Shadow Lines

Rating:
Summary: Catapulted 2 different places, times at breath taking tempo!
Review: "The Shadow Lines" by Amitav Ghosh was written when the homes of the Sikhs were still smoldering, some of the most important questions the novel probes are the various faces of violence and the extent to which its fiery arms reach under the guise of fighting for freedom. Ghosh's treatment of violence in Calcutta and in Dhaka is valid even today, more than ten years after its publication. What has happened recently in Kosovo and in East Timor show that answers still evade the questions, which Ghosh poses about freedom, about the very real yet non-existing lines, which divide nations, people, and families.

The story of the family and friends of the nameless narrator who for all his anonymity comes across as if he is the person looking at you quietly from across the table by the time the story telling is over and silence descends. Before that stage arrives the reader is catapulted to different places and times at breath taking tempo. The past, present and future combine and melt together erasing any kind of line of demarcation. Such lines are present mainly in the shadows they cast. There is no point of reference to hold on to. Thus the going away - the title of the first section of the novel - becomes coming home - the title of the second section. These two titles could easily have been exchanged.

The narrator is very much like the chronicler Pimen in Pushkin's drama Boris Godonow. But unlike Pushkin's Pimen this one is not a passive witness to all that happens in his presence, and absence. The very soul of the happenings, he is the comma which separates yet connects the various clauses of life lived in Calcutta, London, Dhaka and elsewhere. The story starts about thirteen years before the birth of the narrator and ends on the night preceding his departure from London back to Delhi. He spends less than a year in London, researching for his doctorate work, but it is a London he knew very well even before he puts a step on its pavements. Two people have made London so very real to him - Tridib, the second son of his father's aunt, his real mentor and inspirer, and Ila his beautiful cousin who has traveled all over the world but has seen little compared to what the narrator has seen through his mental eye. London is also a very real place because of Tridib's and Ila's friends - Mrs. Price, her daughter May, and son Nick. Like London comes alive due to the stories related by Ila and Tridib, Dhaka comes alive because of all the stories of her childhood told to him by his incomparable grandmother who was born there. The tragedy is that though the narrator spends almost a year in London and thus has ample opportunity to come to terms with its role in his life, it is Dhaka which he never visits that affects him most by the violent drama that takes place on its roads, taking Tridib away as one of its most unfortunate victims.

Violence has many faces in this novel - it is as much present in the marriage of Ila to Nick doomed to failure even before the "yes" word was spoken, as it is present on the riot torn streets of Calcutta or Dhaka. But the specialty of this novel is that this violence is very subtle till almost the end. When violence is dealt with, the idea is not to describe it explicitly like a voyeur but to look at it to comprehend its total senselessness. Thus the way "violence" is brought into the picture is extraordinarily sensitive: The narrator says, talking of the day riots tore Calcutta apart in 1964, "I opened my mouth to answer and found I had nothing to say. All I could have told them was of the sound of voices running past the walls of my school, and of a glimpse of a mob in Park Circus." I have never experienced such a sound, but God, how these sentences get under the skin, how easy it is to hear that sound, how the heart beats faster on reading these sentences!

Ghosh is also a humorous writer. It is serious humor. Single words hide a wealth of meaning, for example, the way Tridib's father is always referred to as Shaheb, Ila's mother as Queen Victoria, or the way the grandmother's sister always remains Mayadebi without any suffix denoting the relationship. Also look at this passage that describes how the grandmother reacts on discovering that her old Jethamoshai is living with a Muslim family in Dhaka is outstanding and must be read to enjoy

The main characters are very real, almost perfectly rounded. I specially love the grandmother. She is the grandmother many of us recognize. In her fierce moral standards, Spartan outlook of life, and intolerance of any nonsense - real and imagined, she is as real as any patriarch or matriarch worth the name. And there is this very loveable character of the narrator. It is that of a boy who warms your heart, it is that of a man who knows and has lost love - more than once in his life - and thus makes you feel like hugging him close to your heart.

Some of the most important questions the novel probes are the various faces of violence and the extent to which its fiery arms reach under the guise of fighting for freedom. Ghosh's treatment of violence in Calcutta and in Dhaka is valid even today, more than ten years after its publication. What has happened recently in Kosovo and in East Timor show that answers still evade the modern world. On all scores, Ghosh's novel is excellent reading and would make a very impressive film. Excellent Must Read!

