undeniable skill in this complex character creation.
Without revealing too much there are some sections here that deal with Victorian society’s views at that time on the sin of masturbation. How to cure such a nasty habit and the consequences of not nipping this disgusting practice in the bud, as it were. I found it all quite amusing and more than a little disturbing, not to mention hypocritical. Kind of like the pot calling the kettle black or the British defending their right to bring copious amounts of raw opium into China even though that very same drug is illegal to trade within their own country.
And there it is. At the very heart of this story……..opium and the staggering amount of wealth and destruction this little flower; the poppy, commands.
How was it possible that a small number of men, in the span of a few hours or minutes, could decide the fate of millions of people yet unborn? How was it possible that the outcome of those brief moments could determine who would rule whom, who would be rich or poor, master or servant, for generations to come?
Nothing could be a greater injustice, yet such had been the reality since human beings first walked the earth.
Bravo Mr. Ghosh! Since knowledge is power, I can only hope you write more about this and that many people, who one day may have an impact on how this all plays out in the future, take the time to read your words. -
I loved the first two books in the Ibis trilogy and there is much to admire in this one, but I have to admit that I struggled at times to get through it.
The positives first. It’s a brilliantly researched account of events leading up to the First Opium War, showing the perspectives of characters from around the world, in particular Britain, India and China. It gives anyone unfamiliar with events a great insight into the period and the places. It shows, in particular, the paradoxical position which the Indian participants find themselves in, invaluable to both camps, but not quite at home in either.
Characters from the earlier books find themselves on opposite sides, for entirely intelligible reasons. The author raises important questions about ethnicity, identity and the rampant march of capital, which resonate today.
Where I felt a little let down was in the storytelling. I missed the humour of the earlier books, and the inventiveness of the language as characters from different cultures and classes were thrown together. Some of the characters’ storylines felt a little soapy (particularly Zachary’s) and others, like Shireen, a bit prosaic. Other plot lines relied on coincidence.
The battle scenes were very long and the amount of detail seemed to deaden rather than enhance the drama. It also felt like the author himself might have been overwhelmed by the amount of exposition. Neel’s narration in the early stages of the book takes the form of a journal, which is very dry and limiting as he writes mainly about the political and military situation. This is abruptly abandoned part way through and the author returns to a conventional third-person narration.
It might be that the weight of expectation was too much. And I’m now familiar with the world of the trilogy that felt so vivid and fresh when I first encountered it. But for me this book didn’t have the magic of the first two. -
I feel honored and privileged to have read the Ibis trilogy. The first two books were harder for me, they took more focus and re-reading of certain sentences and sequences. But perhaps reading Amitav Ghosh is a bit of a learned skill, something you get better at and enjoy more the more you experience it. I give the series my highest rating and walk away with that ultra fond and somewhat sad feeling in my gut that it is over.
Flood of Fire turns an interesting bit of the history of the opium trade in China and China's relationship to the British merchants and government in the 1830s to 40s, into a profound and scary revelation of the power of both greed and addiction caused by opiates. We learn through several of the characters that the addiction to opium takes two forms, the actual users of opium, perhaps less addicted than those who push the sale of it and then live on its huge profits. The attack of the British Navy and Marines on the Chinese is very similar to other holocausts. But it didn't seem to me that the author was preaching or crying. He just wanted to make sure that we knew what happened and why.
But it's the individual characters and their stories that make the book immensely readable and enjoyable. There are several nice romances, there always has to be a little adultery, doesn't there? How about murder, injustice, the strong beating the weak, the arrogance of the wealthy and the captain who can't be bribed? There is a little section about the problems of onanism and certain addictions and cures and pamphlets of the time telling of this particular problem that I found absolutely hilarious. Some of you may need to read that part quickly.
Two of the primary characters have never tried opium and the descriptions of their experiences with it were top notch.
In the end, there is heartbreak, death, a few hopeful situations and several more stories to be told. But a realistic story, well told and a better feeling to the whole region including the story of how Hong Kong became part of Great Britain.
Ghosh, don't feel obligated to stop because you called it a trilogy. Let's keep this going. In about a year, I'm going to re-read the whole trilogy and enjoy it again. I can't wait to hear what you think.
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Finale of the Opium Trade triangle (Britain-India-China) trilogy…
Preamble:
--For context, see reviews of Book 1 (
Sea of Poppies) and Book 2 (
River of Smoke).
--My high impatience with fiction was starting to emerge by Book 2 given the increase of characters and intersecting relationships. This trilogy finale revitalized the story by introducing some memorable and unexpected characters.
--The trilogy finishes with the beginning of the First Opium War; looking back on the trilogy, I am reminded of special passages on China by David Graeber in
Debt: The First 5,000 Years. I say “special” for several reasons:
i) Graeber is a self-proclaimed “anarchist”, yet these passages display his range in unpacking real-world contradictions, including large-scale geopolitics/
world-systems analysis.
ii) I started reading this Graeber book during my first return to China as an adult, and it was one of the first books to spark my social imagination beyond status quo assumptions.
--Graeber lays out the world-systems context (Asia-Europe-Americas) with all its contradictory relationships (bold emphases added):Now, since Roman times, Europe had been exporting gold and silver to the East [esp. China/India]: the problem was that Europe had never produced much of anything that Asians wanted to buy, so it was forced to pay in specie [coin money] for silks, spices, steel, and other imports. The early years of European [colonial] expansion were largely attempts to gain access either to Eastern luxuries or to new sources of gold and silver with which to pay for them. […]
…This brings us to a passage from Book 2, revealing the function of Britain’s Opium Trade in the world-system's reversal from Asian markets to European imperialism:
The conquest of Mexico and Peru led to the discovery of enormous new sources of precious metal, and these were exploited ruthlessly and systematically, even to the point of largely exterminating the surrounding populations to extract as much precious metal as quickly as possible. […]
By 1540, a silver glut caused a collapse in prices across Europe; the American mines would, at this point, simply have stopped functioning, and the entire project of American colonization foundered, had it not been for the demand from China. […] This Asian trade became the single most significant factor in the emerging global economy, and those who ultimately controlled the financial levers—particularly Italian, Dutch, and German merchant bankers—became fantastically rich.‘Since the middle years of the last century, the demand for Chinese tea has grown at such a pace in Britain and America that it is now the principal source of profit for the East India Company. The taxes on it account for fully one-tenth of Britain’s revenues. If one adds to this such goods as silk, porcelain and lacquerware it becomes clear that the European demand for Chinese products is insatiable. In China, on the other hand, there is little interest in European exports - the Chinese are a people who believe that their own products, like their food and their own customs, are superior to all others. In years past this presented a great problem for the British, for the flow of trade was so unequal that there was an immense outpouring of silver from Britain. This indeed was why they started to export Indian opium to China.’
