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A review by bg86
The Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh
2.0
After a hopeful first part that covers the unlikely rise to wealth of Rajkumar this book completely collapses. A few of many flaws:
- the timing of the story is dizzying in a sickening way: Now the tempo is slow and then you skip through decades within two pages. Generation after generation fly by.
- this also concerns the point above: where rajkumar is someone you know and care about after 150 pages, the others have no depth and I found myself wondering during the penultimate chapter: who the f*** is doh sah?
- as the story progresses the writing gets corny and the author for some reason deems it necessary to explain every metaphor, implicit action and pieces of dialogue. Gives me the shivers when I think back at it
- there are millions of - nay over a billion people in that region. The amount of coincidental encounters in this book is incredible, literally.
All in all, a very disappointing read that I would categorize as a crossover between Birma’s Wikipedia page and a Hollywood script that didn’t make it.
- the timing of the story is dizzying in a sickening way: Now the tempo is slow and then you skip through decades within two pages. Generation after generation fly by.
- this also concerns the point above: where rajkumar is someone you know and care about after 150 pages, the others have no depth and I found myself wondering during the penultimate chapter: who the f*** is doh sah?
- as the story progresses the writing gets corny and the author for some reason deems it necessary to explain every metaphor, implicit action and pieces of dialogue. Gives me the shivers when I think back at it
- there are millions of - nay over a billion people in that region. The amount of coincidental encounters in this book is incredible, literally.
All in all, a very disappointing read that I would categorize as a crossover between Birma’s Wikipedia page and a Hollywood script that didn’t make it.