Rating: 
Summary: 3 Stars with an extra star for satisfaction and texture
Review: I have the feeling that _The Glass Palace_ is in some ways a better history book than novel. It is nearly impossible not to admire it as an achievement-- the richness of the detail is astonishing as is the mood that the detail manages to create. We follow a family through three generations as they try to negotiate identity in both the colonial and post-colonial worlds. Unfortunately, the structure and characterization in the novel do not live up to the quality of the historic and atmospheric detail. The book follows a fairly standard rags-to-riches story format, and in many cases the characters lack the complexity that Ghosh is able to bring to the surrounding environment. It's a disappointing lack in an otherwise stunning work. It's worth saying as well that I found _The Glass Palace_ an incredibly *satisfying* read. I literally had a really hard time putting it down, and kept it in my purse to read on my lunch breaks and while waiting in lines. I suppose that's a fairly high recommendation in and of itself.
Rating: 
Summary: An incredible story, completely engaging.
Review: I love historical fiction, and, in general, can be somewhat picky about what I read. The Glass Palace is one of the finest works of its kind I have ever read. From the first page, I was totally engaged. Ghosh is a master story teller. He has done a very impressive job of providing an exciting historical background of Burma, Malaysia, and India over many decades, interwoven with well developed characters across generations. I will read this book again someday. I very highly recommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: Sometimes Wonderful, Sometimes Trite
Review: I love books written by good Indian authors. I say "good" because there are just far too many writers trying to jump on the "Indian bandwagon" these days. Sadly, most of them turn out only second or third-rate books. Amitv Ghosh isn't one of those writers. He's very accomplished, although I don't think THE GLASS PALACE is his very best work. It's certainly the one that most approaches "epic" status, though, and maybe that's part of its problem. THE GLASS PALACE seems to try to pack too much into one book and sometimes I think plot and characterization suffer because of that. Still, this is not a book to be dismissed. Not by a long shot. Like V.S. Naipual, Amitav Ghosh writes about the Indian Diaspora (though Ghosh is more eipc). He seems interested in exploring just where displaced Indians "fit" in the world and, also like Naipaul, Ghosh's prose is lean and spare and unadorned. If you're looking for the fury and the pyrotechnics of Salman Rushdie, be assured you won't find them (or the magical realism) in the work of Amitav Ghosh. I liked the story told in THE GLASS PALACE partly because it took place in Burma (now Myanmar) and Malaya, instead of in India. Myanmar, to me, is an exceptionally exotic place (what westerner can think of Mandalay and not think "exotic") and, I just read THE PIANO TUNER (also set in colonial Burma) which whetted my appetite for even more literature set in this exotic and dangerous, but extraordinarily beautiful, land. THE GLASS PALACE begins as the British are invading Burma. In the marketplace, only a young boy named Rajkumar realizes what is happening. As the people in the marketplace take cover in the Glass Palace, Rajkumar gets his first glimpse of Dolly, a nursemaid to one of Burma's princesses, but it is a glimpse he will never forget. After Rajkumar grows into adulthood and makes a fortune in the teak trade, he travels to India to find Dolly, intending on marrying her. The story Ghosh spins in THE GLASS PALACE is a very good one, but, at times, I felt there were far too many characters in the book, too many family members and too many friends. I know this book is an "epic," but still, the characterizations are a bit thin and events happen with too much speed, even for a novel. I really couldn't develop the empathy I wanted to develop with Ghosh's characters. We barely get to know someone before the scene changes. Uma Roy, a friend of Dolly's who travels to New York and then returns to India, is another pivotal character in THE GLASS PALACE. I felt that Uma was a more complex character than either Dolly or Rajkumar but I didn't like the way Ghosh used her to expound on politics. This is simply a personal preference, though. In a historical epic such as THE GLASS PALACE there is no way Ghosh could have not written about politics and still retained credibility. What I didn't think was necessary, though, was Ghosh's mini-treatise on Burmese politics given at the end of the book. Now, that annoyed me more than it enlightened me. I didn't feel it had been woven into the narrative well enough. I don't think this novel, overall is seamless enough. Sometimes Ghosh gives us a grippingly good story and, at other times, he seems to wander or to slip into the cliché, instead. Even some of the prose, for the most part very good, would occasionally slip into the trite, e.g., "a cloud of disquiet." THE GLASS PALACE is a sweeping book, spanning many, many years and sometimes I think maybe Ghosh just filled the book with "too much." Maybe a more intimate view, with fewer characters would have provided the same "look" but with richer, more meaningful characterizations. Still, THE GLASS PALACE is a wonderful achievement and certainly well worth anyone's time, especially for those who have an interest in the east or the period of history that this book covers. Despite having a few problems with THE GLASS PALACE, I'm glad I read the book and I think it enriched my understanding of England's colonization of the east. I would definitely recommend THE GLASS PALACE to other readers, especially those who like historical novels and ones that are epic in scope. I couldn't decide whether to give THE GLASS PALACE three stars or four, but it had to have been such a huge undertaking and, to his everlasting credit, Ghosh stays far away from sentimentality. That, I think, earned him four very solid stars.
