Flood of Fire

Ibis Trilogy #3

by Amitav Ghosh

It is 1839 and tension has been rapidly mounting between China and British India following the crackdown on opium smuggling by Beijing. With no resolution in sight, the colonial government declares war.

One of the vessels requisitioned for the attack, the Hind, travels eastwards from Bengal to China, sailing into the midst of the First Opium War. The turbulent voyage brings together a diverse group of travellers, each with their own agenda to pursue. Among them is Kesri Singh, a sepoy in the East India Company who leads a company of Indian sepoys; Zachary Reid, an impoverished young sailor searching for his lost love, and Shireen Modi, a determined widow en route to China to reclaim her opium-trader husband's wealth and reputation. Flood of Fire follows a varied cast of characters from India to China, through the outbreak of the First Opium War and China's devastating defeat, to Britain's seizure of Hong Kong.

THIS IS THE U.S. EDITION

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, India, China, Historical, Asia, Indian Literature

624 pages, Hardcover

First published May 26, 2015

About the author

Amitav Ghosh is an Indian writer. He won the 54th Jnanpith award in 2018, India's highest literary honour. Ghosh's ambitious novels use complex narrative strategies to probe the nature of national and personal identity, particularly of the people of India and South Asia. He has written historical fiction and non-fiction works discussing topics such as colonialism and climate change.
Ghosh studied at The Doon School, Dehradun, and earned a doctorate in social anthropology at the University of Oxford. He worked at the Indian Express newspaper in New Delhi and several academic institutions. His first novel, The Circle of Reason, was published in 1986, which he followed with later fictional works, including The Shadow Lines and The Glass Palace. Between 2004 and 2015, he worked on the Ibis trilogy, which revolves around the build-up and implications of the First Opium War. His non-fiction work includes In an Antique Land (1992) and The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable (2016).
Ghosh holds two Lifetime Achievement awards and four honorary doctorates. In 2007, he was awarded the Padma Shri, one of India's highest honours, by the President of India. In 2010, he was a joint winner, along with Margaret Atwood, of a Dan David prize, and in 2011, he was awarded the Grand Prix of the Blue Metropolis festival in Montreal. He was the first English-language writer to receive the award. In 2019, Foreign Policy magazine named him one of the most important global thinkers of the preceding decade.

Reviews

[Arah-Lynda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chasing the dragon is an art, you know- it must be done properly.

I have been thinking about this trilogy almost exclusively since I turned the last page in this epic journey and truth be told I confess I feel somewhat less than equal to the task of writing a review that will in any way do justice to this amazing work. Just thinking about the scope of this piece of history is highly intimidating. Ghosh himself says that he feels as though he has only scratched the surface, perhaps written a few chapters about what happened and why, in a time and place in history that still very much affects international relations in our world to this very day. And no doubt will continue to shape our future. That is heady stuff!

So let’s just talk about this, the last offering in The Ibis Trilogy. Readers of the first two books in this series will be pleased to know that although Flood of Fire only covers in brief the first opium war, how the Chinese lost Hong Kong and the British raid on Canton, closure can be found here for all the characters we have come to know and care about since Sea of Poppies.

We are also introduced in more depth to, some lesser known players from the first two parts of this trilogy.

As opposed to listing all the characters and their contribution to this story I feel the need at this point to talk about just one of them and the profound change these historic events that he finds himself muddled in, have on his character. I am talking of course about Zachary Reid. I met him first as the mulatto son of a Maryland freedwoman who joins the crew of the Ibis as it sets sail from Baltimore bound for Calcutta. Based on his own personal, ancestral history and the impact that knowledge has on how others view and treat him, Zachary understands all too well the value in keeping some things secret. Over the course of this trilogy Zachary’s character and moral code are frequently and mightily put to the test, but none more so than in Flood of Fire. If ever there was a character that I loved to love and loved to hate in almost equal measure Zachary Reid fills that bill. I applaud Amitav Ghosh’s undeniable skill in this complex character creation.

Without revealing too much there are some sections here that deal with Victorian society’s views at that time on the sin of masturbation. How to cure such a nasty habit and the consequences of not nipping this disgusting practice in the bud, as it were. I found it all quite amusing and more than a little disturbing, not to mention hypocritical. Kind of like the pot calling the kettle black or the British defending their right to bring copious amounts of raw opium into China even though that very same drug is illegal to trade within their own country.

And there it is. At the very heart of this story……..opium and the staggering amount of wealth and destruction this little flower; the poppy, commands.


How was it possible that a small number of men, in the span of a few hours or minutes, could decide the fate of millions of people yet unborn? How was it possible that the outcome of those brief moments could determine who would rule whom, who would be rich or poor, master or servant, for generations to come?
Nothing could be a greater injustice, yet such had been the reality since human beings first walked the earth.

Bravo Mr. Ghosh! Since knowledge is power, I can only hope you write more about this and that many people, who one day may have an impact on how this all plays out in the future, take the time to read your words.

[Kate Vane · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved the first two books in the Ibis trilogy and there is much to admire in this one, but I have to admit that I struggled at times to get through it.

The positives first. It’s a brilliantly researched account of events leading up to the First Opium War, showing the perspectives of characters from around the world, in particular Britain, India and China. It gives anyone unfamiliar with events a great insight into the period and the places. It shows, in particular, the paradoxical position which the Indian participants find themselves in, invaluable to both camps, but not quite at home in either.

Characters from the earlier books find themselves on opposite sides, for entirely intelligible reasons. The author raises important questions about ethnicity, identity and the rampant march of capital, which resonate today.

Where I felt a little let down was in the storytelling. I missed the humour of the earlier books, and the inventiveness of the language as characters from different cultures and classes were thrown together. Some of the characters’ storylines felt a little soapy (particularly Zachary’s) and others, like Shireen, a bit prosaic. Other plot lines relied on coincidence.

The battle scenes were very long and the amount of detail seemed to deaden rather than enhance the drama. It also felt like the author himself might have been overwhelmed by the amount of exposition. Neel’s narration in the early stages of the book takes the form of a journal, which is very dry and limiting as he writes mainly about the political and military situation. This is abruptly abandoned part way through and the author returns to a conventional third-person narration.

It might be that the weight of expectation was too much. And I’m now familiar with the world of the trilogy that felt so vivid and fresh when I first encountered it. But for me this book didn’t have the magic of the first two.

[Doug Bradshaw · Rating 5 out of 5]

I feel honored and privileged to have read the Ibis trilogy. The first two books were harder for me, they took more focus and re-reading of certain sentences and sequences. But perhaps reading Amitav Ghosh is a bit of a learned skill, something you get better at and enjoy more the more you experience it. I give the series my highest rating and walk away with that ultra fond and somewhat sad feeling in my gut that it is over.

Flood of Fire turns an interesting bit of the history of the opium trade in China and China's relationship to the British merchants and government in the 1830s to 40s, into a profound and scary revelation of the power of both greed and addiction caused by opiates. We learn through several of the characters that the addiction to opium takes two forms, the actual users of opium, perhaps less addicted than those who push the sale of it and then live on its huge profits. The attack of the British Navy and Marines on the Chinese is very similar to other holocausts. But it didn't seem to me that the author was preaching or crying. He just wanted to make sure that we knew what happened and why.

But it's the individual characters and their stories that make the book immensely readable and enjoyable. There are several nice romances, there always has to be a little adultery, doesn't there? How about murder, injustice, the strong beating the weak, the arrogance of the wealthy and the captain who can't be bribed? There is a little section about the problems of onanism and certain addictions and cures and pamphlets of the time telling of this particular problem that I found absolutely hilarious. Some of you may need to read that part quickly.

Two of the primary characters have never tried opium and the descriptions of their experiences with it were top notch.

In the end, there is heartbreak, death, a few hopeful situations and several more stories to be told. But a realistic story, well told and a better feeling to the whole region including the story of how Hong Kong became part of Great Britain.

Ghosh, don't feel obligated to stop because you called it a trilogy. Let's keep this going. In about a year, I'm going to re-read the whole trilogy and enjoy it again. I can't wait to hear what you think.

