Reviews

Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh

krobart's review against another edition

5.0

The novel is filled with entertaining characters and the colors, smells, and languages of India. It is beautifully written and crammed full of unusual words–Bengali words, sailor and lascar jargon, ornate oriental English, and various patois. The book has a glossary, but it is ironically intended. Comic, cruel, vivid, and deeply engrossing, the novel is rich and teeming with life.

See my complete review here:

http://whatmeread.wordpress.com/tag/sea-of-poppies/

jehanne's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

koranmc's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional informative sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.75

thisisstephenbetts's review

4.0

A rollicking adventure with a wide ensemble of characters, set in the mid-19th century. The main theme is the production and distribution of opium, and how it affects the different stratas of society in India. The underlying theme is the evil of mercantile collonialism. Lots of the story takes place in and around one of the ships that will transport the opium, so there is lots of ship-lore and salty language.

In fact language is one of the predominant features of the book - particularly how it crosses different cultures (there is an extensive semi-fictionalised glossary devoted just to that). At first, I found the extremely stylised dialogue a little self-conscious and off-putting - even annoying. But eventually I decided that I should just enjoy the fun of it, much as I assume Ghosh was having fun writing it.

When the ending arrives it all feels very sudden, leaving a slight dissatisfaction. But it's a transporting adventure story - not exactly life-changing, but illuminating and enjoyable.

Update - just saw that this is part of a trilogy, making the sudden ending more understandable (though still a bit unfulfilling). May probably read the sequel at some point.

lyndsayconstable's review

adventurous challenging emotional informative medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

drillvoice's review

4.0

I found myself very drawn into this book. It's very engaging and the historical detail is pretty compelling - I partly just enjoyed learning about the language, culture and norms of this time. (The language was sometimes off-putting, especially because I don't know much nautical terminology. But I got there, and did a bit of my own research.)

I think above all this book just has interesting characters and lots of drama and exciting plot developments. It's well-written and it captures your attention and draws you in and this is all good! In addition, I think it does a good job of indicating how colonialism (and racism) has caused a lot of suffering and dramatically changed things, without labouring this point.

rkkmistry's review

5.0

he's too good !!! he's too good!! damn ... respect to the boy. this is one of the few books that I've read that had that super plot based action packed cinematic page turner style feel to it (especially the closer you get to the end), while also like being super eye-opening in terms of the politics and history that it provides. like I think we all have this idea that if you wanna make something a really fun adventure filled read then you just sort of have to throw politics to the way side or at least bring them up in some tokenist way, but Amitav really shows us that you can have your cake and eat it too!! And it's not just that like "oh he's woke," but like he actually does so much to complicate our notions of race / identity and how those work in a multicultural world and this book just feels LIGHTYEARS ahead of whatever NYT bestseller about colorism is trending on #booktok right now. A black american, a zamindar, a brahmin, a white girl raised by brown people, a mixed race opium addict, and white british people all on the same boat!! all interacting to the craziest degree and like NO ONE IS SAFE. It's not simply just white good/ POC bad, it's like Amitav comes for EVERYONE...and it just really feels like a way of looking at the world that is just so challenging to American viewpoints on the right and the left...and again, it's all done in a book that literally feels like it could easily become a TV show...that is crazy to me

annecarts's review

2.0

I found this book hard going. Judging by all the good reviews it may be me more than the book as I can tell it's well written. The dialect perhaps made it more authentic but made it very hard to follow, especially the parts on the boat. I found myself zoning out at times and got tired of looking up words so often. I did want to know what happened to some of the characters though so kept going but didn't find out as it's one of 3 and I don't think another 1000 pages are possible for me.

steller0707's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Cursing, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Classism, Sexism, Slavery, and Violence

madhukari's review

5.0

Loved re-reading this for my class on Oceans and Empire. Ghosh's re-imagination of the history of the indentured migrants in the form of an anti-colonial cosmopolitanism operating through the subversive space of the ship is such so cool!