Rating:
Summary: Finely Crafted Work
Review: Be prepared to learn about a part of history and an area of the world about which you know next to nothing. Ghosh has done a great deal of research to give his novel lush detail and historical accuracy, and then provides a rich family saga which delivers the fruits of his labors. More than that, he makes us think about the evils of empires, and the implications of personal decisions to serve masters other than those of our own making. He tells the story of displaced peoples, manipulated by the British not just physically, but mentally and spiritually as well. One final comment: The book is damn entertaining, and will stay with you long after you've read it. Instead of what most novels do, which is fade out after the first 100 or so pages, this book builds on itself and expands in richness as it draws closer to the present day. I highly recommend it as a work in which you can lose yourself and come away entertained as well as educated about a part of the world you may never have thought about.
Rating:
Summary: Life in the eyes of locals and colonists, riveting read
Review: The Glass Palace will probably disqualify as fiction has it not for a majority of characters that bear no resemblance to reality besides King Thebaw, Queen Supayalat and their four daughters, who were actually forced to exile. The book, which assiduously parallels to the history of colonial India and British invasion of Burma, depicts the country in a century of traumatic sub continental history through the independence in 1947, the assassination of General Aunt San shortly before his assuming of office after election, and up to the presence. The indelible characters, most of whom entwined and descended down the same family line of Rajkumar, seemed to float between boundaries of both geography (Burma, India, Malaya) and class; and transcended across time and generations, powerfully illuminated the painful history of Burma. Amitav Ghosh conveys all the excruciating details of the characters in a an unusual air of equanimity, with a detachment, serenity and moral strength in the face of such overwhelming turmoil. At the same time, the complex and riveting book evokes the impact of the turmoil events that had thumped families and individuals. Set in Burma during the onset of British invasion in 1885, fortuity had brought 11-year-old Rajkumar to Mandalay. The sampan on which he worked as an errand boy had been in repair and forced him to seek employment in the city. Rajkumar, a brawny figure for a boy of his age and with a quick-witted mind, worked at a food stall in exchange for meals and a roof. He met Saya John and later under whose tutelage Rajkumar entered the timber business and made a considerable fortune. When the British soldiers forced the royal family out to exile, Rajkumar encountered Dolly, the youngest of Queen Supayalat's maids who took care of the Second Princess, and befriended her as the city's scum came surging berserk, looting in the Glass Palace. Dolly was one of the last remaining members of the original Mandalay contingent when the royal family exiled to Ratnagiri, India. For 20 years Dolly had lived in India as she progressed into adulthood, overseeing the daily chores and negotiating with local workers in the royal household. But Rajkumar could neither forget her nor remove any vestige of her - he set out on a quest for a girl whom he had met in the midst of havoc some 20 years ago, when she was only 7. What follows is a twist-and-turn chronicle, salt-and-peppered with historical background of the relevant countries, of Rajkumar's life and his family. Through Ghosh's writing Bruma's destitution, ignorance, famine and despair was relived. Reading "The Glass Palace" reminds me of "The Piano Tuner" by Daniel Mason, a book about an English piano tuner being summoned to repair a piano that belonged to a Surgeon-Major in the midst of Burmese jungle. Characters in "The Glass Palace" traveled the very same route to and from Burma as the piano tuner and described similar sceneries. The second half of Ghosh's book is replete with commentary-like prose on politics, history and warfare. An overlapping theme is the fact that the British had recruited Indian soldiers to conquer the Burmese. In a sense, the Indian soldiers, bearing no cause, were made to kill for the British Empire, fighting people (the Burmese) who really should be their friends. The Burmese vented out anger and resentment toward the Indians and, what was more, as subjects of the British Empire, the Indians were treated as enemy aliens by the Japanese. Amitav raises the ineluctable truth: that the Empire was no less guilty of racism, aggression and conquest than the Nazi's institutionalizing racism, violence and atrocities. 2004 (17) © MY
