The Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh

What a book! Multiple plot lines, characters and locations with historical and cultural significance spanning 100 years. A beautifully written, descriptive book with some heart breaking, heart wrenching moments, rags to riches and riches to rags stories!

Unfortunately, there was far too much going on to get truly captivated by the story and it was too easy to put down.

Changing world views on Monarchy, Empire, freedom and dictatorships set in India, Burma and Malay. It started with the deposition of the Burmese Royal Family and their life in exile, then shifted to the timber trade in Burma, rubber plantations in Malay, the Indian National Congress Party and Ghandi. It followed the life of one of the first Indian Army Officers in the Indian Army, World War 2 with bombings, exodus, salvation, suffering and death.  Any of these themes could have been a story within themselves. I wished they had, because the character narratives were told beautifully, but not for long enough, with a brief depth, before being brushed over to make way for the next character and story line. As a result, it left an emptiness and wondering about character – why and what if?

I believe the writer took on a task greater than the number of words in one book. The book spanned many years where the world was at the crux of social and political changes. These were introduced to create context for the characters, but again, briefly before rushing onto the next. There were historical inaccuracies as well and the story wasn’t so engaging that I missed them. They were obvious.

I really wanted to like this book: I learnt a lot about subjects I had no prior knowledge of and there were some brilliant characters, but the book tried to do far too much so that many interesting themes and characters were done a disservice in their story telling.