Rating: 
Summary: Immensely informative and entertaining
Review: This was one of the first books by Amitava Ghosh that I read, and was a bit apprehensive, seeing the number of pages. But, I am really very glad that I picked the book up from the bookstore. This was also my first introduction to life in Burma in that period, through literature. His description of life in Burma was something that I had always heard stories about from people from an earlier generation - but the images that his writing conjured up was exquisite. The reason for my giving him 4 starts instead of 5, was the end, which felt like he rushed into tying up all the loose ends. But, that in no way reflects on the rest of the book - which I would recommend to anyone wanting to know about Buram as it was 100-50 yrs back, or merely wanting to read a good one.
Rating: 
Summary: Sorry Mr Ghosh You Missed
Review: Let me start by saying i am a great fan of Amitav. I have read (devoured)Shadowlines and In an antique land, and since i heard so much from all corners about how great the glass palace was, i got the book. I am so dissapointed. I had the clear impression whilst reading this book that Ghosh wrote it in a great haste. The description of Burma are gripping, for example, when he describes life in the forest in temporary timber villages, but the plot is so weak. Characters bump into each other by chance, time trickles too fast, and you end up jumping years. How the hell did Neel end up meeting Manju in Calcutta. This seriously put me off. This book lacks the descriptive insight of a Vikram Seth. Seth can make you see the characters, feel their fears and desires, but Ghosh fails pitifully here. I could not connect even to the central character Rajkumar. He is so frivolously created. I say this again. Ghosh wrote this book in a great haste. Let`s hope for another Shadowlines next time.Rattan
Rating: 
Summary: Amazing novel based in Asia
Review: For anyone that has any interest in Asia, especially Burma, this is a truly epic novel. This novel together with Vikram Seth's "A Suitable Boy" are my most favorite novels. Ghosh follows the tale of a family through three generations, ups and downs, wars, civil disturbance, love and death - until present day Burma. The end is a little bit rushed, but doesn't take away from the overall feel of the book.
Rating:
Summary: an excellent work
Review: I found this book hard to put down. It is a tragic and beautiful story. By way of love, family, and war, Ghosh takes the reader deep into the psyche of colonized nations. This book was very satisfying.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful
Review: I love Ghosh's writing, he weaves magic with words. I usually do not write reviews on Amazon but this book is so good that it is a must read. History through the eyes of people who have lived history is always facinating and Ghosh has that talent of making things come to life.
He will take you through the grandeur of the east and the imperial era followed by the anguish of change in regimes and how it affects the common people and their lives. He is simply amazing!
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful!
Review: I can't often be bothered to spend my time writing reviews for Amazon, but in the case of this book, I'll make an exception. Ghosh writes a wonderful story. His style is fluid, easy to read and at times poetic. His words create the most vivid and accurate pictures of people and places. It is hard not to be caught up with the characters, and the wonder of the events that took place. Having just returned from a month in Myanmar, his writing seemed incredibly accurate. - Not only a wonderful story, but a great historical account. Top marks!
Rating: 
Summary: (3.5) Comforting, and culturally rich
Review: Ghosh's style of writing is very comforting to me; in a sense, I can relax into his fiction, knowing that the machinations will eventually be clarified. The easy rhythm of his prose is non-judgmental, while the central characters build their lives around their personal ideals and prejudices. Later, Ghosh uses this objective construct to smash the characters against eachother, creating fissures in lives that once seemed so purposful and simple. It is, in fact, these very diffuse constructs that create a multi-layered society, inter-dependent for survival, doomed to experience upheaval. Ghosh's genious is in lending each of his characters a particular believeability, each identity destined to conflict with others. What seems a simple generational novel becomes the mirror through which the entire society is viewed. In THE GLASS PALACE, it is the British-occupied society, "the gentle masters" laid bare, until the iron fist of British rule is destroyed. Dealing with this British quest for world domination, I was reminded of Barry Unsworth's SACRED HUNGER, in Unsworth's case, the importation of Africans in slaveships. There is also the matter of exploitation, evidenced from the beginning of THE GLASS PALACE, when Rajkumar makes his fortune by trickery, importing slaves to work his rubber plantations in Burma. Then there is the matter of the first Indian officers in Her Majesty's Service. These officers feel free from the constraints of tradition, only to discover that, as native Indians, they will never be considered the equals of British officers. Eventually, these Indian officers fight among themselves, sensing that "some are urging you on, while others are waiting for you to fail", similar to the practice of American slaveholders to use "overseers" to control slaves, giving them the power to inflict punishment, having certain privileges, but never freedom. In fact, when Indian soldiers are seen in Burma, the people comment, "There goes the army of slaves, marching off to catch more slaves for their masters". The book is full of such observations, leaving lingering questions well after the reader has turned the last page.