Rating:
Summary: "Burmese Days" from the other side of the fence
Review: Anthropologist-turned-writer Amitav Ghosh is yet another literary talent of the "Indian Diaspora." A versatile writer, he has tried his hand at travel writing, science fiction and now a historical novel. As a storyteller Ghosh is at least at par with Vikram Seth and Michael Ondaatje. The Glass Palace is loosely based on the military career of the writer's father and an uncle's life as a trader in Burma; both inspired the author to set a novel in various British possessions in Asia. It relates the interconnected experiences of three families in Burma, India and British Malaya, covering the period from 1885 to the present. Starting with the fall of the Burmese capital Mandalay to a British expeditionary army, it depicts the exile of Thibaw, last King of Burma, with a small entourage of courtiers. Considered one of the most dramatic events in Burma's recent history, we witness the episode through the eyes of two orphans: one is Rajkumar, a Bengali deckhand turned dishwasher, the other Dolly, a 10-year-old Burmese girl serving as a maid to Queen Supayalat, the wife of the deposed monarch. British colonial power is at its apogee, and it is -- ironically, perhaps -- the very extent of British supremacy which will give these two impoverished children some unexpected opportunities. At the knee of Saya John, a Catholic Chinese originally from British Malaya, Rajkumar learns the tricks of the teak trade and becomes a prosperous timber merchant in his own right. In the meantime, Dolly is whiling her life away in the Indian town of Ratnagiri, where King Thibaw has been sent to live out his days. Through a remarkable chain of events she ends up as Rajkumar's wife; he had only caught a glimpse of her some twenty years before, but was unable to forget. It is at Ratnagiri that the lives of Dolly and Rajkumar become intertwined with that of a prominent family from Calcutta. Dolly's friendship with Uma, the politically active widow of one of the first native Indians to serve the British government in a senior government position, seals the shared fate of the "nouveau riche" Bengali-Burmese couple and the high caste Roy family. Through the career of Uma Roy, initially a fierce nationalist politician but later a more gentle supporter of the Mahatma Gandhi, Ghosh finds a vehicle to expound his own political views, which are sometimes a bit moralistic. The years between the two World Wars, though at times turbulent, are generally kind to most of the characters in this epic tale. Rajkumar and Dolly's eldest son marries a niece of Uma, Saya John's son Matthew becomes a successful rubber planter in Malaya, running a huge estate in which Rajkumar has a substantial share -- knitting the futures of the three families ever closer together. Only Dinu, the younger son of Rajkumar and Dolly, seems to have trouble finding his niche, but towards the end he becomes instrumental to keep story together. But the Japanese invasion of southeast Asia throws everything into turmoil. Family members are cut off from each other, fortunes are lost, and a number of them perish in a variety of war-related incidents. The post-war period is dearly needed to heal the emotional wounds. One of the most moving episodes in this part of the book is the description of how Rajkumar and Dolly live out their days ... separated by choice. As the narrative progresses in time the tale does not run out of steam. On the contrary, it now appears as if we are on a runaway train. This is somewhat regrettable, because until now Ghosh had developed both story and characters meticulously. In order to bring his epic to an end it seems that he starts to economize on the development of both plot and psychology. In a number of flashbacks he wraps up the remaining loose ends and leaves us behind in the Burma of Aung San Su Kyi. However, he partly makes up for this by introducing -- at the very end -- an unexpected twist in the composition of the book. Apart from its absorbing story, what makes The Glass Palace into a special book is the fact that in this history of the British Empire there is hardly an Englishman in sight. The epoch is seen entirely through the eyes of locals, the so-called colonized people -- or "subalterns," as many postmodern scholars from the Indian subcontinent like to call them. So in answer to the question raised by one of them in a debate on historiography -- "Can the subaltern speak?" -- we may now reply with a wholehearted: "Yes, most eloquently."