…We can return to Graeber to re-contextualize China’s state market system vs. British capitalism:
Glancing over his shoulder, the General raised an eyebrow: ‘Started? Commence? You mean this trade has not always existed?’
‘No, Majesty - the trade was a mere trickle until about sixty years ago, when the East India Company adopted it as a means of rectifying the outflow of bullion [i.e. silver]. They succeeded so well that now the supply can barely keep pace with the demand. The flow of silver is now completely reversed, and it pours away from China to Britain, America and Europe.’We are used to thinking of such bureaucratic interventions [China’s long history of government policies in response to social protests: official commissions of inquiry, regional debt relief, cheap grain loans, famine relief, laws against the selling of children] —particularly the monopolies and regulations—as state restriction on “the market”—owing to the prevailing prejudice that sees markets as quasi-natural phenomena that emerge by themselves, and governments as having no role other than to squelch or siphon from them. I have repeatedly pointed out how mistaken this is, but China provides a particularly striking example. The Confucian state may have been the world’s greatest and most enduring bureaucracy, but it actively promoted markets, and as a result, commercial life in China soon became far more sophisticated, and markets more developed, than anywhere else in the world.
--A final distinction on markets vs. capitalism: capitalism features 3 peculiar markets of labour/land/money. Since humans/nature/purchasing power are not “real commodities” (i.e. not actually “produced” for market exchange), buying/selling these “fictitious commodities” on labour/land/money markets have anti-social consequences (intro:
This despite the fact that Confucian orthodoxy was overtly hostile to merchants and even the profit motive itself. Commercial profit was seen as legitimate only as compensation for the labor that merchants expended in transporting goods from one place to another, but never as fruits of speculation. What this meant in practice was that they were pro-market but anti-capitalist.
Again, this seems bizarre, since we’re used to assuming that capitalism and markets are the same thing, but, as the great French historian Fernand Braudel pointed out, in many ways they could equally well be conceived as opposites. While markets are ways of exchanging goods through the medium of money—historically, ways for those with a surplus of grain to acquire candles and vice versa (in economic shorthand, C-M-C’, for commodity-money-other commodity)—capitalism for Braudel is first and foremost the art of using money to get more money (M-C-M’) [originally from Marx’s
Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume 1]. Normally, the easiest way to do this is by establishing some kind of formal or de facto monopoly. For this reason, capitalists, whether merchant princes, financiers, or industrialists, invariably try to ally themselves with political authorities to limit the freedom of the market, so as to make it easier for them to do so. From this perspective, China was for most of its history the ultimate anti-capitalist market state. Unlike later European princes, Chinese rulers systematically refused to team up with would-be Chinese capitalists (who always existed). Instead, like their officials, they saw them as destructive parasites—though, unlike the usurers, ones whose fundamentally selfish and antisocial motivations could still be put to use in certain ways. In Confucian terms, merchants were like soldiers. Those drawn to a career in the military were assumed to be driven largely by a love of violence. As individuals, they were not good people, but they were also necessary to defend the frontiers. Similarly, merchants were driven by greed and basically immoral; yet if kept under careful administrative supervision, they could be made to serve the public good. Whatever one might think of the principles, the results are hard to deny. For most of its history, China maintained the highest standard of living in the world—even England only really overtook it in perhaps the 1820s, well past the time of the Industrial Revolution. [British East India Company established rule in India in 1757, with the Opium Trade reversing trade relations with China by 1800s and a complete collapse of Asia’s state market system by 1839 First Opium War/subsequent Unequal Treaties]
Talking to My Daughter About the Economy: or, How Capitalism Works—and How It Fails).
Highlights:
--Onto Book 3… We conclude the trilogy with the remainder of the glorious “free trade” quotes, with increasing relations to war:Their district had been seized by the East India Company a long time ago, but in the beginning the annexation had made little difference and things had gone on much as usual. But with the passage of time the Company had begun to interfere in matters that previous rulers had never meddled with – like crops and harvests for example. In recent years the Company’s opium factory in Ghazipur had started to send out hundreds of agents – arkatis and sadar mattus – to press loans on farmers, so that they would plant poppies in the autumn. They said these loans were meant to cover the costs of the crop and they always promised that there would be handsome profits after the harvest. But when the time came the opium factory often changed its prices, depending on how good the crop had been that year. Since growers were not allowed to sell to anyone but the factory, they often ended up making a loss and getting deeper into debt. Ram Singh knew of several men who had been ruined in this way.
Of late the Company had even tried to interfere in the job market, taking steps to discourage men from joining any army but their own. For Ram Singh, as for many others, this was even more objectionable than meddling with their crops. That anyone should assert an exclusive claim to their service was an astonishing idea: few things were as important to them as their right to work for whoever offered the best terms. It was not uncommon for brothers and cousins to take jobs in different armies: if they happened to meet in battle, it was assumed that each man would do his duty and fight loyally for his leader, having ‘eaten his salt’.
[…]
To Zachary’s surprise there were no goods on display: he was at a loss to understand what exactly was being bought and sold – and it didn’t help much when Baboo Nob Kissin explained that this was not a bazar for opium as such; rather it was a place in which people traded in something unseen and unknown: the prices that opium would fetch in the future, near or distant [financial speculation!]. In this bazar there were only two commodities and both were pieces of paper – chitties or letters. One kind was called tazi-chitty or ‘fresh letter’; the other kind was mandi-chitty – ‘bazar letter’. Buyers who thought that the price of opium would go up at the next auction would buy tazi-chitties; those who thought it would go down would buy mandi-chitties. But similar chitties could be written to cover any period of time – a month, a year or five years. Every day, said Baboo Nob Kissin, lakhs, crores, millions of rupees passed through this bazar – there was more wealth here than in any market in Asia. [Recall the Graeber passages on (1) traditional markets being C-M-C commodity exchange vs. capitalism being M-C-M’ using money to make more money, and (2) China being an anti-capitalist (against merchant’s profit motive and especially speculation) market state.]