[Kevin (the Conspiracy is Capitalism) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finale of the Opium Trade triangle (Britain-India-China) trilogy…

Preamble:
--For context, see reviews of Book 1 (Sea of Poppies) and Book 2 (River of Smoke).
--My high impatience with fiction was starting to emerge by Book 2 given the increase of characters and intersecting relationships. This trilogy finale revitalized the story by introducing some memorable and unexpected characters.
--The trilogy finishes with the beginning of the First Opium War; looking back on the trilogy, I am reminded of special passages on China by David Graeber in Debt: The First 5,000 Years. I say “special” for several reasons:
i) Graeber is a self-proclaimed “anarchist”, yet these passages display his range in unpacking real-world contradictions, including large-scale geopolitics/world-systems analysis.
ii) I started reading this Graeber book during my first return to China as an adult, and it was one of the first books to spark my social imagination beyond status quo assumptions.

--Graeber lays out the world-systems context (Asia-Europe-Americas) with all its contradictory relationships (bold emphases added):

Now, since Roman times, Europe had been exporting gold and silver to the East [esp. China/India]: the problem was that Europe had never produced much of anything that Asians wanted to buy, so it was forced to pay in specie [coin money] for silks, spices, steel, and other imports. The early years of European [colonial] expansion were largely attempts to gain access either to Eastern luxuries or to new sources of gold and silver with which to pay for them. […]

The conquest of Mexico and Peru led to the discovery of enormous new sources of precious metal, and these were exploited ruthlessly and systematically, even to the point of largely exterminating the surrounding populations to extract as much precious metal as quickly as possible. […]

By 1540, a silver glut caused a collapse in prices across Europe; the American mines would, at this point, simply have stopped functioning, and the entire project of American colonization foundered, had it not been for the demand from China. […] This Asian trade became the single most significant factor in the emerging global economy, and those who ultimately controlled the financial levers—particularly Italian, Dutch, and German merchant bankers—became fantastically rich.

…This brings us to a passage from Book 2, revealing the function of Britain’s Opium Trade in the world-system's reversal from Asian markets to European imperialism:

‘Since the middle years of the last century, the demand for Chinese tea has grown at such a pace in Britain and America that it is now the principal source of profit for the East India Company. The taxes on it account for fully one-tenth of Britain’s revenues. If one adds to this such goods as silk, porcelain and lacquerware it becomes clear that the European demand for Chinese products is insatiable. In China, on the other hand, there is little interest in European exports - the Chinese are a people who believe that their own products, like their food and their own customs, are superior to all others. In years past this presented a great problem for the British, for the flow of trade was so unequal that there was an immense outpouring of silver from Britain. This indeed was why they started to export Indian opium to China.’

Glancing over his shoulder, the General raised an eyebrow: ‘Started? Commence? You mean this trade has not always existed?’

‘No, Majesty - the trade was a mere trickle until about sixty years ago, when the East India Company adopted it as a means of rectifying the outflow of bullion [i.e. silver]. They succeeded so well that now the supply can barely keep pace with the demand. The flow of silver is now completely reversed, and it pours away from China to Britain, America and Europe.’

…We can return to Graeber to re-contextualize China’s state market system vs. British capitalism:

We are used to thinking of such bureaucratic interventions [China’s long history of government policies in response to social protests: official commissions of inquiry, regional debt relief, cheap grain loans, famine relief, laws against the selling of children] —particularly the monopolies and regulations—as state restriction on “the market”—owing to the prevailing prejudice that sees markets as quasi-natural phenomena that emerge by themselves, and governments as having no role other than to squelch or siphon from them. I have repeatedly pointed out how mistaken this is, but China provides a particularly striking example. The Confucian state may have been the world’s greatest and most enduring bureaucracy, but it actively promoted markets, and as a result, commercial life in China soon became far more sophisticated, and markets more developed, than anywhere else in the world.

This despite the fact that Confucian orthodoxy was overtly hostile to merchants and even the profit motive itself. Commercial profit was seen as legitimate only as compensation for the labor that merchants expended in transporting goods from one place to another, but never as fruits of speculation. What this meant in practice was that they were pro-market but anti-capitalist.

Again, this seems bizarre, since we’re used to assuming that capitalism and markets are the same thing, but, as the great French historian Fernand Braudel pointed out, in many ways they could equally well be conceived as opposites. While markets are ways of exchanging goods through the medium of money—historically, ways for those with a surplus of grain to acquire candles and vice versa (in economic shorthand, C-M-C’, for commodity-money-other commodity)—capitalism for Braudel is first and foremost the art of using money to get more money (M-C-M’) [originally from Marx’s Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume 1]. Normally, the easiest way to do this is by establishing some kind of formal or de facto monopoly. For this reason, capitalists, whether merchant princes, financiers, or industrialists, invariably try to ally themselves with political authorities to limit the freedom of the market, so as to make it easier for them to do so. From this perspective, China was for most of its history the ultimate anti-capitalist market state. Unlike later European princes, Chinese rulers systematically refused to team up with would-be Chinese capitalists (who always existed). Instead, like their officials, they saw them as destructive parasites—though, unlike the usurers, ones whose fundamentally selfish and antisocial motivations could still be put to use in certain ways. In Confucian terms, merchants were like soldiers. Those drawn to a career in the military were assumed to be driven largely by a love of violence. As individuals, they were not good people, but they were also necessary to defend the frontiers. Similarly, merchants were driven by greed and basically immoral; yet if kept under careful administrative supervision, they could be made to serve the public good. Whatever one might think of the principles, the results are hard to deny. For most of its history, China maintained the highest standard of living in the world—even England only really overtook it in perhaps the 1820s, well past the time of the Industrial Revolution. [British East India Company established rule in India in 1757, with the Opium Trade reversing trade relations with China by 1800s and a complete collapse of Asia’s state market system by 1839 First Opium War/subsequent Unequal Treaties]

--A final distinction on markets vs. capitalism: capitalism features 3 peculiar markets of labour/land/money. Since humans/nature/purchasing power are not “real commodities” (i.e. not actually “produced” for market exchange), buying/selling these “fictitious commodities” on labour/land/money markets have anti-social consequences (intro: Talking to My Daughter About the Economy: or, How Capitalism Works—and How It Fails).

Highlights:
--Onto Book 3… We conclude the trilogy with the remainder of the glorious “free trade” quotes, with increasing relations to war:

Their district had been seized by the East India Company a long time ago, but in the beginning the annexation had made little difference and things had gone on much as usual. But with the passage of time the Company had begun to interfere in matters that previous rulers had never meddled with – like crops and harvests for example. In recent years the Company’s opium factory in Ghazipur had started to send out hundreds of agents – arkatis and sadar mattus – to press loans on farmers, so that they would plant poppies in the autumn. They said these loans were meant to cover the costs of the crop and they always promised that there would be handsome profits after the harvest. But when the time came the opium factory often changed its prices, depending on how good the crop had been that year. Since growers were not allowed to sell to anyone but the factory, they often ended up making a loss and getting deeper into debt. Ram Singh knew of several men who had been ruined in this way.

Of late the Company had even tried to interfere in the job market, taking steps to discourage men from joining any army but their own. For Ram Singh, as for many others, this was even more objectionable than meddling with their crops. That anyone should assert an exclusive claim to their service was an astonishing idea: few things were as important to them as their right to work for whoever offered the best terms. It was not uncommon for brothers and cousins to take jobs in different armies: if they happened to meet in battle, it was assumed that each man would do his duty and fight loyally for his leader, having ‘eaten his salt’.

[…]

To Zachary’s surprise there were no goods on display: he was at a loss to understand what exactly was being bought and sold – and it didn’t help much when Baboo Nob Kissin explained that this was not a bazar for opium as such; rather it was a place in which people traded in something unseen and unknown: the prices that opium would fetch in the future, near or distant [financial speculation!]. In this bazar there were only two commodities and both were pieces of paper – chitties or letters. One kind was called tazi-chitty or ‘fresh letter’; the other kind was mandi-chitty – ‘bazar letter’. Buyers who thought that the price of opium would go up at the next auction would buy tazi-chitties; those who thought it would go down would buy mandi-chitties. But similar chitties could be written to cover any period of time – a month, a year or five years. Every day, said Baboo Nob Kissin, lakhs, crores, millions of rupees passed through this bazar – there was more wealth here than in any market in Asia. [Recall the Graeber passages on (1) traditional markets being C-M-C commodity exchange vs. capitalism being M-C-M’ using money to make more money, and (2) China being an anti-capitalist (against merchant’s profit motive and especially speculation) market state.]

