Sea of Poppies

Critics

• River of Smoke

  River of Smoke, by Amitav Ghosh, John Murray, RRP£20, 528 pages Any good historical novel should teach the reader some history as well as sweeping him or her along with an unfolding narrative. Few do this as well as Amitav Ghosh, a Bengali-born profe ... (read full critics)

  ft published on Sat, 25 Jun 2011

• And they called it poppy love

  Sea of Poppies Amitav Ghosh John Murray £18.99, pp471 In Amitav Ghosh's remarkably rich saga, the first of three promised volumes, the sea of the title is more like a flood and a man-made disaster at that: the compulsory cultivation of opium poppies ... (read full critics)

  guardian.co.uk published on Fri, 24 Sep 2010

6 Reviews

• 1 person find this helpful

  

  I am not sure my judgment of this novel is not somehow biased. I just loved it, in the same way as I did when I was about 15 and I got totally immersed in the adventures I was reading about, even the most unlikely and exotic. Yet, I do think it is very well written, besides being very entertaining.< ... (continue)

  I am not sure my judgment of this novel is not somehow biased. I just loved it, in the same way as I did when I was about 15 and I got totally immersed in the adventures I was reading about, even the most unlikely and exotic. Yet, I do think it is very well written, besides being very entertaining.
  In particular I found there is a very intelligent and acute use of language to describe the various characters and a very perceptive sense of the human condition.

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  Anmar08 said on Jul 20, 2009 about the Mass Market Paperback edition | Add your feedback

• 

  Fun, and slightly swashbuckling

  Great fun, and though it lags in places, overall its a worthy read. Covers the adventures of a group of Indians (and colonials) around the time of the Opium Wars in the early 19th century. Includes tall ships, lots of opium, and a fair smattering of sailor-talk using words that vaguely make sense un ... (continue)

  Great fun, and though it lags in places, overall its a worthy read. Covers the adventures of a group of Indians (and colonials) around the time of the Opium Wars in the early 19th century. Includes tall ships, lots of opium, and a fair smattering of sailor-talk using words that vaguely make sense until you look back and realise you have no idea what they mean: dolphin-striker; martingale; kippage.

  The book is really a story of two halves. The first following the travails of the main characters in colonial northern India, and the second an exciting (and claustrophobic) sea journey towards Mauritius.

  A great start to what will be a trilogy. Ghosh has a background in social anthropology, and the story is interwoven with interesting cultural sensitivities. Four stars only because the text is in places a little uneven, and its easy to get lost in the thickets of dialogue full of patois and contextual references.

  But, perhaps this is not necessarily a bad thing. Books where we have to work at understanding characters' experiences are maybe more representative of real life ;) At least we don't feel patronised by the author.

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  Ian Hodgson said on Sep 22, 2011 about the Others edition | Add your feedback

• 

  Breathtakingly brilliant! Not to be missed!

  An extremely intelligent, exciting and 'must read' story! There are so many characters that it has a close resemblance to Dickens' style of writing. Each character is either introduced in great detail or the detail is gradually revealed as the story progresses. The characters are superb. I just love ... (continue)

  An extremely intelligent, exciting and 'must read' story! There are so many characters that it has a close resemblance to Dickens' style of writing. Each character is either introduced in great detail or the detail is gradually revealed as the story progresses. The characters are superb. I just loved them! Eventually a selection of these characters embark on a voyage on an old slaving ship named The Ibis. The story is never rushed. It takes a long time before the crew and 'passengers' are assembled and ready to sail, and although we know the ship will set sail eventually, it's impossible to skip pages in our eagerness to get there, because each page is full of interesting and stimulating facts that we can't afford to miss.
  The last few pages left me quite breathless due to the build-up of tension. If ever there was a 'cliff-hanger' with which to finish a book this is it!

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  GraJon said on Jul 20, 2010 | Add your feedback

• 

  Complicated, entertaining and beautifully written, just as I expected it to be. The characters are well depicted and history flows behind them with all its contradictions. Ghosh confirms himself as an amazing writer who does not want his reader to fully understand everything. Language iteself would ... (continue)

  Complicated, entertaining and beautifully written, just as I expected it to be. The characters are well depicted and history flows behind them with all its contradictions. Ghosh confirms himself as an amazing writer who does not want his reader to fully understand everything. Language iteself would deserve a whole essay. Put apart your dictionary, you don't need it!

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  Martina said on May 28, 2010 about the Hardcover edition | Add your feedback

• 

  Really a challenge I guess also for a mother tongue

  but surely it worths the effort. A masterpiece. I am eager to read the other books

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  domenico paterna said on May 18, 2010 about the Others edition | Add your feedback

• 

  Sea of Poppies is supposed to be the first book in a projected trilogy on the Ibis (which will be awfully long, seen that this book only is 530 pages long!). In my opinion, it should have won the Booker Prize last year instead of The White Tiger (link to my review in Italian), because it was so much ... (continue)

  Sea of Poppies is supposed to be the first book in a projected trilogy on the Ibis (which will be awfully long, seen that this book only is 530 pages long!). In my opinion, it should have won the Booker Prize last year instead of The White Tiger (link to my review in Italian), because it was so much better than any other book in the shortlist. It is one of those 500-pages-long books that you can read in just a few days, never growing tired of the characters.
  Much space is given to the second mate, Zachary Reid, an American whose mixed origins will leave him a target for blackmail. Then there is Paulette Lambert, an orphan French girl who grew up in India and speaks perfect Bengali and Hindi; she wants to escape to Mauritius and is in love with Zachary. Neel Rattan is a bankrupt raja who is being deported and has lost all his privileges, while Deeti, the widow of an opium grower, is travelling with a low-caste Oxen driver considered by everybody to be her husband. On board there are also the “lascars”, the Asian sailors who crew the ship, among them Serang Ali and Ah Fatt, half Parsee and half Chinese. It is an unlikely group of passengers for a ship: they all come from very different backgrounds and are divided by race, gender and cultural heritage. In particular, there is a hierarchy among people on the ship, even though many people (Zachary, Paulette and Neel in particular) are hiding their true identities. There are strong bounds that connect the characters and others are made on board of the Ibis. The voyage that many passengers were seeking as a refuge becomes in fact a nightmare.
  Sea of Poppies is an adventure novel and an epic saga at the same time. It would be perfect for the silver screen, as many features would perfectly fit in a movie (the love between Zachary and Paulette, for example, or the cruelty of British officers on board towards the “coolies”). There is even a website (http://www.seaofpoppies.com/) where all the words in the Pidgin English of the lascars are explained, imagining that Neel Rattan devoted the last years of his life to a dictionary of nautical jargon used by the lascars (who came from many different parts of Asia and Africa and therefore created a pidgin language).

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  Stefania Memole said on Aug 28, 2009 about the Hardcover edition | Add your feedback

Book Details

• Rating:
  (32)
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• English Books
• Paperback 480 Pages
• ISBN-10: 071956896X
• ISBN-13: 9780719568961
• Publisher: John Murray
• Pub date: Jun 12, 2008
• Dimensions: 1484 mm x 968 mm x 258 mm Just how big is that?
• Also available as: Mass Market Paperback, Hardcover, Audio CD, Others and eBook
• In other languages: other languages Libros en Español, Libri Italiani

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