[…]
‘With the Company there is even more reason for pride, since the British are purifying Hindustan. For thousands of years everything in this land has declined and degenerated; people have become so mixed that you cannot tell them apart. Under the British everyone is kept separate, each with their own kind – the whites are with the whites and we are left to ourselves. They are the true defenders of caste, Ram Singhji, and if you have any thought of your son’s dharma you will send him to us. [Divide-and-rule is the foundation of colonial/imperialist rule]
‘But dharma is not just a matter of rules,’ Ram Singh objected. ‘We are Rajputs and for us our worth, our maryada, lies in how we show our courage. No man can be a true warrior in the gora paltan – valour and skill count for nothing with them. Why, during the Battle of Assaye some of our best fighters went forward and challenged the enemy to send their bahadurs, for single combat. Do you know, not one man stepped out from the Company’s ranks? There was not one man in their entire army who was brave enough to be a real bahadur! Even though most of their sepoys were Hindustanis, like us, they had lost both honour and courage, izzat and himmat, after joining the Company’s army. Even we were ashamed for them.’
A smile appeared on Bhyro Singh’s face. ‘But Ram Singhji,’ he said, in a silky voice: ‘Tell me, who won at Assaye?’
Unable to think of a retort, Ram Singh hung his head.
Bhyro Singh’s smirk widened: ‘The old ways of fighting may have been good for making heroes and bahadurs, Ram Singhji, but they didn’t always win wars. And that’s the thing with the English way of fighting – it does not depend on heroes. The Company’s army is not made up of a great number of bahadurs: the whole army fights like a single brave warrior. That is why people speak of the ‘Company Bahadur’. The entire army is like one man, one body, obeying a single head; every Company sepoy has to learn this by doing drills. Everyone has to obey the one above him, right to the very top. No one can ever refuse to follow orders or he will be shot. It is not like our Hindustani armies, which are made up of men whose main loyalty is to the sardar who pays them – and if that sardar takes a bribe they will all go off with him. Our Angrez officers understand this very well, and before every battle they send the baniyas to offer bribes to the sardars of the other armies. Almost always it happens that three or four of them accept, and then they either ride away or they stand aside during the fighting. Isn’t it true that this is what happened at Assaye?’
‘Yes,’ said Ram Singh. ‘It cannot be denied. But that wasn’t the only reason the Angrez army won. They had better cannon than us. Better bundooks too.’
‘Exactly!’ said Bhyro Singh. ‘Unlike our Hindustani rajas and nawabs, the Angrezes are always studying and making changes. Every year their cannon get better and better. They are always looking to make improvements in their weapons and they don’t allow anything to get in the way of that.’ -
Ah in hindsight, I might have been a bit too harsh and and hasty in my rating....
Re-rated to 3 stars
2.15 stars
Well...I wished for a grand conclusion for the Ibis Trilogy . The age old adage of be careful of what you wish for came true.
The story was grand indeed so much so that with elements of cliches, coincidences, events that were fantastical to epic proportions, this book reads like a daily soap opera (or a bollywood film?)
Without going into details, the Flood of Fire is perhaps the most disappointing book that I have read in this year till now. After waiting for a couple of years, since the last book was released, this was definitely NOT what I was hoping and looking forward to. Disheartened is what I am, it does not feel that this is the same author who wrote
Sea of Poppies or
The Hungry Tide.
My ratings are only for the historical facts (which were way less as compared to the previous books) that formed the background of the story. -
Some books just get better for the long wait, alas Flood of Fire is not one of those. It would be better named a mouldy puchka, full of stale jal jira. It seems that the author lost all interest in his characters, and hated the setting as well. The ship, Ibis, so potent a metaphor for the journey metaphor in the Odysseyian model, turned into a lame duck that barely quacks in tune.
What went wrong? Amitav Ghosh forgot who he was, and who the characters were. For example, in this book, he casts Zachary Reid and Cathy Burnham into a tawdry 50 Shades affair, that has no love, no reason and a very meaningless relationship that destroys Cathy and Mee - who have for some unexplained reason, maintained a teenage passion through 20 years or more. By the end, quite frankly I didn't care what happened to either of them. neither did I care much about the corruption of Reid, or even Ah Fatt, both of whom I cared about once. Paulette is a pale distant figure and Deeti is a far off mirage. Shireen tries to come to the party, but again, I couldn't care much for her, and her metamorphosis into a shrewd manipulator is unbelievable.
Much of the book is battle after battle, again, give me Bernard Cornwell or even, sacrilegiously, Rudyard Kipling for that. The writing of the action is very third party player, at no time did it drag you into the battle, again, because the characters are so weakly portrayed, the only time I nearly wept was when the little fifer Dicky is killed.
The wait has been so long, and the links to the earlier action, so poorly done, that it took some concentration to reconnect, and then, the author hasn't bridged the gap despite my readiness to jump back in the rich worlds created in the previous books. What happened? I think the author fell out of love with the characters, and wanted to put as much distance as he could between himself and them. Even as a stand alone novel, it doesn't have the grip of The Glass Palace or The Hungry Tide.
The book is well researched, but then, I wasn't looking for research, but for a good tale and closure for all the questions left unanswered. -
Everyone knows that Hong Kong is a very special Chinese territory. Many people have heard about the Opium Wars and the Nanking Treaty. But a coherent picture in which the first, second and third are connected by a clear causal relationship is more the prerogative of specialists in the history of Southeast Asia and/or international law. Flood of Fire brings this information out of a highly specialized area into the public domain in the best traditions of an adventurous novel.
The third and final part of the "Ibis Trilogy", about which for some reason I thought that it would all be just a prehistory of the Opium Wars. I was wrong, at least in part one (there were two of them, the Qing Empire was defeated in both and actually ceased to exist). Today's China is largely the fruit of the circumstances of the six years during which these events unfolded.
But in order. The mid-1830s was the time when the British colonization of India built a clear scheme for the operation of the colony, from which tea, fruits, valuable wood species, spices were formally transported, but in fact, the main export item was raw opium. Agricultural crops were squeezed out of the fields of peasants in Northern India by targeted lending, opium poppy was cultivated instead. I talked about this in more detail when I wrote about the "Poppy Sea".
Огненный поток
Как могло случиться, что кучка людей в течение нескольких часов или минут решает судьбу миллионов? Что исход этих мгновений определяет на многие поколения вперед, кто будет править, кто будет богатым или бедным, хозяином или слугой?
О том, что Гонконг очень особая китайская территория, знают все. Об Опиумных войнах и Нанкинском договоре слышали многие. Но связная картина, в которой первое, второе и третье соединены четкой причинно-следственной связью, в большей степени прерогатива специалистов по истории Юго-Восточной Азии и/или международному праву. Flood of Fire выводит эту информацию из узкоспециальной области в общедоступную в лучших традициях авантюрного романа.