Rating:
Summary: Ghosh's best
Review: A wonderfully nostalgic tale of growing up in Calcutta, going to college in London, and unrequited love in between.

Also depicts the tragedy of the Indian Hindu-Muslim riots of the sixties. Read it!

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant in parts
Review: amitav ghosh, in his inimitable style, confronted me with sentences and ideas that had me putting the book down, and staring out of my window at the wind in the trees and the clouds in the sky.

Rating:
Summary: unpretentious and very real
Review: having read shadow lines i know that it is definately a book i can recommend to others as a good read.the story of a bengali boy and his family told sometimes through a child's point of view and sometimes through an adults,this book tackles several issues without cluttering the original story.the characters are real and each with a quirk that makes us warm up to them.
Ghosh sometimes tends to loose his way and you end up wishing that if only he would come to the point instead of blurring the lines further it would be a relief but the style of narration ,the substance and the subtlety with which he tackles the sensitive issues of partition make the novel a book you would want to read more than once.

Rating:
Summary: Not upto par
Review: I wanted to read this book as it was being praised as a 'great partition novel' and I had previously read a couple of novels set during the independence of bangladesh. However, this book turned out to be more of a love story, with very little mention of the partition of Bangladesh almost till the very end. However for the most part, it's a well written novel.

Rating:
Summary: mind blowing!
Review: If I have to name the singlemost life altering reading experience, The Shadow Lines will be it. Given the present political situation, every Indian with even half a claim at intelligence must read this book. But despite its grounding in politics and history, the story is a most personal account of a little boy's life who drifts back and forth between Calcutta and Dhaka...and his journey where he encounters lines and barriers of all kinds, only to find that they're all but...shadow lines. Amitav Ghosh writes with a flair and a command over the language that most other authors can only dream of.

Rating:
Summary: A journey into Calcutta that will make you think.
Review: The novel "The Shadow Lines" by Amitav Gosh paints a picture of symbolism and realism that covers both time and space. The title itself is an example of symbolism and realism. From the image conscious character of the grandmother to the riots that takes place in the streets, the author Gosh takes the reader on a fascinating journey of exploration. He takes apart the characters of the story while doing so to the human race. The title of the novel `The Shadow Lines" is the best statement Gosh makes. To state that "The Shadow Lines," or the lines that not only define our human shape but our inner struggles to choose between dark and light, and plays a major part of all human existence. Gosh uses shadow lines as a way of telling us that the way we view ourselves is not always the way that others view us, and until we can get a deeper understanding of ourselves we will remain in the shadows of our enlightenment. The author Amitav Gosh was born in Calcutta in 1956. He grew up in Bangladesh then East Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Iran and India. "The Shadow Lines" is his second book published in 1988. This book opened up eyes to know how it must be like to live in India with your entire family under one roof and the joys and pain that can bring.

Rating:
Summary: A journey into Calcutta that will make you think.
Review: The novel "The Shadow Lines" by Amitav Gosh paints a picture of symbolism and realism that covers both time and space. The title itself is an example of symbolism and realism. From the image conscious character of the grandmother to the riots that takes place in the streets, the author Gosh takes the reader on a fascinating journey of exploration. He takes apart the characters of the story while doing so to the human race. The title of the novel 'The Shadow Lines" is the best statement Gosh makes. To state that "The Shadow Lines," or the lines that not only define our human shape but our inner struggles to choose between dark and light, and plays a major part of all human existence. Gosh uses shadow lines as a way of telling us that the way we view ourselves is not always the way that others view us, and until we can get a deeper understanding of ourselves we will remain in the shadows of our enlightenment. The author Amitav Gosh was born in Calcutta in 1956. He grew up in Bangladesh then East Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Iran and India. "The Shadow Lines" is his second book published in 1988. This book opened up eyes to know how it must be like to live in India with your entire family under one roof and the joys and pain that can bring.

Rating:
Summary: Absolutely Amazing
Review: The Shadow Lines is a book so beautiful that it has the power of being life-altering. It examines and delves into national, familial and personal issues with equal delicacy and insight. "Shadow Lines" is a reference to the hazy lines of division between nations that are erected by human beings, the books talks about how easy it is to transcend them - this can cause confusion but also bring peace.
The characters are people the readers can totally relate to, as are the circumstances and events in their lives. All of this is handled with the most expert writing skill and command over the English language.
The book is thus, by far not only the most mature of Amitav Ghosh's writing, but also one of the greatest works of Indian fiction.