[…]

‘With the Company there is even more reason for pride, since the British are purifying Hindustan. For thousands of years everything in this land has declined and degenerated; people have become so mixed that you cannot tell them apart. Under the British everyone is kept separate, each with their own kind – the whites are with the whites and we are left to ourselves. They are the true defenders of caste, Ram Singhji, and if you have any thought of your son’s dharma you will send him to us. [Divide-and-rule is the foundation of colonial/imperialist rule]

‘But dharma is not just a matter of rules,’ Ram Singh objected. ‘We are Rajputs and for us our worth, our maryada, lies in how we show our courage. No man can be a true warrior in the gora paltan – valour and skill count for nothing with them. Why, during the Battle of Assaye some of our best fighters went forward and challenged the enemy to send their bahadurs, for single combat. Do you know, not one man stepped out from the Company’s ranks? There was not one man in their entire army who was brave enough to be a real bahadur! Even though most of their sepoys were Hindustanis, like us, they had lost both honour and courage, izzat and himmat, after joining the Company’s army. Even we were ashamed for them.’

A smile appeared on Bhyro Singh’s face. ‘But Ram Singhji,’ he said, in a silky voice: ‘Tell me, who won at Assaye?’

Unable to think of a retort, Ram Singh hung his head.

Bhyro Singh’s smirk widened: ‘The old ways of fighting may have been good for making heroes and bahadurs, Ram Singhji, but they didn’t always win wars. And that’s the thing with the English way of fighting – it does not depend on heroes. The Company’s army is not made up of a great number of bahadurs: the whole army fights like a single brave warrior. That is why people speak of the ‘Company Bahadur’. The entire army is like one man, one body, obeying a single head; every Company sepoy has to learn this by doing drills. Everyone has to obey the one above him, right to the very top. No one can ever refuse to follow orders or he will be shot. It is not like our Hindustani armies, which are made up of men whose main loyalty is to the sardar who pays them – and if that sardar takes a bribe they will all go off with him. Our Angrez officers understand this very well, and before every battle they send the baniyas to offer bribes to the sardars of the other armies. Almost always it happens that three or four of them accept, and then they either ride away or they stand aside during the fighting. Isn’t it true that this is what happened at Assaye?’

‘Yes,’ said Ram Singh. ‘It cannot be denied. But that wasn’t the only reason the Angrez army won. They had better cannon than us. Better bundooks too.’

‘Exactly!’ said Bhyro Singh. ‘Unlike our Hindustani rajas and nawabs, the Angrezes are always studying and making changes. Every year their cannon get better and better. They are always looking to make improvements in their weapons and they don’t allow anything to get in the way of that.’

[Susan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some books just get better for the long wait, alas Flood of Fire is not one of those. It would be better named a mouldy puchka, full of stale jal jira. It seems that the author lost all interest in his characters, and hated the setting as well. The ship, Ibis, so potent a metaphor for the journey metaphor in the Odysseyian model, turned into a lame duck that barely quacks in tune.
What went wrong? Amitav Ghosh forgot who he was, and who the characters were. For example, in this book, he casts Zachary Reid and Cathy Burnham into a tawdry 50 Shades affair, that has no love, no reason and a very meaningless relationship that destroys Cathy and Mee - who have for some unexplained reason, maintained a teenage passion through 20 years or more. By the end, quite frankly I didn't care what happened to either of them. neither did I care much about the corruption of Reid, or even Ah Fatt, both of whom I cared about once. Paulette is a pale distant figure and Deeti is a far off mirage. Shireen tries to come to the party, but again, I couldn't care much for her, and her metamorphosis into a shrewd manipulator is unbelievable.
Much of the book is battle after battle, again, give me Bernard Cornwell or even, sacrilegiously, Rudyard Kipling for that. The writing of the action is very third party player, at no time did it drag you into the battle, again, because the characters are so weakly portrayed, the only time I nearly wept was when the little fifer Dicky is killed.
The wait has been so long, and the links to the earlier action, so poorly done, that it took some concentration to reconnect, and then, the author hasn't bridged the gap despite my readiness to jump back in the rich worlds created in the previous books. What happened? I think the author fell out of love with the characters, and wanted to put as much distance as he could between himself and them. Even as a stand alone novel, it doesn't have the grip of The Glass Palace or The Hungry Tide.
The book is well researched, but then, I wasn't looking for research, but for a good tale and closure for all the questions left unanswered.

[Jaya · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ah in hindsight, I might have been a bit too harsh and and hasty in my rating....
Re-rated to 3 stars


2.15 stars
Well...I wished for a grand conclusion for the Ibis Trilogy . The age old adage of be careful of what you wish for came true.
The story was grand indeed so much so that with elements of cliches, coincidences, events that were fantastical to epic proportions, this book reads like a daily soap opera (or a bollywood film?)
Without going into details, the Flood of Fire is perhaps the most disappointing book that I have read in this year till now. After waiting for a couple of years, since the last book was released, this was definitely NOT what I was hoping and looking forward to. Disheartened is what I am, it does not feel that this is the same author who wrote Sea of Poppies or The Hungry Tide.

My ratings are only for the historical facts (which were way less as compared to the previous books) that formed the background of the story.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Seems like I've been waiting for this book for way too long.

Now that I have read it, I was not disappointed. The detail and language is mesmerizing. The portrayal of British colonialism and relationships between the British and Indian people is fascinating. And the lengths that the British government would go to protect the opium dealers' business is shameful.

I still enjoyed River of Smoke best of the three books, for its imagining of life in Canton China.

[Майя Ставитская · Rating 4 out of 5]

Everyone knows that Hong Kong is a very special Chinese territory. Many people have heard about the Opium Wars and the Nanking Treaty. But a coherent picture in which the first, second and third are connected by a clear causal relationship is more the prerogative of specialists in the history of Southeast Asia and/or international law. Flood of Fire brings this information out of a highly specialized area into the public domain in the best traditions of an adventurous novel.

The third and final part of the "Ibis Trilogy", about which for some reason I thought that it would all be just a prehistory of the Opium Wars. I was wrong, at least in part one (there were two of them, the Qing Empire was defeated in both and actually ceased to exist). Today's China is largely the fruit of the circumstances of the six years during which these events unfolded.

But in order. The mid-1830s was the time when the British colonization of India built a clear scheme for the operation of the colony, from which tea, fruits, valuable wood species, spices were formally transported, but in fact, the main export item was raw opium. Agricultural crops were squeezed out of the fields of peasants in Northern India by targeted lending, opium poppy was cultivated instead. I talked about this in more detail when I wrote about the "Poppy Sea".

Огненный поток
Как могло случиться, что кучка людей в течение нескольких часов или минут решает судьбу миллионов? Что исход этих мгновений определяет на многие поколения вперед, кто будет править, кто будет богатым или б��дным, хозяином или слугой?
О том, что Гонконг очень особая китайская территория, знают все. Об Опиумных войнах и Нанкинском договоре слышали многие. Но связная картина, в которой первое, второе и третье соединены четкой причинно-следственной связью, в большей степени прерогатива специалистов по истории Юго-Восточной Азии и/или международному праву. Flood of Fire выводит эту информацию из узкоспециальной области в общедоступную в лучших традициях авантюрного романа.

Третья, завершающая часть "Ибисной трилогии",о которой я отчего-то думала, что вся она будет лишь предысторией Опиумных войн. Ошибалась, по крайней мере, в части первой (их было две, Цинская империя потерпела в обих поражение и фактически перестала существовать). Нынешний Китай во-многом пл��д обстоятельств тех шести лет, в течение которых разворачивались эти события.

Но по порядку. Середина 1830-х была временем, когда британская колонизация Индии выстроила четкую схему эксплуатации колонии, из которой формально везли чай, фрукты, ценные породы дерева, специи, но фактически, основной экспортной статьей был опий-сырец. С полей крестьян Северной Индии целевым кредитованием выдавливались сельскохозяйственные культуры, вместо них культивировался опийный мак. Об этом я подробнее рассказывала, когда писала о "Маковом море".