Третья, завершающая часть "Ибисной трилогии",о которой я отчего-то думала, что вся она будет лишь предысторией Опиумных войн. Ошибалась, по крайней мере, в части первой (их было две, Цинская империя потерпела в обих поражение и фактически перестала существовать). Нынешний Китай во-многом плод обстоятельств тех шести лет, в течение которых разворачивались эти события.
Но по порядку. Середина 1830-х была временем, когда британская колонизация Индии выстроила четкую схему эксплуатации колонии, из которой формально везли чай, фрукты, ценные породы дерева, специи, но фактически, основной экспортной статьей был опий-сырец. С полей крестьян Северной Индии целевым кредитованием выдавливались сельскохозяйственные культуры, вместо них культивировался опийный мак. Об этом я подробнее рассказывала, когда писала о "Маковом море".
С перерабатывающей фабрики в Гуджарате он отправлялся по миру. В большинстве европейских стран оборот производных опийной камеди регулировался с той или иной степенью строгости, но на транзитном пути лежал огромный рынок сбыта - Поднебесная, где курение опия было запрещена, однако при содействии коррумпированного чиновничества, контрабанда достигла объемов, при которых наркозависимость сделалась массовой, а подвержены ей оказались представители самых разных слоев общества: студенты, монахи, домохозяйки, мандарины.
В этих условиях император забил тревогу и пытаясь ужесточить меры по противодействию борьбой против контрабанды, значительный запас сырца был конфискован и уничтожен, а промышлявшим ею купцам, в основном английским, хотя были среди них индийцы-парсы, запретили въезд в страну. Об этом более подробно в рецензии на "Дымную реку".
И вот, третья книга трилогии Амитава Гоша об опиумной войне, об Индии и Китае, о производителях, торговцах, потребителях опия и тех, кто пытался с ним бороться, о моряках и солдатах, о художниках и ученых, о народе сикхов, традиционно поставлявшем наемников, о любви и преданности, о подлости и предательстве, об ужасной боли и невыносимом счастье — в общем, о королях и о капусте.
Итак, разоренный и пристрастившийся с горя к курению купец Бахрам Бей покончил с собой и похоронен на Гонконге, семье его приходит известие о том, что они разорены. Впрочем, разорение богатых совсем не то, что последний кусок, или сотня до зарплаты у бедных. Ходят слухи, что китайцы даже выплатят компенсацию за конфискованный и утопленный опий, потому что затронуты интересы могущественного союзника - Англии.
Но на дворе середина девятнадцатого века, представлять интересы купца должен кровный родственник мужского пола, а сыновей Бахрам-ага не оставил, только дочери. Тут-то и выясняется, что родной сын у большого человека таки-был. Да, я про А-Фаня, известного также,как Фредди. Вдова Ширин, в жизни не покидавшая пределов дома, должна решить: смириться с обстоятельствами или облачиться в европейское платье и отправиться в Гонконг, чтобы почтить могилу, и, может быть, разыскать пасынка. о котором ничего не знала.
Раджа Нил, утратив должность со смертью работодателя, перебивается случайными заработками и пока еще не знает, что к нему, сквозь тысячи опасностей, пробирается маленький сын. Захария Рейд, которого в мы оставили ожидающим суда по обвинению в содействии побегу, переживет множество приключений. о которых я не могу сейчас рассказывать, чтобы не испортить вам впечатления от книги, когда появится ее русский перевод. Однако поверьте, линия Захарии будет не только замечательно интересной, но и насмеетесь с ней вдоволь.
Полетт, оставленная нами в Гонконге, где она занимается обустройством питомника растений для Хорька, переживет интересные встречи и обретет новый, не всегда приятный, порой пугающий, опыт. А еще, здесь мы познакомимся с родным братом Дити, Кисри, воине сикхе. Узнаем о нравах и обычаях представителей этого народа (может быть вы знаете историю Индии достаточно хорошо и помните, что Индира Ганди была убита своими охранниками, сикхами). И конечно, будет множество описаний сражений, на море и на суше, потому что это война, дети.
Все время ловила себя на ощущении, что нахожусь примерно в том эмоциональном состоянии, в каком в детстве читала мушкетерскую трилогию Дюма. Та же смесь доверия к созданным авторской фантазией персонажам, жгучего интереса к истории, восторга мастерски заплетенной интригой с ощущением, что в тебя исподволь входит огромный массив знаний о вещах необязательных, но отныне они часть тебя. И в мире тебя на эту часть больше,
Великая трилогия, отличный завершающий аккорд, я буду держать кулаки за Александра Сафронова, его перевод первой книги "Маковое море" номинирован на Ясную поляну-2022 и очень надеюсь, что скоро Фантом подарит нам перевод Flood of Fire. -
Flood of Fire is the third and final book in the Ibis Trilogy by Amitav Ghosh. Where readers of River of Smoke may have wondered what happened to the major players in Sea of Poppies, those questions are answered by Flood of Fire. Characters from both previous books reappear, along with new characters. Neel continues his account of events, much of it in the form of a journal. Zachary Reid has a narrative role, as do Kesri Singh, older brother of Deeti, and Shireen Moddie, widow of Bahram. Well into the tale, the voice of a young boy, Raju, is added.
While a newly exonerated but penniless Zachary tries to put his life back together, Neel uses his linguistic talents to help the Chinese war effort. Kesri heads a team of sepoys who form part of the fighting force on the English side, and Shireen heads to Canton in an attempt to gain compensation for Bahram’s lost opium cargo. Once again, the Ibis seems to draw the characters to her. As the Ibis, Anahita and Hind converge on the Pearl River Delta, many of the characters from Sea of Poppies and River of Smoke find themselves in close quarters.
Against a background of the battles of the First Opium War, Ghosh demonstrates the depth of research done (which he attributes to his ancestor) in the detail he provides on a multitude of topics: the composition of fighting forces involved in the wars, what comprised their uniforms, the important role of the army followers, the restrictions on travel into Canton, the power of translators, Victorian sex therapy, futures trading in the nineteenth century, and, of course, the Opium Wars. He includes a wealth of information in easily digestible form by weaving the facts into an absorbing tale full of interesting characters.
Ghosh also gives the reader plenty of humour: he subjects poor Zachary to all kinds of indignities and gives the reader plenty of laughs at his expense. Who knew there were so many euphemisms for sexual terms in Victorian times? Double entendre and innuendo abound. Reunions, too, are plentiful, some less friendly than others. There are dramatic battles, more than a few deaths, a marriage proposal, quite a bit of impersonation, some secret assignations, and an act of piracy. Characters develop, but not all for the better.
