At one point in The Glass Palace, far into the action of the novel, a minor character, an Indian soldier in the British army, asks himself, a propos of his participation in World War II, his constant risk on behalf of the Empire that, from his view, enslaves his country, “In the everyday world when would you ever stand up and say, “I’m going to risk my life for this”? As a human being it’s something you can only do if you know why you’re doing it.” He means it as a condemnation of his role in the army—why would he risk his life for an idea that, in the end, means nothing to him?—but it serves as a handy key to the novel. In everyday life no one stands up for anything, no one risks their life for anything, and the meaning of things is unimportant, trivial. Yet, in lives like the ones portrayed in this novel, there is no everyday life; or, rather, everyday life is a patina protecting history, thinly laid over heroism and cowardice and the rise and fall of great kingdoms. This book is about families, yes, and characters, yes, but it’s also about history, about Asia, about life. It’s a saga in the greatest sense of the word—concerned with the small details while at the same time portraying the vast scope of the twentieth century as it sweeps across South and Southeast Asia.
It’s an impressive accomplishment, this blend. It is, on the whole, the story of Rajkumar, an Indian orpha in Burma, bereft of ties to family or places, working his way up in the world and out of his initial state, in which he is “unaware that in certain places there exist invisible bonds linking people to one another through personifications of their commonality.” It is, in essence, the story of the community Rajkumar acquires—his wife, a servant of the King and Queen of Burma who accompanies them in exile; his sons; his granddaughter; his friends. Moreover, it is their story set against the wane of Burma and the rise of Britain, and, later, the wane of Britain and the rise of Burma, this time a very different nation in politics and soul. The transfers of power, in this book, serve as backdrops to a family saga which weaves its way in and out of individual lives—friends, children, grandchildren—and the way each person deals with a new reality, a new world. Ghosh writes of the smooth transfer from King of Burma to British regime, “this is how power is eclipsed: in a moment of vivid realism, between the waning of one fantasy of governance and its replacement by the next; in an instant when the world springs free of its mooring of dreams and reveals itself to be girdled in the pathways of survival and self-preservation,” and his novel bears out these sentences: the shifts of political power serve as mirrors to reveal the characters’s methods for survival and self-preservation, the ways that they ensure their family saga can live on, as each new dynasty dies.
Ghosh’s writing is fine and balanced, just enough to keep the reader cruising through his story, which is the really compelling aspect of the novel. He has a delicate insight into character, and a solid grasp of the history of these events—no wonder, after reading in his postlude the research he undertook to write this. My only complaint is that the novel is somewhat long; in attempting to take the entire century in his grasp, Ghosh has overreached, and the last hundred pages are rather weak, almost a hasty afterthought to the real meat of the novel. Likewise, the writing seemed finer, more skilled, more detailed, near the beginning, with the tale of young Rajkumar and his ascent into business. All flaws aside, though, I love family sagas like this, and those that teach history in addition to humanity are the very best of the breed. This one is sure to please.
No comments:
Post a Comment