Amitav Ghosh's The shadow lines

by Novy Kapadia

Contributed articles on Shadow lines, novel by Amitav Ghosh.

304 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 2001

Reviews

[Nishith Khare · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Shadow Lines by Amitav Ghosh is a book which has the feeling of a family every middle-class could relate. The storyline is gripping, satirical as well as sarcastic. The pre-colonial instances with a major part of pro-colonial times have been covered. The author has briefly developed the story with a dim ending.

The story has been told by the narrator majorly, Tridib, May and Ila. The life through the eyes of a boy born in middle class family in a Indian city which was the center of activity during freedom revolution from British rule. He has rich cousins living abroad and visit him bringing gifts for the whole family. A well developed back story for each and every character. The plot jumps forward and backwards throughout the story. The depiction of scenes are very relatable for anyone living in India.

What I liked about the book was how the thought process of the boy resembles now also. The reality has never been hidden or blurred and said as it is. Some parts are so well described that I had to take a break to realize what I read to completely absorb it. For example the four friends during the war were similar to the four friends of the story.

What I didn't liked about the book was its abrupt ending, it felt like the ending was written in a hurry. It could have been ended in a good note rather quite bleak. Other than this, the jumps from time to time in the story becomes confusing for the reader.

The Author received the prestigious 'Sahitya Akademi Award' for its depiction of the riots during Indo-Pakistan war. Its a must read for anyone who wants to know the ground reality during post-colonial times!

[Aravind Mahipani · Rating 3 out of 5]

The narrative style is so creative, more than characters amitav ghosh focuses on incidents, so we see a same incident or object from different times and through different people all aligned on parallels. The way of hiding selective information, now when we re read the book after a while we see them in a different light, the nostalgia is different and their characterizations are different. But on the long run after half of the book, when we're seeing more about the protagonist the writer keeps on coming to the past, most of it is needed, but there is a whole big sequence where we see the protagonist in his delhi college days talking about politics and his memory around it that completely flew away from my head, was so tiring to see the main events being held back between these things.

[Zita Szigeti · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first part was a little confusing and hard to get through. The second part (Coming Home) was absolutely engaging and enjoyable.