In his Epilogue, Ghosh explains that the story could continue, but having spent ten years on the trilogy thus far, and unwilling to abbreviate the tale as would not do it justice, he leaves it with, what no doubt many readers will feel, much unsaid. The final moments of the main story hold a delightful twist that will have many readers laughing out loud. At over six hundred pages, this may be a brick, but it is a brilliant read.
With thanks to The Reading Room and Hachette for this copy to read and review. -
The long version is
here at my online reading journal.
****
I think I can honestly say that I have never read a better series of historical fiction novels than Ghosh's Ibis Trilogy. The series starts with opium farmers in India and ends with the gunboat diplomacy that forced China to open its ports to British trade and to accept a series of unequal treaties. The trilogy as a whole is an amazing critique of colonialism/imperialism, all the while exploring how the financial windfall of the opium trade helped to change individuals, families, communities, nations, diplomacy and international relations and left effects that linger on into our modern world. To say this trilogy is epic in proportion is no understatement, but it is so compelling that waiting for the publication of the third installment was sheer torture. I read somewhere that Flood of Fire can be read as a standalone novel, but I have to disagree here -- there is an incredible richness of depth that exists when you read all three novels, plus there are recurring characters whose lives intertwine over the space of all three books.
When we left
River of Smoke, tensions between the Chinese and the opium traders had reached a fever pitch, ending with the confiscation and destruction of all opium from traders and merchants. This act sets the scene for Flood of Fire, where with so much money at stake and a demand for "free" trade, the efforts of one empire to repel another turns into full-blown conflict which ultimately changes the world map. The smaller stories that take place within the bigger picture reveal exactly how the lives, loyalties, and fortunes of both men and women changed during this period of time, all told from various perspectives of the characters who lives play out within this very broad sweep of history.
Flood of Fire is the perfect ending to a perfect series; although I'm incredibly sad it's over, the trilogy is one set of books I will NEVER forget. I doubt there has been anything like it before and I know that there will not be anything like it again. I definitely recommend this book and its predecessors to anyone who enjoys quality historical fiction, excellent writing, and a great story. It is absolutely magnificent, highly intelligent, superb, and all manner of superlatives. -
This last, much awaited installment of the IBIS trilogy was a disappointment. The book started off well, but at around 20%, the story assumed weird pornographic proportions involving Zachary Reid, one of my favorite character of book 1, who was completely absent in book 2 (except perhaps for a couple of passing mentions), and was supposed to play a major role in book 3.
He played a major role, but not in. a way which I dethroned. He turned out to be a Lothario, who later metamorphosised into an opportunistic villain.
Paulette had only a small role in this book.
Stars of the show were Shireen, the grieving widow of Behram, Cathy (Mrs. Burnham - the lady of the manor turned vamp turned kindhearted lady), and Kesri, Deeti's elder brother who suddenly emerged as a major character. Tami alias Raj Rattan, Neel's son also joins the melee.
The narrative was a shocker with plots suited to daily soaps, and I missed the usual elegance and magic , which is signature Ghosh.
If there was a 4th installment I wouldn't have been too keen to proceed. -
Flood of Fire is a captivating and well researched historical fiction. The story pulled me in and kept my interest. It was a real eye opener as I learned so much about the opium wars.
Even though I have not read the first two books in the series I had no problems connecting with the characters and following the storyline.
I am now compelled to read “Sea of Poppies” and “River of Smoke” as most reviews have stated that they are even better than this one!
With my thanks to Hachette Aus for my copy to read and review. -
Revising a bit of ignored history - Opium wars.
-
The last in the IBIS trilogy, and as I don't want to spoil this for those who have yet to read the first two books in the trilogy,, I will just say , you are missing a treat!!
This last one, is one I read and reviewed for Lovereading and is published in March,, so go on, what you waiting for buy the first two,, you will love them... -
This is the final book of the Ibis Trilogy, following
Sea of Poppies and
River of Smoke.
As usual with Amitav Ghosh, the writing is rich and descriptive imagery is there, and in this book we return to the woven stories of book one which were lacking in the middle book. It does seem however that there is a lot more coincidence relied upon than would have been ideal in linking the principle characters. Thankfully, for me at least, the unlikeable Robin Chinnery and his letters don't feature in this book, replaced instead by the journal entries of Neel, which are far more readable.
This book focuses again on only a few main characters. Again we get a fleeting glimpse of Deeti at the opening of the book. Zachary Reid, Neel, and Kalua recur, with minor parts from Paulette Lampbert, Nob Kissin Baboo, Freddie (Ah Fatt), Jodu and Zadig Bey, to whom we were introduced in book two. Mr Burnham, the British trader is back in a major role, although it is his wife who overshadows his involvement. We are also introduced to new characters - Kesri Singh, elder brother of Deeti, a Havildar in the Bengal Volunteers to join the British in China; the widow of the Indian trader Bahram Moddie, Shireen; and Neels young son Raju who appears late in the piece.
For me it was a little disappointing not to tie up some loose ends. Paulette and Jodu don't reconnect,
Allow also makes a reappearance (as Mr Chan), in a complicated but largely unresolved role, and Freddie's involvement remains minor, and without reconnection with Neel.
Zachary Reid probably develops the most as a character, and not necessarily in the way most would expect from the first two books. There is also the comedy we come to expect from Ghosh - with Mr Reid being suspected of being a serial masturbator by his employers wife, who does all she can to save him (and more).
As is usual, the author seems to have targeted something complex and mastered it description. In the initial book it was the language of the sailing ship and the pidgin English of the Lascars, in the second book it was the world of trade and opium. In this book we are treated the the theatre of war, albeit a fairly one-sided war for the most part, with the British warships laying waste to the opposing vessels and land fortifications.
And so in summary, I am glad to have read the trilogy, and there can be little doubt it is a fascinating period of time in China, India and the British Empire. I can't decide whether the trilogy was overly long or overly short - if it were longer would there have been opportunity to tidy it up at the edges? Or if shorter would it have encouraged a more succinct storyline?
For me this book was more enjoyable than the middle book, which felt like it was just manipulating the characters into place for a finale. Perhaps not as engaging as the first book, which set to introduce all of the characters, but which ultimately didn't take the story very far forward. For those reasons this sits at 4 stars. -
This book is a travesty, given the magical quality of Sea of Poppies, the fist volume of the author's Ibis Trilogy. River of Smoke was a step down, to be sure, but carried on in a similar vein -- story propelled by character. This third volume, however, reads like it was written by a middle school writing class under the author's direction and tutelage. I found myself wondering if Ghosh had had a stroke along the way, so impossibly different are the manuscript qualities.