С перерабатывающей фабрики в Гуджарате он отправлялся по миру. В большинстве европейских стран оборот производных опийной камеди регулировался с той или иной степенью строгости, но на транзитном пути лежал огромный рынок сбыта - Поднебесная, где курение опия было запрещена, однако при содействии коррумпированного чиновничества, контрабанда достигла объемов, при которых наркозависимость сделалась массовой, а подвержены ей оказались представители самых разных слоев общества: студенты, монахи, домохозяйки, мандарины.

В этих условиях император забил тревогу и пытаясь ужесточить меры по противодействию борьбой против контрабанды, значительный запас сырца был конфискован и уничтожен, а промышлявшим ею купцам, в основном английским, хотя были среди них индийцы-парсы, запретили въезд в страну. Об этом более подробно в рецензии на "Дымную реку".

И вот, третья книга трилогии Амитава Гоша об опиумной войне, об Индии и Китае, о производителях, торговцах, потребителях опия и тех, кто пытался с ним бороться, о моряках и солдатах, о художниках и ученых, о народе сикхов, традиционно поставлявшем наемников, о любви и преданности, о подлости и предательстве, об ужасной боли и невыносимом счастье — в общем, о королях и о капусте.

Итак, разоренный и пристрастившийся с горя к курению купец Бахрам Бей покончил с собой и похоронен на Гонконге, семье его приходит известие о том, что они разорены. Впрочем, разорение богатых совсем не то, что последний кусок, или сотня до зарплаты у бедных. Ходят слухи, что китайцы даже выплатят компенсацию за конфискованный и утопленный опий, потому что затронуты интересы могущественного союзника - Англии.

Но на дворе середина девятнадцатого века, представлять интересы купца должен кровный родственник мужского пола, а сыновей Бахрам-ага не оставил, только дочери. Тут-то и выясняется, что родной сын у большого человека таки-был. Да, я про А-Фаня, известного также,как Фредди. Вдова Ширин, в жизни не покидавшая пределов дома, должна решить: смириться с обстоятельствами или облачиться в европейское платье и отправиться в Гонконг, чтобы почтить могилу, и, может быть, разыскать пасынка. о котором ничего не знала.

Раджа Нил, утратив должность со смертью работодателя, перебивается случайными заработками и пока еще не знает, что к нему, сквозь тысячи опасностей, пробирается маленький сын. Захария Рейд, которого в мы оставили ожидающим суда по обвинению в содействии побегу, переживет множество приключений. о которых я не могу сейчас рассказывать, чтобы не испортить вам впечатления от книги, когда появится ее русский перевод. Однако поверьте, линия Захарии будет не только замечательно интересной, но и насмеетесь с ней вдоволь.

Полетт, оставленная нами в Гонконге, где она занимается обустройством питомника растений для Хорька, переживет интересные встречи и обретет новый, не всегда приятный, порой пугающий, опыт. А еще, здесь мы познакомимся с родным братом Дити, Кисри, воине сикхе. Узнаем о нравах и обычаях представителей этого народа (может быть вы знаете историю Индии достаточно хорошо и помните, что Индира Ганди была убита своими охранниками, сикхами). И конечно, будет множество описаний сражений, на море и на суше, потому что это война, дети.

Все время ловила себя на ощущении, что нахожусь примерно в том эмоциональном состоянии, в каком в детстве читала мушкетерскую трилогию Дюма. Та же смесь доверия к созданным авторской фантазией персонажам, жгучего интереса к истории, восторга мастерски заплетенной интригой с ощущением, что в тебя исподволь входит огромный массив знаний о вещах необязательных, но отныне они часть тебя. И в мире тебя на эту часть больше,

Великая трилогия, отличный завершающий аккорд, я буду держать кулаки за Александра Сафронова, его перевод первой книги "Маковое море" номинирован на Ясную поляну-2022 и очень надеюсь, что скоро Фантом подарит нам перевод Flood of Fire.

[Marianne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Flood of Fire is the third and final book in the Ibis Trilogy by Amitav Ghosh. Where readers of River of Smoke may have wondered what happened to the major players in Sea of Poppies, those questions are answered by Flood of Fire. Characters from both previous books reappear, along with new characters. Neel continues his account of events, much of it in the form of a journal. Zachary Reid has a narrative role, as do Kesri Singh, older brother of Deeti, and Shireen Moddie, widow of Bahram. Well into the tale, the voice of a young boy, Raju, is added.

While a newly exonerated but penniless Zachary tries to put his life back together, Neel uses his linguistic talents to help the Chinese war effort. Kesri heads a team of sepoys who form part of the fighting force on the English side, and Shireen heads to Canton in an attempt to gain compensation for Bahram’s lost opium cargo. Once again, the Ibis seems to draw the characters to her. As the Ibis, Anahita and Hind converge on the Pearl River Delta, many of the characters from Sea of Poppies and River of Smoke find themselves in close quarters.

Against a background of the battles of the First Opium War, Ghosh demonstrates the depth of research done (which he attributes to his ancestor) in the detail he provides on a multitude of topics: the composition of fighting forces involved in the wars, what comprised their uniforms, the important role of the army followers, the restrictions on travel into Canton, the power of translators, Victorian sex therapy, futures trading in the nineteenth century, and, of course, the Opium Wars. He includes a wealth of information in easily digestible form by weaving the facts into an absorbing tale full of interesting characters.

Ghosh also gives the reader plenty of humour: he subjects poor Zachary to all kinds of indignities and gives the reader plenty of laughs at his expense. Who knew there were so many euphemisms for sexual terms in Victorian times? Double entendre and innuendo abound. Reunions, too, are plentiful, some less friendly than others. There are dramatic battles, more than a few deaths, a marriage proposal, quite a bit of impersonation, some secret assignations, and an act of piracy. Characters develop, but not all for the better.

In his Epilogue, Ghosh explains that the story could continue, but having spent ten years on the trilogy thus far, and unwilling to abbreviate the tale as would not do it justice, he leaves it with, what no doubt many readers will feel, much unsaid. The final moments of the main story hold a delightful twist that will have many readers laughing out loud. At over six hundred pages, this may be a brick, but it is a brilliant read.
With thanks to The Reading Room and Hachette for this copy to read and review.

[Nancy Oakes · Rating 5 out of 5]

The long version is here at my online reading journal.

****

I think I can honestly say that I have never read a better series of historical fiction novels than Ghosh's Ibis Trilogy. The series starts with opium farmers in India and ends with the gunboat diplomacy that forced China to open its ports to British trade and to accept a series of unequal treaties. The trilogy as a whole is an amazing critique of colonialism/imperialism, all the while exploring how the financial windfall of the opium trade helped to change individuals, families, communities, nations, diplomacy and international relations and left effects that linger on into our modern world. To say this trilogy is epic in proportion is no understatement, but it is so compelling that waiting for the publication of the third installment was sheer torture. I read somewhere that Flood of Fire can be read as a standalone novel, but I have to disagree here -- there is an incredible richness of depth that exists when you read all three novels, plus there are recurring characters whose lives intertwine over the space of all three books.

When we left River of Smoke, tensions between the Chinese and the opium traders had reached a fever pitch, ending with the confiscation and destruction of all opium from traders and merchants. This act sets the scene for Flood of Fire, where with so much money at stake and a demand for "free" trade, the efforts of one empire to repel another turns into full-blown conflict which ultimately changes the world map. The smaller stories that take place within the bigger picture reveal exactly how the lives, loyalties, and fortunes of both men and women changed during this period of time, all told from various perspectives of the characters who lives play out within this very broad sweep of history.

Flood of Fire is the perfect ending to a perfect series; although I'm incredibly sad it's over, the trilogy is one set of books I will NEVER forget. I doubt there has been anything like it before and I know that there will not be anything like it again. I definitely recommend this book and its predecessors to anyone who enjoys quality historical fiction, excellent writing, and a great story. It is absolutely magnificent, highly intelligent, superb, and all manner of superlatives.

