Reading 1001 discussion

Rating: 3.75 stars

A story that follows two families over a span of several decades and through several important historical events. This started out strong for me, lulled a bit midway, and then wrapped up with a strong ending. I have read other books by Ghosh and I like his writing style. I thought his approach of relating the intertwined stories and perspectives was extremely clever. The book did jump around between time periods a lot, though, making it often difficult to find one's bearings. This was the least favorite book I have read by Ghosh so far in terms of readability and flow. I think this is one of his earlier books, so that makes sense.

The Shadow Lines is a book that investigates the nature of a person's relationship to homeland and to the nature of memory set over a period of time surrounding the partition of India into Pakistan and India. There are two families, one from India who had to move to their new homeland after the city that was their home became part of Pakistan. The other family was from England. These two families have destinies that are lightly intertwined in the beginning and grow to be completely entangled. The theme of being lost in another country both culturally and geographically and of being lost in time is well drawn as our younger characters grow up and as our older characters become very old. The narrator is both a young man and a young boy during most of the book and he has an incredible memory for all the stories he has been told by other members of the family so when he recounts an event it is with both the past and future woven together. This narration style is both intriguing and also difficult to follow as one is never perfectly clear about the chronology of any of the narrated events. However, I came to really appreciate the narrator's love of the stories and the history he has integrated into his very being and the ending wraps things up wonderfully well.

I also gave it 4 stars, I don’t have much else to add beyond what Gail and Diane have already said, since my thoughts on it are quite similar. I was really drawn into Tridib and May’s story, as well as Ila’s and the fact that she acts as though she is even more rebellious and progressive than she actually in front of her Indian family to set herself apart.

3.5 stars

I am continuing my love affair with Indian authors or books set in India. This family story set in both England and India is told in both past and present. The main theme is the Partition of India.

“Tha'mma, Tha'mma! I cried. How could you have 'come' home to Dhaka You don't know the difference between coming and going!”

“..because people like my grandmother, who have no home but in memory, learn to be very skilled in the art of recollection."

"Once you start moving you never stop.” "As for me, I was born here, and I'll die here.”

“I was a child, and like all the children around me, I grew up believing in the truth of the precepts that were available to me: I believed in the reality of space; I believed that distance separates that it is a corporeal substance; I believed in the reality of nations and borders; I believed that across the border there existed another reality. The only relationship my vocabulary permitted between those separate realities was war or friendship.”

Amitav Ghosh is one of my favourite writers and I admire the way he plays with place and time in this story, challenging the idea of nations and borders and the conflicts they cause.

The book deals with two families - an English family from London and an Indian family from Calcutta where the grandmother was displaced from Dhaka during Partition - and their overlapping relationships through the 1930s to the 1970s. The narrative switches abruptly between these timeframes and settings which can be confusing but also illustrates the author’s premise really well.

The characters are memorable and flawed, sympathetic characters make big mistakes and less likeable ones eventually gain some pity and understanding from the reader. I don’t think it is as polished as some of his later work, but it is original and inventive, and I really enjoyed reading it.

Pre-2016 review:

** 1/2

I nearly threw this book away at around the 35th page mark: it was going nowhere and everywhere, the narration kept going back and forth through time and characters, it was extremely confusing. It then started to get a bit better and I could feel that it was somewhat getting somewhere. Nevertheless, even though the topics covered were meant to be interesting (post-colonial India, religious troubles after the Partition), I more than often had to drag through this relatively short novel. I feel maybe that I would have enjoyed it better had it been written/structured differently.