Rating:
Summary: A Masterpiece
Review: As a great admirer of Amitav Ghosh's earlier books, it is
always with some trepidation that I take up his most
recent works. But, and the Glass Palace is no exception, they have never yet failed to both move
and surprise me by their ingenuity, incredibly creative
quilting of genres and cultures, and by their effortless and unforced revelation of
a sensibility and a sense of time, history, and culture which I can only describe by the cliched, but in this case literally
accurate, term `profound'. In fact, so artlessly do these
reveal themselves in his novels that the unprepared reader
is wont to not even notice. On the surface, The Glass Palace is a soul-stirring saga commencing with the take-over of Burma by the British in 1885
and the exile of the royal family to India, and proceeding through the interrelated currents interweaving European and Japanese colonial aspirations in Asia, the Second World War
in the Far Eastern Theatre, and the independence movements
in India, Burma, and Malaysia. All of these are seen in the
backdrop of the events which overtake three generations of a
family which begins with a deep love, long-delayed in the consummation, between an Indian Bengali teak-trader in Burma
and an exiled Burmese princess' attendant. The subsequent generations snake
across half of Asia and across the Pacific to the US via links
catalyzed by colonialism, trade and modern
education, and then forged on the anvil of human love. This is indeed stirring stuff, but much more lies beneath it.
Never far from the surface, and probably never more deeply and richly revealed in any of his previous novels except perhaps 'In an Antique Land', are many of Ghosh's deeper themes. Ultimately, these are about the deeper connections and similarities between
all cultures and people, and how people are sometimes buffeted by more impersonal historical forces such as capitalism or
nationalism or colonialism or torn asunder as they yield to narrow self-interest. Indeed, the book is almost inexhaustibly
rich not just in events but in the insights and meditations it offers into human motivations, cross-cultural interactions at both impersonal
macroscopic levels as well as at the level of individual human
beings, and in the workings of the larger currents of power and
history and how they have both shaped and distorted the lives
of people over the past century and a half. Even for an Amitav Ghosh, this novel is a considerable achievement, possibly matched only by `In an Antique Land' among his earlier
works. And, although it is always risky to make such statements
about a novelist who has so much to say and is so perenially
creative and pathbreaking in his melding of generes, cultures,
themes, and periods, this novel is in the nature of a summation
of many of his deepest themes. I venture to say that, like
Michael Ondaatje's `The English Patient', this book is destined
to become a modern classic. It is also fantastically visual
and atmospheric and, given a truly gifted and perceptive
director such as the Merchant-Ivory duo, would make a wonderful movie.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I was rather disappointed in this book and have to agree that the claims on the cover were certainly misleading. From a historical viewpoint it was certainly interesting, but I found the characterisation and the leaps forward in time unsympathetic and unsettling. I even failed to be moved when my favourite character in the book (Dolly) died. However, it served as a reminder (should we need one at this time) of the futility and bleakness of war. I'm glad I read the book, and can recommend it reservedly: just don't expect "a Dr. Zhivago".
Rating:
Summary: A Little Confused
Review: I enjoyed the book on the whole, but felt that it lost its way in the middle. Ghosh uses his characters to tell the history of Burma, so if nothing interesting is happening in the country's history, then we don't get to find out anything about the characters - huge tracts of time are jumped over. The early descriptions of the jungle logging camps are excellent. I think the book needed to be longer, to give time to the flow of the narrative.
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