[Ahtims · Rating 3 out of 5]

This last, much awaited installment of the IBIS trilogy was a disappointment. The book started off well, but at around 20%, the story assumed weird pornographic proportions involving Zachary Reid, one of my favorite character of book 1, who was completely absent in book 2 (except perhaps for a couple of passing mentions), and was supposed to play a major role in book 3.
He played a major role, but not in. a way which I dethroned. He turned out to be a Lothario, who later metamorphosised into an opportunistic villain.
Paulette had only a small role in this book.
Stars of the show were Shireen, the grieving widow of Behram, Cathy (Mrs. Burnham - the lady of the manor turned vamp turned kindhearted lady), and Kesri, Deeti's elder brother who suddenly emerged as a major character. Tami alias Raj Rattan, Neel's son also joins the melee.
The narrative was a shocker with plots suited to daily soaps, and I missed the usual elegance and magic , which is signature Ghosh.
If there was a 4th installment I wouldn't have been too keen to proceed.

[Cheenu · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was disappointing after the first two.

The story seems to be more focused on closure and, consequently, there were just too many characters in this book.

To start with, you have pretty much all the characters introduced in the previous two books. On top of that, new characters are introduced.

But their purpose seems to be to facilitate the movement of the story rather than to enrich the novel. There isn't enough time or attention devoted to particular characters in contrast to the prequels.

Maybe the author's objective was to zoom out and instead of focus on the absurdity and wastefulness of war. Which, to be fair to him, does quite well. It's just what made the prequels so good were the depth of its protagonists.

I give it three stars because I am invested after reading two 500+ pages prequels and it was nice to see everything come to an end. But if it was a standalone book, I don't know if it would warrant the three stars.

[Veronica ⭐️ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Flood of Fire is a captivating and well researched historical fiction. The story pulled me in and kept my interest. It was a real eye opener as I learned so much about the opium wars.
Even though I have not read the first two books in the series I had no problems connecting with the characters and following the storyline.
I am now compelled to read “Sea of Poppies” and “River of Smoke” as most reviews have stated that they are even better than this one!

With my thanks to Hachette Aus for my copy to read and review.

[Sookie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Revising a bit of ignored history - Opium wars.

[Divya Sarma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amitava Ghosh's conclusion of the Ibis trilogy is epic. I stumbled on Sea of Poppies, almost as my first Ghosh book, and then read River of Smoke in breathless anticipation. But that book, good though it is, seemed a bit stalled, almost waiting for more action to happen. Most of the principal characters from Sea of Poppies were missing, and although Bahram Moddie was a compelling character in himself, I longed for Deeti and Zachary, Jodu and the rest.

Well, most of them return in Flood of Fire, in unexpected forms. Zachary is back, and while he was clearly the most likely hero of Sea of Poppies, here he gradually becomes a sort of anti-hero. And yet, you never lose your sympathy for this character. Like Babu Nob Kissin Pander says, he is the symbol of the Kali Yuga, the age when the world drowns in the pursuit of profit. Zachary's gradual seduction into the power plays, is initiated, surprisingly by an actual seduction by Mrs. Burnham. But even as he turns dark, even as he blackmails Mrs. Burnham and her lover Captain Mee and eventually drives them to suicide, even as he betrays Ah Fatt (freddie) and causes his death, when it is finally revealed that he has floated a firm in partnership with Mr. Burnham, you only sigh for him and hope he somehow survives the partnership. What we will remember about Zachary is the protectiveness he showed towards Paulette, the hug he gives to console Raju (Neel's son), who serves as his 'kidmuttgar' for a brief while in this book.

Mrs. Burnham's emergence as a major character is somewhat surprising, since she functioned almost as a comic aside in the first book. She emerges as a seductress supreme in the way she initiates Zachary into many pleasurable practices. But the backstory of the tragic romance with Captain Mee and her eventual suicide seems to be rather cliched. One would have thought she had the wherewithal to deal with Zachary's blackmail and emerge stronger from it.

The other surprising major character is Shireen Moddie. If you read River of Smoke, she would be a fairly unsympathetic character, someone who has bound Bahram to her natal family, someone who never gave Bahram any love or even respect, a credulous believer in 'godmen'. But the way she deals with Bahram's secret family, the mistress and son in Canton is surprisingly dignified. She acknowledges her own hurt and betrayal, but she is also strong and fair enough to recognize what is due to Ah Fatt (Freddie) as Bahram's son. She may not be able to give him any official status or even property, but her reaching out to him fulfills a deep longing in Freddie's life and her eventual insistence that Freddie be buried next to Bahram finally grants him his due. Shireen is the one who recognizes the rights of the half caste children spawned by the trade routes. She is a surprising mouthpiece considering her background as a upper class conservative woman, also considering she is in a sense a 'victim' of these practices. But as she tells her nephew Dinyar (another Parsee with a Chinese Family), "Children can never be brought into this world silently. They grow up, they learn to speak, and eventually they speak. You should remember this when you deal with your own children," you feel she has stuck a decisive blow for the likes of Freddie. It is therefore disappointing that in the very next paragraph she uses the threat of revealing about his Chinese children to his family, to get him to consent to her second marriage. You somehow dont expect her to instrumentalize these children to her own ends so easily. And the romance track between Shireen and Zadig lacks any verve and does nothing to the plot. Could not Shireen have remained an independent widow who was following her life. Was there a need to tie her down in matrimony again and that too to Bahram's best friend.

For me the best parts of the novel however were the conflicting loyalties of the people in the war. Neel, for instance is an Indian, fleeing prison and is accepted by the Chinese and even helps their cause. But he does resent the scorn with which the Chinese treat the Indian sepoys. The Chinese dont think these sepoys are any threat to them, so Neel has a perverse pleasure when the sepoys rout the Chinese (his side in the war) in the first skirmish. Again in an atmosphere when the CHinese population gets more and more xenophobic and start attacking 'aliens' including the 'black aliens' (as the Indians are called), there is delicious irony in the fact that a ship commanded by Jodu and some other Indians, with Neel on board, manages to damage a British ship of war.

Nowhere is this conflict so movingly described as in the dilemma of Kesri Singh, Deeti's brother. As a professional soldier, he hates these Chinese defenders who prefer death to surrender, because they make him realize an uncomfortable truth, that he is practically a hired killer. At a time when he thinks death is upon him, he regrets the nature of his death, not as a soldier fighting for something he values, but caught in a war, where he practically sympathizes with the enemy and even feels for his own killers, who are only defending their village, something he himself would have done back home. Kesri's dilemma epitomises the question a Chinese officer asks Neel earlier in the book - Why do these Sepoys fight for the British? Kesri himself is a forerunner of another of Ghosh's characters, Arjun in the Glass Palace, an Indian officer who wonders why he is fighting for the British, as he makes a choice to join the Indian National Army during the second World War.

Deeti herself, one of the primary driving forces of the first novel is almost completely absent in this novel, as she is in the previous one. But here at least, one feels her presence constantly here, as different characters - Kesri, Zachary, Maddow and Paulette- recall her and in a way she remains a crucial guiding force of the narrative. One doesnt miss her, because she is in everyone's minds and we know she is safe and settled in the Mauritius.

To cut a long story short (and it is a really long story, not just this book but this trilogy itself), Flood of Fire is a fitting finale to a glorious, thrilling story of lives tied together by the Ibis, a scathing criticism of colonialism, and a glorious recreation of the multi-culturalism which emerged from an earlier era of trade. We, the internet and email generation, may find it surprising that even when communications took forever, people met, exchanged goods and ideas and constantly created vibrant new cultures.

[Angie Rhodes · Rating 5 out of 5]

The last in the IBIS trilogy, and as I don't want to spoil this for those who have yet to read the first two books in the trilogy,, I will just say , you are missing a treat!!
This last one, is one I read and reviewed for Lovereading and is published in March,, so go on, what you waiting for buy the first two,, you will love them...

[Daren · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the final book of the Ibis Trilogy, following Sea of Poppies and River of Smoke.

As usual with Amitav Ghosh, the writing is rich and descriptive imagery is there, and in this book we return to the woven stories of book one which were lacking in the middle book. It does seem however that there is a lot more coincidence relied upon than would have been ideal in linking the principle characters. Thankfully, for me at least, the unlikeable Robin Chinnery and his letters don't feature in this book, replaced instead by the journal entries of Neel, which are far more readable.