In Flood of Fire, characters are reduced to paper dolls pushed about on a chessboard. This is, in essence, a war novel. But the war is told -- in detail -- in the passive voice. What? For all the reading and materials that went into this trilogy (the last 3% of the Kindle version is given over to a voluminous bibliography), the author might have read a few Patrick O'Brian novels to see how sea battles unfold. This book is a case of a writer overwhelmed by his research materials. In the end he lost sight of his characters and, more sinful yet, lost sight of his readers. He seemed to feel he owed everything to his research and nothing to us, the one's who buy his books.
Amitav Ghosh can be a magnificent writer. He knows the difference between good and indifferent work. And this work is terribly, terribly indifferent. Two stars, for seeing it through to the end. But a grudging two stars. -
It took me 3 weeks to finish this book!
And on reading the last page I said to myself: "Is this all?! What happens
next?"...
Throughout the book I felt the author spent too much time on describing details
of battles and small incidents instead of concentrating on concluding the story.
I didn't like the way Zachary 'sold his soul' to commerce and I was disappointed
by the fact that the story ended without conclusion, without showing how the
fates of the passengers from Ibis interlinked and how they all fared after the end
of the story in "Flood of Fire".
Although it was interesting from the historical point of view, I think
it was the weakest part of the trilogy. -
True Wonderer
A few big bangs,’ observed the officer sagely, ‘can save a great many lives.’ ~Amitav Ghosh, Flood of Fire
Ahhh…..So, this ‘fabulous’ Idea had occurred to the British long before the Americans. Can’t say I am surprised really. The British at that time(most of the 17th, 18th and 19th century…and possibly before that too) were the flag bearers of despotism and well…I am an Indian, if anyone knows how being at the receiving end of that feels like, it would be us.
With Flood of fire, Amitav Ghosh concludes the Ibis Trilogy, and this series is without a doubt one of the finest historical fiction I have read till date. Mr. Ghosh’s impeccable attention to detail, his extensive research and his no nonsense yet creative way to portray history has made this series a must read for any respectable history buff. As with anything linked with history, this series too has a lot of pages, a LOT. With each book in the trilogy he adds 650+ pages to the tale. And yet, even with the slow pace the story doesn’t let you go, yes, you do take rest in btw (I did, had to absorb before moving on) but the characters were so interesting, the whole era itself was so very captivating that you puff away at the tale as you do a Cuban cigar, taste it, enjoy it up-to a point, slowly, then extinguish it, at some other time relight it and carry on where you left it from, and of course its just as good every time.
With
The Sea of Poppies we began the tale from the heartland of Bihar, with the farmers toiling away under the British raj, then we progressed on to the traders of the final product (“opium”) in
River of Smoke where we follow the sticky balls of opium from the well powdered hands of elite company men and ‘Free Market’ traders(smugglers, traffickers), to its ultimate destination .i.e the shivering hands of a Chinese addict in some dark den in Canton. And with the Flood of fire, we come to the point where every story line in the trilogy converges to give you the first opium wars, where a country which fought to save its citizen from the dark embrace of destruction was thoroughly humiliated and beaten by the ‘Respectable’ and ‘Honorable’ men of an empire which claimed to bring civilization and freedom to its shores, How? by giving them uncooked opium at ridiculously high prices, imposing a *cough*.. loot.. *cough* of more than 6 million Spanish dollars(at that time .i.e.1840’s) and wrested away two islands for the sole purpose of forcing the drug down the throat of an already choking country.
The four main characters this book follows are ‘Kesri’, our village woman ‘Deeti’s brother and a proud soldier in the East India Company’s formidable army; ‘Shireen’ ,’Behram’s (our trader from book two) wife, Zachary (Our mulatto upstart), and ‘Neil’ (a convicted king / ‘Munshi’ / Translator / the guy who experiences things from the Chinese side). Their story is woven with the fate of the Chinese and Indian lands so skillfully that you get to know the conflict from every angle. Specially Kesri’s experience, fighting for a foreign power against another foreign power for………….nothing, nothing of consequence of his own is interesting in the extreme. Some of his thoughts for his superiors are, so very relatable, like…
“..to skewer this maadarchod seemed far more urgent than fighting some unknown Chinese soldier.” ~Kesri
Ahh.. the beauty of foul language in one’s own mother tongue, but I digress. So, as I have mentioned in the first two reviews too, Character development and strength of its story lines are two of the best aspects of this series. Zachary’s zig zag travels through moral considerations and temptations, good and bad, were again a testament to Mr.Ghosh’s skill at creating an interesting character which showcases that how THAT world molded the unsuspecting and gullible in its own twisted image.
All in all, Bravo!, A standing Ovation!, tilted hats and ‘Bangra’ dance all the way, so, why the 4 stars you ask. Why not 5? Fair question, so here’s the deal, when I had to check to see how much a book is left, to actually count down the pages till I finish it, means I wavered, means I could come out of the book without meaning to, that I noticed the door bell being rung, noticed that I was hungry, noticed that maybe I should sleep because I had to go to the office. Now, you might say that that’s no excuse, but it is, to me it is, so deducted one for just that, for making me read those extra pages that were not so interesting, that made me take a break. Unfair? well no I don’t thin so.
But I wholeheartedly recommend this to every history lover, or the ones who enjoy a long read, buckle up guys, this is your door to the 19th century Asia, where all the ‘Fun’ stuff was happening which led to the current shit we are in. Take a gander from the deck of the IBIS. -
I have read this book withouth having read
Sea of Poppies nor
River of Smoke, as I received this book as a Goodreads giveaway, so did not want to delay unduly my "duty" of reviewing this novel.
Flood of Fire however stands on its own as a novel, and though (by necessity) some of the facts referred to here are not detailed enough to grasp all the implications, they are anyway clear enough to provide sufficient background to the various characters.
While I did enjoy the first half, midway through the novel started unravelling for me - what were built as three separate stories (those of Kesri Singh, Zachary Reid and the recently widowed Shireen Moddy) start converging, with these three protagonists surely and not that slowly destined to meet aboard the same Hong Kong bound ship. And here I somewhat lost interest, as it seemed that the pace accelerated just to be sure that all the subplots could be ironed out in the remaining pages.
In terms of the plot, even without the benefit of the previous two books, most of the twist are very predictable. No big deal in itself if one wants to carry the larger picture, but here it felt as the historical background had already run out of steam (after the previous two instalments). I did not found the writing particularly beautiful, and at various points, rather repetitive: Shireen "kneads" the end of her saari countless times when she is under pressure, while most of the male characters cope with stress by trying to loosen their collars. The characters themselves lose credibility as they go along, with Reid rapidly turning from a naive and rather coarse carpenter/sailor to an articulate, shrewd, competent businessman in the space of a few months, and Shireen going from a sheltered stay at home dutiful wife who has hardly ventured outside her home to a decisive, confident woman who does not hesitate to use blackmail to get her way.