Rating:
Summary: Empires Fall
Review: Don't be surprised to see Amitav Ghosh's epic, elegiac novel serialized on "Masterpiece Theater" next year. It has all the right elements: historical sweep, operatic drama, and deeply realized characters moving in prominent family constellations. But though the work would find a comfortable spot in Alistair Cook's revered collection, perhpaps right next to "The Flame Trees of Thikka," in the loving hands of its author it soars beyond any hint of cliche. It's a unique and memorable novel that transcends its genre to challenge not only the intellect, but the imagination as well. Beginning in Burma during the British invasion of 1885, "The Glass Palace" tells the story of many empires. The death of one gives rise to another throughout the book, always with life-altering results for the main characters and earth-shattering consequences for the world. At the outset we meet Rajkumar, an eleven year old ethnic Indian orphan caught up by sheer happenstance in the usurpation of the Burmese King Thebaw by his British "protectors". As the events unfold and sear themselves on Rajkumar's psyche, he gleans a sense of a world filled with danger for the ignorant and reward for the insightful. As the royal couple and their retinue, including Rajkumar's secret love Dolly, leave for exile in India, Rajkumar embarks on a journey filled with wild success, hidden passion, and a tragic finale made bearable only by the fact that he has survived and is not alone. It's Rajkumar's adventures that set the stage for the rest of the novel, though he fades out as a main character about half-way through the book. His progeny and those of his friends and colleagues take center stage after Rajkumar has put in place a multi-million dollar teak conglomerate and rendered his family independent. But his struggles,and those of everyone in his orbit, continue through all the wrenching and violent disturbances of the twentieth century, culminating in the devastating Japanese attack on Burma in December 1941. Empires rise up, consume, and recede over and over again in "The Glass Palace". For the most part this process spells death, displacement and heartache for those caught up in its vortex. But redemption here, as in many great works of fiction, comes through the bonds formed by people under the most hopeless of circumstances. It's then that real humanity shines through, and it's also then that "The Glass Palace" shows its true worth as a document of a tormented age.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating Historical Novel
Review: The Glass Palace both entertains and educates. The epic story spans through the history of India and Burma with prose that makes you feel as if you are right there. The book contained vivid descriptions of the teak trade;the trees are slashed to kill them, then they are felled, then they are pushed into the river where the water pushes them to a place where thy are tied into rafts. The rafts are floated to a timberyard for sale. There also were descriptions of rubber plantations and the various political movements for independence. I read this book while sick and it does take a lot of time to read. Also, I had to reread it and write down the family members to keep them straight and fully appreciate the novel. It is stronger on historic detail than on characterization. At the end of the book, the author tells the reader about his research sources, which were substantial. It is worth reading for both entertainment and education
Rating:
Summary: Southeast Asia epic
Review: This lush novel spans a troubled 100 years in the history of Burma and India. Beginning with the overthrow of the last Burmese king as the British move into Burma, this novel tells the story of the Burmese royal family in exile; of Rajkumar, a young Burmese boy who through guts and risk-taking makes a fortune in the teak trade; of Dolly, the exquisitely beautiful maid in the royal household whom Rajkumar pursues and wins as his wife; of Uma, the wife of the British collector and custodian of the royal family. Roll on to pre-WWII India, where the next generation grapples with conflicting loyalties to Burma, India, the British, and other Asian countries, during the disaster of the war. Fast forward again to modern India and Burma, where Jaya, granddaughter of Rajkumar and Dolly, uncovers the story of the survivors of her family.