This book focuses again on only a few main characters. Again we get a fleeting glimpse of Deeti at the opening of the book. Zachary Reid, Neel, and Kalua recur, with minor parts from Paulette Lampbert, Nob Kissin Baboo, Freddie (Ah Fatt), Jodu and Zadig Bey, to whom we were introduced in book two. Mr Burnham, the British trader is back in a major role, although it is his wife who overshadows his involvement. We are also introduced to new characters - Kesri Singh, elder brother of Deeti, a Havildar in the Bengal Volunteers to join the British in China; the widow of the Indian trader Bahram Moddie, Shireen; and Neels young son Raju who appears late in the piece.

For me it was a little disappointing not to tie up some loose ends. Paulette and Jodu don't reconnect,
Allow also makes a reappearance (as Mr Chan), in a complicated but largely unresolved role, and Freddie's involvement remains minor, and without reconnection with Neel.

Zachary Reid probably develops the most as a character, and not necessarily in the way most would expect from the first two books. There is also the comedy we come to expect from Ghosh - with Mr Reid being suspected of being a serial masturbator by his employers wife, who does all she can to save him (and more).

As is usual, the author seems to have targeted something complex and mastered it description. In the initial book it was the language of the sailing ship and the pidgin English of the Lascars, in the second book it was the world of trade and opium. In this book we are treated the the theatre of war, albeit a fairly one-sided war for the most part, with the British warships laying waste to the opposing vessels and land fortifications.

And so in summary, I am glad to have read the trilogy, and there can be little doubt it is a fascinating period of time in China, India and the British Empire. I can't decide whether the trilogy was overly long or overly short - if it were longer would there have been opportunity to tidy it up at the edges? Or if shorter would it have encouraged a more succinct storyline?

For me this book was more enjoyable than the middle book, which felt like it was just manipulating the characters into place for a finale. Perhaps not as engaging as the first book, which set to introduce all of the characters, but which ultimately didn't take the story very far forward. For those reasons this sits at 4 stars.

[Kaptan HUK]

Aşkla Oku da Nereye Kadar
Amitav Ghosh Ateş Tufanı'nda dört vardiya çalıştırıyor: Delikanlılık çağlarında kendisini askerliğe hazırlayacak şekilde eğiten Hintli Kesri baba engeline rağmen İngiliz ordusuna katılır. Biz okurlar artık Kesri üzerinden afyon savaşlarını İngilizlerin tarafından takip edeceğiz.       İngiliz oyunuyla maddi manevi tüm varlığını kaybedip üstüne hapishane demir kapıları kapanan bir zamanların patronu Hintli Nil bir macerayla kapağı attığı Çin'de bilgi ve yabancı dil becerisini dostlarının teklifiyle Çin Valisi için çalıştırırken biz okurlar da afyon savaşlarının Çin tarafını Nil'in günlüklerinden takip edeceğiz.       İngiliz patronun eşi bayan Burnham'la gemi marangozu Zachary'nin yasak aşkı afyon insanının delirmişliğinin bir metaforu adına son sayfalara kadar bize eşlik edecektir.       Bombay'da zengin ailesiyle bir köşkte yaşayan Şirin Çin'deki kocasının ölüm haberiyle yıkılır yasa girer ama hayatı değişir; inançları gereği erkeksiz evden dışarı çıkamayan ama eğitimli Şirin, afyon savaşı ganimetinden kocasına düşen payı almak için Çin yolculuğuna mecburdur.       Ateş Tufanı'nın planı aşağı yukarı böyle. Fakat bu kitap detaylarla dolu; Afyon savaşının İngiliz ordusu (Kesri) tarafından anlatımı Deniz Harp Okullarında dersi görülecek nitelikte ve yoğunlukta yazılmış.        Ateş Tufanı'nın başka bir ciddi sorunu, kurgu bilinci oluşmamış ya da düşük seviyede kalmış, dolayısıyla vakit geçirmek için okuyanlara hitaben yazılmış gibi duruyor roman.       Haşhaş Denizi için söylediğim "aşkla oku" oku da bu durumda nereye kadar okuyacaksın; iyilikler kötülükler çok kolay ve ucuz, rastlantılar desen öyle, ne diyeceği/nasıl davranacağı tahmin ediliyor.       Aşkın de sinirleri vardır. Ve aşk rutine gelemez, rutine girdiğinde büyü bozulur, hemen uyanır, saçmalıklardan çıkar.       Bu değerlendirmeleri yaparken altını 'tekrar' çizmekte yarar görüyorum:  Ateş Tufanı'nın orijinaliyle bendeki baskısı çok çok farklı. Amitav Ghosh bu romanı büyüleyici bir dille yazdığını anlatıyor İngiliz arkadaşlar. O vakit iş değişir: Büyüleyici dille yazılmış Ateş Tufanı'nı ben bütün sene tekrar tekrar okurum. Yani İngiliz arkadaşlarla aynı kitabı-diğer edebi çevirilerde olduğu gibi- tartışmıyoruz.       Yıldız vermeyi unutmadım tabii.  Bu romanın bendeki değeri şu haliyle ennn fazla iki yıldız. Bu kadarcık yıldızı nasıl veririm, İbis'e nasıl kıyarım; emekle yazılmış,  dünyanın arşivi değerlendirilmiş ve sen kalk iki yıldız ver. Hayır, böyle bir özgürlüğüm yok. Hem sonra Diti'nin yüzüne nasıl bakarım ben.       Süha Sertabiboğlu daha iyi çevirebilirdi. Karakter isimlerini Türkçe okunuşlarıyla çevirmek çok çok çok yanlış bir tercih. Mesela Sheeren ismini Şirin diye okumak okurda çok farklı etkiler bırakıyor: Şirin diye okuduğumda tanıdığım Şirin geliyor aklıma, Sheeren romandaki kadın. Başka bir özensizlik: Cümleleri bitirirken geldim, gittim, yedim, baktım diye yazacağına geliyor oldum, gidiyor oldum, yer oldum, bakıyor oldum diye yazmayı tercih etmek nerden baksan skandal.        Yorumu İbis parolasıyla kapatmak istiyorum:
İbis bir evren ve bu evrene katılmaktan kendimi şanslı hissediyor ve gurur duyuyorum.

[Ranjana Gupta · Rating 2 out of 5]

The thing with book series - especially the ones which are meant to be read one after another and can never be read as standalone books - is that when you invest in them, you expect them to reach some kind of resolution and in a manner that is satisfying. By satisfying I mean that you do like to see the characters you start out with and the threads that are thrown out in the first book to be tied in the last.

And in such cases, therefore, when the author chooses to digress, relegating the introductory characters to the woodwork, and bringing in fresh perspectives and motivations with every book, the reader tends to grow frustrated. Case in point: Martin's Game of Thrones and unfortunately the Ibis trilogy by Amitav Ghosh.

The trilogy had opened with the lovely Sea of Poppies, with a cast of characters that were diverse, believable and real - Deeti, Neel, Zachary, Paulette et al. The world was realistic and though I am no expert, probably very true to the history. The book ended with the Ibis tossed on stormy seas - a cliffhanger, if there ever was one.

Then came the rather boring, transitional book two: River of Smoke. The action shifted to China nad newer characters were introduced with only Neel's perspective still continuing. Everyone else either disappeared or became little more than footnotes in letters and conversations. I was patient. It was the curse of the middle book, I thought. With the final book, it would be well again.

Alas, that was not to be. Flood of Fire brings back Zachary (and barely a glimpse of Paulette) and introduces yet another set of characters. To be fair, they are all related - Shireen, wife of Bahram Moddie who was the father of Neel's fellow convict Ah Fatt, Havildar Kesri, Deeeti's beloved older brother (though we never see them together except as children), Raju, Neel's young son. But I kept on wanting to know how did Deeti reach Maldives (or Mauritius, was it) after the storm at the end of Book 1. How did Kalua, Serang Ali survive the storm?

Zachary transforms into a rather despicable, slimy character under the influence of Mrs. Cathy Burnham who suddenly takes centrestage and behaves rather inconsistently throughout the book. One moment she is the prudish, older woman intent on seducing a younger man. In another moment, she is interested in uniting him with the girl he was first infatuated with. Towards the end of the book, she is almost like some kind of guardian angel.

What Ghosh does brilliantly, however, is bring alive the Opium wars to life. The descriptions, the stratagem, the plight of soldiers, the common Chinese people caught in the crossfire, the racial discrimination within the British army paint a picture worthy of a movie screenplay. You can almost smell the blood, grime and sweat of an unfair war.