As I did not find the writing particularly beautiful, for the second half of the book it was the sheer pace of events that carried it for me.
One exception were the detailed descriptions of the battles, the strategies and the weapons: recounted in great detail, and very sympathetically, I never thought I could have found them so interesting. This however may not be true for all readers.
It is definitely an interesting book, and Ghosh manages to write accurate historical fiction with flair. Yet as a standalone novel it does very much feel as an epilogue, accessory to whatever came before. -
It has been a while since I read River of Smoke, and consequently it took me a while and 40 pages to get into the rhythm of the language. But once I did, it was hard to put the book down for any length of time.
One of the things that I loved was that I didn't, couldn't take sides even when it is abundantly clear that it was an unjust war. The British are nothing more than drug lords declaring war against the laws of another country, and yet, there were a few of them I cared a lot for. More than that, I liked the depiction of the British war machine. The British Empire was a very large part of my history syllabus, and what I learned there was the bare bones - and more often than not, it was upsetting to be on the losing side (until India started revolting and bugging the hell out of the Brits). I understood that a lot of our own side benefited a whole lot from the British, and that we fought with inferior weaponry etc., but it's now apparent that it didn't go very deep into my head. I don't think I've read another book that went into the details of a British battle on non-European soil against non-European opponents, and that's been remedied with this book.
Anyway, I digress. As with the previous two, this is an exquisitely researched book. At times it becomes quite heavy with the history, but Ghosh also has colorful language to offset the dreariness. Some of my favorite characters are back, even if in glorified cameos, and I had a couple of new characters to cheer for. Cathy Burnham was my favorite addition, her exchanges with Zachary were some of the most delightful in the whole series. I'm a little uneasy at the resolution of her storyline, as I'm not sure what Ghosh was trying to say, but nonetheless, she was my favorite. I wish there was more of Paulette and a little less of Shireen, Kesri & Zachary, but it's not a major qualm.
What else? Obviously there's another war of the opium variety for Ghosh to cover if he so wishes. A few of the character arcs are open-ended enough to continue their stories. But, if this is to be marked completed, and Amitav Ghosh decides to focus on a different area, that's fine too. It maybe that I will change my mind on one or another book, when I eventually read the trilogy together, but for now it's one of my favorite book series, regardless of genre. -
here is a clear-eyed good review of this 600 page opium war/ingrez colonial india sage
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
this is the third book by ghosh of the characters and story lines set in india and china 1830-1841 , in where britain, by their ideas of liberty being their god given right, and their desire to make as much money as possible, when and where they can, thus any infringement of that liberty was not only against their rights, but god didnt like that infringement either. so they grew lots and lots of opium in india, shipped it to china, canton, ghuangchou specifically, sell it to chinese, makes lots and lots of money, get chinese goods too, and ship to india and england, and makes lots and lots of money off that too, and god smiles, she's SO happy for the angrez.
mayhem ensues, and it's never really ever stopped.
ghosh has done much research on this time period and place, built a cast of diverse characters (if somewhat too soap operaish at times for me) and ran with this epic historical saga. at the end of this last of 3 books, the ibis trilogy, he also implies that this saga could easily continue, to chronicle the results of the first opium war (england won, more of less) and beyond. but since this novel took 600 pages, and the first two novels 500+ pages, the author was kinda done. readers shall see what ghosh takes on next. -
Amitav Ghosh's writing has a bare minimum quality which very few authors can match. Having said that, this third and final book in the trilogy was slightly less panoramic and breathtaking when compared with the first two possibly because Ghosh had set a very high standard for himself. The story comes to a neat finish with all the characters coming together and there is a finale which you can see it coming from afar.
As a historic novel, Amitav Ghosh has explored the Opium war like never before and laid bare the avarice and greed of the B Company which reeks of imperial aspirations. The hypocrisy of free trade protection has been exposed quite well. As well as the futility of war. This novel also provides the historical context as to why the Chinese do not trust the Indians (since they had fought for money like mercenaries in the early 19 th century).
Overall a worthy read. -
The trilogy, as a whole, is a rousing adventure with a large cast of well-conceived, intriguing characters from many backgrounds. In its ambition and scale, it put this reader in mind of some of James Clavell's novels. It is a historical fiction account which examines the impact of the First Opium War (1839-1842) on its diverse cast.
First, the depth of characterization here is impressive. Mr. Ghosh does not shy away from providing a solid background for his major characters. He brings the reader into the mindsets of British, Indian, Chinese, and American characters, and as such, one gets a fuller understanding of the events. There are many memorable passages, the depiction of work in an opium factory, the brutality of a Bombay prison, some surprisingly erotic sexual encounters, and numerous battles on land and sea. The characters are complex, flawed and evolving. Mr. Ghosh is not a sentimentalist (thank God).
The books should be read in sequence. I don't think they work as stand-alones. But it's worth it because this is one trilogy that satisfies from start to finish. I loved it. Cheers! -
Dernier volet de la trilogie de l'Ibis qui m'a accompagnée depuis des années... une superbe plume faisant voyager de l'Inde à Singapour vers la Chine durant la guerre de l'opium. L'auteur nous plonge dans un "melting pot" culturel et linguistique où les populations gravitent autour d'un destin commun. Une invitation au voyage.
-
'Flood of Fire' is the final volume of the Ibis trilogy. I read the second,
River of Smoke, four years ago so was a little concerned that I'd struggle to keep up with events. Thankfully, 'Flood of Fire' centres upon a slightly different cast, so it was enough to vaguely recall names and the context of the Opium Wars. Ghosh adeptly plunges the reader into the dynamics of colonised India, imperial China, and aggressively expansionist Britain, via a fascinating coterie of characters caught in between them. All are all vivid and compelling. I was especially struck by the story of Kesri, an Indian sepoy who finds himself in China fighting for Britain's ability to sell opium. While less sympathetic, Zachary Reid also has a fascinating plot arc.
