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natsirt_esq 's review for:
Sea of Poppies
by Amitav Ghosh
For Christmas Eve we decided to participate in Jólabókaflóð, Iceland’s “Christmas book flood”. I received this book from my wife. I wanted to read the entire thing in a day, but this book is large and at times requires time to set it down and process what was happening.
There are a lot of foreign words used in this book. The back has a "Chrestomathy" a a selection of passages from an author designed to help in learning a language. About half the time I turned to it to look at a word I didn't understand, it wasn't included. Most of the time you can figure out what a word means within the context of the story, but some times it's used again later and you've already forgotten what it meant. I found this aspect of the writing a bit frustrating.
What I loved about this book is the exposure to something I "know" about, but never really thought about the details of it on a serious level. I knew the British ruled India for years. I knew the British went to war with China over opium. I never realized the harm to the individual people that his caused. Or how it all took place. Ghosh does an excellent job letting the story shine, but still throwing in historical information.
There are a lot of characters in this book. Usually books with tons of different characters confuse me as to who is who after long periods of absence. That did not happen at all. Each character is returned to frequently and given appropriate time for their story. I also didn't find myself massively enjoying one person's story over the other characters. I enjoyed them all and appreciated when they intersected.
I am annoyed that this is part of a series, because I did not need 2 more books to add to my TBR pile. Alas, book 2 is now sitting precariously on one of my stack of books.
There are a lot of foreign words used in this book. The back has a "Chrestomathy" a a selection of passages from an author designed to help in learning a language. About half the time I turned to it to look at a word I didn't understand, it wasn't included. Most of the time you can figure out what a word means within the context of the story, but some times it's used again later and you've already forgotten what it meant. I found this aspect of the writing a bit frustrating.
What I loved about this book is the exposure to something I "know" about, but never really thought about the details of it on a serious level. I knew the British ruled India for years. I knew the British went to war with China over opium. I never realized the harm to the individual people that his caused. Or how it all took place. Ghosh does an excellent job letting the story shine, but still throwing in historical information.
There are a lot of characters in this book. Usually books with tons of different characters confuse me as to who is who after long periods of absence. That did not happen at all. Each character is returned to frequently and given appropriate time for their story. I also didn't find myself massively enjoying one person's story over the other characters. I enjoyed them all and appreciated when they intersected.
I am annoyed that this is part of a series, because I did not need 2 more books to add to my TBR pile. Alas, book 2 is now sitting precariously on one of my stack of books.