I just wish that he had paid half of that attention to the characters and the plot. It reeks of an author who just got tired of the writing ad simply dumped his research into the book.

Disappointed.

[Schuyler · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is a travesty, given the magical quality of Sea of Poppies, the fist volume of the author's Ibis Trilogy. River of Smoke was a step down, to be sure, but carried on in a similar vein -- story propelled by character. This third volume, however, reads like it was written by a middle school writing class under the author's direction and tutelage. I found myself wondering if Ghosh had had a stroke along the way, so impossibly different are the manuscript qualities.
In Flood of Fire, characters are reduced to paper dolls pushed about on a chessboard. This is, in essence, a war novel. But the war is told -- in detail -- in the passive voice. What? For all the reading and materials that went into this trilogy (the last 3% of the Kindle version is given over to a voluminous bibliography), the author might have read a few Patrick O'Brian novels to see how sea battles unfold. This book is a case of a writer overwhelmed by his research materials. In the end he lost sight of his characters and, more sinful yet, lost sight of his readers. He seemed to feel he owed everything to his research and nothing to us, the one's who buy his books.
Amitav Ghosh can be a magnificent writer. He knows the difference between good and indifferent work. And this work is terribly, terribly indifferent. Two stars, for seeing it through to the end. But a grudging two stars.

[Magdalena · Rating 3 out of 5]

It took me 3 weeks to finish this book!
And on reading the last page I said to myself: "Is this all?! What happens
next?"...
Throughout the book I felt the author spent too much time on describing details
of battles and small incidents instead of concentrating on concluding the story.
I didn't like the way Zachary 'sold his soul' to commerce and I was disappointed
by the fact that the story ended without conclusion, without showing how the
fates of the passengers from Ibis interlinked and how they all fared after the end
of the story in "Flood of Fire".
Although it was interesting from the historical point of view, I think
it was the weakest part of the trilogy.

[Tom the Teacher · Rating 5 out of 5]

You wanted me to be a man of the times, did you not? And that is what I am now; I am a man who wants more and more and more; a man who does not know the meaning of "enough". Anyone who tries to thwart my dream is the enemy of my liberty and must expect to be treated as such.



Flood of Fire concludes the Ibis Trilogy, which I first started reading in 2010. Yes, it's taken me 14 years to finish it. Why? Well, I almost gave up when I realised that River of Smoke, the second in the series, focused on a new cast of characters, giving only cursory glances to most of the cast of Sea of Poppies, the first in the series. Why return to it? Well, I was curious how the series ended, and after reading that Flood of Fire ties the first and second books together, I picked River of Smoke back up, several years after I'd initially discarded it, and continued.



I'm glad I did.



Characters from the first in the series - most notably Zachary - make a welcome return here. Unusually for the conclusion of a trilogy, Amitav Ghosh introduces a couple of new characters to focus heavily upon - Shireen and Kesri - but their inclusion makes sense, and gives fresh perspectives on society and the Opium Wars, the historical period in which the novel culminates. It's a period I know little about, but can be summed up with three words: Fuck the British.



And I'm saying that as a Brit.



This novel tackles A LOT of issues: race, gender, class, morality, exploitation, colonialism, hierarchies, and family. Dickensian in scope, it never drags though, largely in part due to Ghosh's decision to rotate between four primary points of view: Zachary Reid, a first-mate; Kesri Singh, a havildar in the British military; Shireen Modi, an upper-class Parsi woman; and Neel, a disgraced rajah that we meet in the first of the trilogy. Add in several other excellent characters to focus on - Mrs. Burnham, Captain Mee, Ah Fatt - and you have an absolute masterpiece of historical fiction.



I must admit that when the conflict starts, about 350-400 pages into the book, I did find myself skipping ahead. Paragraphs about military strategy aren't really my thing. However that's a personal preference, and the battles are obviously an integral part to the novel.



What I loved the most, and what kept me hooked, was the relationships between the characters in the book: the secrets, the connections, the bonds of those originally on the ill-fated Ibis in book one. Ghosh knows how to tug at the emotions, from the comic (Zachary's initial storyline in this book....I shall say no more), to the joyful, to the tragic.



And the ending....oh the ending. It circled back to a character who was pretty much absent after book one and the beginning of book two, and was the perfect way to end the trilogy.



An absolute masterpiece of a series.

[Virat hooda · Rating 4 out of 5]

True Wonderer

A few big bangs,’ observed the officer sagely, ‘can save a great many lives.’ ~Amitav Ghosh, Flood of Fire

Ahhh…..So, this ‘fabulous’ Idea had occurred to the British long before the Americans. Can’t say I am surprised really. The British at that time(most of the 17th, 18th and 19th century…and possibly before that too) were the flag bearers of despotism and well…I am an Indian, if anyone knows how being at the receiving end of that feels like, it would be us.

With Flood of fire, Amitav Ghosh concludes the Ibis Trilogy, and this series is without a doubt one of the finest historical fiction I have read till date. Mr. Ghosh’s impeccable attention to detail, his extensive research and his no nonsense yet creative way to portray history has made this series a must read for any respectable history buff. As with anything linked with history, this series too has a lot of pages, a LOT. With each book in the trilogy he adds 650+ pages to the tale. And yet, even with the slow pace the story doesn’t let you go, yes, you do take rest in btw (I did, had to absorb before moving on) but the characters were so interesting, the whole era itself was so very captivating that you puff away at the tale as you do a Cuban cigar, taste it, enjoy it up-to a point, slowly, then extinguish it, at some other time relight it and carry on where you left it from, and of course its just as good every time.

With The Sea of Poppies we began the tale from the heartland of Bihar, with the farmers toiling away under the British raj, then we progressed on to the traders of the final product (“opium”) in River of Smoke where we follow the sticky balls of opium from the well powdered hands of elite company men and ‘Free Market’ traders(smugglers, traffickers), to its ultimate destination .i.e the shivering hands of a Chinese addict in some dark den in Canton. And with the Flood of fire, we come to the point where every story line in the trilogy converges to give you the first opium wars, where a country which fought to save its citizen from the dark embrace of destruction was thoroughly humiliated and beaten by the ‘Respectable’ and ‘Honorable’ men of an empire which claimed to bring civilization and freedom to its shores, How? by giving them uncooked opium at ridiculously high prices, imposing a *cough*.. loot.. *cough* of more than 6 million Spanish dollars(at that time .i.e.1840’s) and wrested away two islands for the sole purpose of forcing the drug down the throat of an already choking country.

The four main characters this book follows are ‘Kesri’, our village woman ‘Deeti’s brother and a proud soldier in the East India Company’s formidable army; ‘Shireen’ ,’Behram’s (our trader from book two) wife, Zachary (Our mulatto upstart), and ‘Neil’ (a convicted king / ‘Munshi’ / Translator / the guy who experiences things from the Chinese side). Their story is woven with the fate of the Chinese and Indian lands so skillfully that you get to know the conflict from every angle. Specially Kesri’s experience, fighting for a foreign power against another foreign power for………….nothing, nothing of consequence of his own is interesting in the extreme. Some of his thoughts for his superiors are, so very relatable, like…

“..to skewer this maadarchod seemed far more urgent than fighting some unknown Chinese soldier.” ~Kesri

Ahh.. the beauty of foul language in one’s own mother tongue, but I digress. So, as I have mentioned in the first two reviews too, Character development and strength of its story lines are two of the best aspects of this series. Zachary’s zig zag travels through moral considerations and temptations, good and bad, were again a testament to Mr.Ghosh’s skill at creating an interesting character which showcases that how THAT world molded the unsuspecting and gullible in its own twisted image.

All in all, Bravo!, A standing Ovation!, tilted hats and ‘Bangra’ dance all the way, so, why the 4 stars you ask. Why not 5? Fair question, so here’s the deal, when I had to check to see how much a book is left, to actually count down the pages till I finish it, means I wavered, means I could come out of the book without meaning to, that I noticed the door bell being rung, noticed that I was hungry, noticed that maybe I should sleep because I had to go to the office. Now, you might say that that’s no excuse, but it is, to me it is, so deducted one for just that, for making me read those extra pages that were not so interesting, that made me take a break. Unfair? well no I don’t thin so.