Having read
The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable and
Gun Island in recent years, I could see in 'Flood of Fire' seeds of Ghosh's strong interest in climate change fiction. Baboo, a major character in the previous book if I recall correctly, takes only a cameo role in this one. However his occasional pronouncements place the whole plot in the wider context of fossil fuel-based imperialism. Early steam ships, including the first to have an iron hull, are deployed against the Chinese during a series of battles that constituted the first Opium War. These of course required great quantities of coal. Baboo appears to foresee the climate chaos that will be unleashed by so-called free trade, and seeks to accelerate it by encouraging greed amongst the opium traders he works for. The novel as a whole certainly shows the violent reality of so-called free trade in 1839 very effectively. It is only free for the British, because they have the naval forces to impose the terms of trade they desire. Ghosh depicts the brutality of the first Opium War partly through the eyes of children employed as fifers and drummers by the British forces, which is especially moving.
Overall I enjoyed 'Flood of Fire' a great deal, albeit not quite as much as
River of Smoke. Unusually, the middle book in a trilogy proved to be my favourite! That might say as much about my mood while reading each as about the novels themselves, however. 'Flood of Fire' is due back at the library tomorrow so I intended to read it over the weekend, then finished it on Saturday. That certainly speaks to how involving I found it. The quality and style of writing are very consistent throughout the trilogy. World-building through language is a particular strength, coupled with the high density of historical details. Although I assumed the progression of the Opium Wars was historically accurate, I was disconcerted to discover from the afterword that at least some of the characters depicted were real people. I'm unsure how many of them, though. Given the indignity and intimacy of how closely the reader observes their fictionalised actions in the trilogy, I felt somewhat embarrassed on behalf of the real people involved. Such details certainly give the narrative a lot of texture and conviction, though, bringing a turbulent period of history vividly to life. -
Opium is at center-stage in Flood of Fire, which traces the consequential history of the British, their Indian allies, and the mandarins ruling China just before and during the First Opium War. Though it occurred nearly two centuries ago, this historical event is worth revisiting today for its lasting influence on today’s Chinese rulers, whose memories are vivid about the humiliation visited on their country by the British, other Europeans, and (later) the Americans. Few of us in America today can appreciate the intense feelings this nineteenth-century conflict continues to conjure up in the minds of educated people in China.
Flood of Fire is the concluding novel in the monumental Ibis Trilogy by that Indian giant of historical fiction, Amitav Ghosh. It’s the sequel to Sea of Poppies and River of Smoke. Taken together, the three books tell the story of the Indian opium-trading ship Ibis and the colorful, polyglot personalities who are connected to it, during the momentous four-year period from 1838 to 1841.
Flood of Fire, as well as the two novels that preceded it, is remarkable in two ways. First, the author’s documentary research was exhaustive and clearly required years of reading old documents and traipsing from one library to another: in an Epilogue, Ghosh includes eight pages of references tightly packed together into paragraphs. Second, Ghosh’s love of language is palpable, with every character in this novel displaying a distinctive mode of speech that seems to reflect accurately the way people spoke in mid-nineteenth-century India and China.
The principal characters in this third volume in the Ibis Trilogy all appear in the earlier stories as well: Kesri Singh, a havildar or sergeant in the military service of the British East India Company; Zachary Reid, a young mulatto from Baltimore who begins his career as a ship’s carpenter; Benjamin Burnham, the fabulously wealthy opium trader who owns the Ibis; Burnham’s wife, Catherine, who lives under the shadow of a dark secret; Shireen Modi, a Parsi (Zoroastrian) mother of two in Bombay who is now the widow of Seth (“sir”) Bahram Moddie, a penniless youth who had risen to the top of the opium trade by taking audacious chances; Neel Rattan Halder, the former Raja of Raskhali, who has become an adviser to the Chinese in their standoff with the British; Zadig Bey, an Armenian trader close to Seth Bahram; and assorted other soldiers, sailors, traders, officials, and hangers-on. It’s what Hollywood used to call “a cast of thousands.” This is an immensely complex story and sheer pleasure to read.
At times, Flood of Fire is hilarious. There are extended passages about masturbation which highlight the Victorian obsession with sex and brilliant examples of the malaproprisms that result from people attempting to communicate in their third language, or their fourth. For example, “‘You must meet me at Strand, with money-purse, at 5 p. m. Kindly do not be late — I will be punctually expectorating.'” It takes a writer with the talent of Amitav Ghosh to make this stuff up. -
I was reading ‘Never let me go’ and abandoned it halfway in my excitement to finish the Ibis trilogy; so my feelings of emotional dissatisfaction expressed here may partly be blamed on unfair comparisons with Kazuo Ishiguro’s writing :-) The opium ka saga continues in ‘Flood of fire’. Amitav Ghosh develops continuing stories of Raju, Shireen, Kesri, Zacary and Cathy but imho he himself did not invest in them emotionally and this left me feeling disconnected with their feelings and characters to the extent that it felt more like a narrative; a fabulous one but not a emotionally exhausting and satisfying one. This is in contrast to the previous two books where the stories are about Deeti, Bahram, Neel, Paulette, Jodu and Kalua as much as the narrative of history. Also, Amitav Ghosh, Sir, please don’t attempt sex scenes again. Please Sir :-)
So why do I still love the book?
This is an epic narrative, a chronicle of a a shameful war, historic political blunders, a country betrayed, double standards, hypocricy and shamelessness of the British. Why didn’t we ever learn this in our Indian history lessons? Why don’t we ever discuss this as a strategic lesson for our country? Why don’t we discuss in business school how the East India company spread the use of Opium across most parts of Asia? That British businesses sponsored wars? That Indian sepoys, both the rajputs and the madrasis, were mercenaries who would fight for any army that would pay them 6 rupees a month? That Indian businessmen were complicit in destroying civilizations in India and China? Any Indian who reads this should not be surprised that China looks at Indians with suspicion and hatred. As an Indian its strange to find oneself rooting for the Chinese; probably a corollary of hating the hypocritical gora Brits who are using superior weaponry to spread ‘free trade’ across the world. This is what America is doing to the middle east and muslim nations today and someday someone will write an account of this too I hope. -
The Ibis Trilogy is a remarkable achievement -- portraying the Opium Wars through the viewpoints of a diverse cast of characters from various nations: India, China, Britain, America, but also varying economic, cultural, educational backgrounds, men and women, the heroic, the villainous, and the merely pragmatic. The most impressive thing is that Ghosh ties these characters together so effectively and delineates each of them so clearly. There are characters I've been cheering for since the first book, and one character who falls sadly from grace (though not from his own perspective). Because this is historical fiction, the British annexation of Hong Kong as well as their self-serving promulgation of the opium trade are inevitably part of the narrative, but Ghosh still manages to surprise in smaller, human places.
I cannot recommend this series more highly. Read it. I'm looking forward to rereading it all, now that it's complete.