"The Glass Palace" attempts to do a lot, and does it well. The portrayal of India and the British Empire is colorful and fascinating, particularly as WWII unfolds. The British decision to allow Indians to become officers, a seemingly enlightened move, leads to unexpected consequences, as the men resent reporting to one of their own, and the officers begin to question why India is paying for the defense of the Empire. The deal between England and India regarding WWII, i.e., Independence in return for fighting the war, was in reality extremely complicated, as some Indians align themselves with the Japanese, others remain loyal to the British, and yet others try to stake out independent ground. The random violence and cruelty of war as it destroys the lives of innocent civilians is harshly drawn here, as are the consequences of colonization for India.
Given the scope, it is perhaps inevitable that something suffers, and in this case I found a number of the characters flat; we never know what Dolly really thinks about Rajkumar as he appears so many years after the fall of the Burmese royal family to claim her; several more minor characters, such as Arjun's friend Hardy, appear to be vehicles for presenting a political point of view rather than real people; and the multiple characters in this complex tale are easy to confuse. And the fast-forwarding that occurs in a few spots, most notably to get to modern Burma and Jaya's searching out of the reamining family members, is a bit jarring.
But all in all this ambitious author has done a good job in presenting this complex story, against a backdrop many Westerners are not familiar with, in a highly readable, detailed, and entertaining fashion.
Rating:
Summary: Romance from Mandalay to Malaya by way of India
Review: Fans of Asian fiction will enjoy this novel. Set in colonial Burma, India, and Malaya, this unusual piece of historical fiction has for all its main characters Asians who are natives of these countries, unlike the expatriate colonials who seem to populate most novels of this genre. The saga is epic, spanning three countries and generations. The novel opens in Mandalay, in the closing days of the last of a series of nineteenth century wars between resource-rich Burma, seat of one of the great Southeast Asian empires, and colonial Britain. Forced to capitulate to the new colonial power, the Burmese royal family is subsequently exiled by the victorious British to a remote seaside outpost in colonial India. Against this backdrop unfolds the boyhood of the main character, Rajkumar. As an abandoned child left off a boat from Bangladesh, he subsists by assisting an aging Burmese woman in her small business as a street vendor right across the imperial palace in Mandalay. Rajkumar comes to witness the dramatic sacking of the Burmese imperial palace, vividly described in the novel. This leads to his brief encounter with one of the palace maidens for whom he develops a lasting boyhood infatuation. This infatuation persists even into adulthood, long after the maiden has joined the Burmese royal family in their exile in India, turning into an seemingly improbable re-encounter and finally marriage. This major part of the plot parallels Rajkumar's rags-to-riches rise from his boyhood abandonment into the streets of Mandalay, to prospering in his own timber business. Despite his uncanny knack to rise above his meagre early fortunes, Rajkumar ultimately evolves into a tragic figure. This shift in fortunes also follows a change in setting, as Rajkumar and his family saga later extend into colonial Malaya where his business empire expands into rubber plantations. Weaving into the novel the product of his considerable research, the author treats those with a special interest in Southeast Asian history to the description of the exile of the Burmese royal family in India, details of the logging business in Burma, and the social life of Malayan rubber planatations --all interesting subjects in their own right. In my mind, these insights into Southeast Asian history, together with characterizations which are still unusual in this genre, offset the prose which sometimes feels workmanlike, and a plot which tends to lose momentum when it turns to the later generations of the family.
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