But I wholeheartedly recommend this to every history lover, or the ones who enjoy a long read, buckle up guys, this is your door to the 19th century Asia, where all the ‘Fun’ stuff was happening which led to the current shit we are in. Take a gander from the deck of the IBIS.

[Paola · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have read this book withouth having read Sea of Poppies nor River of Smoke, as I received this book as a Goodreads giveaway, so did not want to delay unduly my "duty" of reviewing this novel.
Flood of Fire however stands on its own as a novel, and though (by necessity) some of the facts referred to here are not detailed enough to grasp all the implications, they are anyway clear enough to provide sufficient background to the various characters.

While I did enjoy the first half, midway through the novel started unravelling for me - what were built as three separate stories (those of Kesri Singh, Zachary Reid and the recently widowed Shireen Moddy) start converging, with these three protagonists surely and not that slowly destined to meet aboard the same Hong Kong bound ship. And here I somewhat lost interest, as it seemed that the pace accelerated just to be sure that all the subplots could be ironed out in the remaining pages.

In terms of the plot, even without the benefit of the previous two books, most of the twist are very predictable. No big deal in itself if one wants to carry the larger picture, but here it felt as the historical background had already run out of steam (after the previous two instalments). I did not found the writing particularly beautiful, and at various points, rather repetitive: Shireen "kneads" the end of her saari countless times when she is under pressure, while most of the male characters cope with stress by trying to loosen their collars. The characters themselves lose credibility as they go along, with Reid rapidly turning from a naive and rather coarse carpenter/sailor to an articulate, shrewd, competent businessman in the space of a few months, and Shireen going from a sheltered stay at home dutiful wife who has hardly ventured outside her home to a decisive, confident woman who does not hesitate to use blackmail to get her way.

As I did not find the writing particularly beautiful, for the second half of the book it was the sheer pace of events that carried it for me.

One exception were the detailed descriptions of the battles, the strategies and the weapons: recounted in great detail, and very sympathetically, I never thought I could have found them so interesting. This however may not be true for all readers.

It is definitely an interesting book, and Ghosh manages to write accurate historical fiction with flair. Yet as a standalone novel it does very much feel as an epilogue, accessory to whatever came before.

[Chaitra · Rating 5 out of 5]

It has been a while since I read River of Smoke, and consequently it took me a while and 40 pages to get into the rhythm of the language. But once I did, it was hard to put the book down for any length of time.

One of the things that I loved was that I didn't, couldn't take sides even when it is abundantly clear that it was an unjust war. The British are nothing more than drug lords declaring war against the laws of another country, and yet, there were a few of them I cared a lot for. More than that, I liked the depiction of the British war machine. The British Empire was a very large part of my history syllabus, and what I learned there was the bare bones - and more often than not, it was upsetting to be on the losing side (until India started revolting and bugging the hell out of the Brits). I understood that a lot of our own side benefited a whole lot from the British, and that we fought with inferior weaponry etc., but it's now apparent that it didn't go very deep into my head. I don't think I've read another book that went into the details of a British battle on non-European soil against non-European opponents, and that's been remedied with this book.

Anyway, I digress. As with the previous two, this is an exquisitely researched book. At times it becomes quite heavy with the history, but Ghosh also has colorful language to offset the dreariness. Some of my favorite characters are back, even if in glorified cameos, and I had a couple of new characters to cheer for. Cathy Burnham was my favorite addition, her exchanges with Zachary were some of the most delightful in the whole series. I'm a little uneasy at the resolution of her storyline, as I'm not sure what Ghosh was trying to say, it felt a little anti-female, with her taking the blame for the slimeball that was Zachary, like he had nothing at all to do with anything, and whatever did Paulette do to her that she felt it necessary to foist that scumbag on her? but nonetheless, she was my favorite. I wish there was more of Paulette and a little less of Shireen, Kesri & Zachary, but it's not a major qualm.

What else? Obviously there's another war of the opium variety for Ghosh to cover if he so wishes. A few of the character arcs are open-ended enough to continue their stories. But, if this is to be marked completed, and Amitav Ghosh decides to focus on a different area, that's fine too. It maybe that I will change my mind on one or another book, when I eventually read the trilogy together, but for now it's one of my favorite book series, regardless of genre.

[Tuck · Rating 4 out of 5]

here is a clear-eyed good review of this 600 page opium war/ingrez colonial india sage

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

this is the third book by ghosh of the characters and story lines set in india and china 1830-1841 , in where britain, by their ideas of liberty being their god given right, and their desire to make as much money as possible, when and where they can, thus any infringement of that liberty was not only against their rights, but god didnt like that infringement either. so they grew lots and lots of opium in india, shipped it to china, canton, ghuangchou specifically, sell it to chinese, makes lots and lots of money, get chinese goods too, and ship to india and england, and makes lots and lots of money off that too, and god smiles, she's SO happy for the angrez.
mayhem ensues, and it's never really ever stopped.
ghosh has done much research on this time period and place, built a cast of diverse characters (if somewhat too soap operaish at times for me) and ran with this epic historical saga. at the end of this last of 3 books, the ibis trilogy, he also implies that this saga could easily continue, to chronicle the results of the first opium war (england won, more of less) and beyond. but since this novel took 600 pages, and the first two novels 500+ pages, the author was kinda done. readers shall see what ghosh takes on next.

[Ian · Rating 3 out of 5]

The quality of writing is superb, the historical research outstanding, and I love the rich vocabulary soup the author has created from 19th century Indian English, Cantonese, and the languages of the subcontinent. Ultimately though this fell a bit flat for me, I think because I felt little or no connection to the majority of the characters. Two of my favourite characters from the first part of the trilogy were Zachary Reid and Serang Ali. The latter plays only an incidental role in this book, and Zachary's character develops in a way I hadn't expected. Of the remainder, my interest was held only by Kalua, by the sepoy Kesri Singh and by the minor character of Dicky Miller. I simply didn't care what happened to the rest of them. The humour in the book didn't really work for me either. One of the subplots kept reminding me of the old 1960s British comedy "Carry On Up The Khyber", unfortunately without being as funny as that film. This trilogy certainly has its merits, but when I finish a novel that I really enjoyed I want to go and talk about it to others. I can't say as this had that effect.

[Sambasivan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amitav Ghosh's writing has a bare minimum quality which very few authors can match. Having said that, this third and final book in the trilogy was slightly less panoramic and breathtaking when compared with the first two possibly because Ghosh had set a very high standard for himself. The story comes to a neat finish with all the characters coming together and there is a finale which you can see it coming from afar.

As a historic novel, Amitav Ghosh has explored the Opium war like never before and laid bare the avarice and greed of the B Company which reeks of imperial aspirations. The hypocrisy of free trade protection has been exposed quite well. As well as the futility of war. This novel also provides the historical context as to why the Chinese do not trust the Indians (since they had fought for money like mercenaries in the early 19 th century).

Overall a worthy read.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

The trilogy, as a whole, is a rousing adventure with a large cast of well-conceived, intriguing characters from many backgrounds. In its ambition and scale, it put this reader in mind of some of James Clavell's novels. It is a historical fiction account which examines the impact of the First Opium War (1839-1842) on its diverse cast.

First, the depth of characterization here is impressive. Mr. Ghosh does not shy away from providing a solid background for his major characters. He brings the reader into the mindsets of British, Indian, Chinese, and American characters, and as such, one gets a fuller understanding of the events. There are many memorable passages, the depiction of work in an opium factory, the brutality of a Bombay prison, some surprisingly erotic sexual encounters, and numerous battles on land and sea. The characters are complex, flawed and evolving. Mr. Ghosh is not a sentimentalist (thank God).

The books should be read in sequence. I don't think they work as stand-alones. But it's worth it because this is one trilogy that satisfies from start to finish. I loved it. Cheers!

[Marily_p88 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dernier volet de la trilogie de l'Ibis qui m'a accompagnée depuis des années... une superbe plume faisant voyager de l'Inde à Singapour vers la Chine durant la guerre de l'opium. L'auteur nous plonge dans un "melting pot" culturel et linguistique où les populations gravitent autour d'un destin commun. Une invitation au voyage.