Ghosh, Amitav. The Glass Palace. New York: Random House, 2001.
Reason read: Ghosh was born in July.
There is much love for Ghosh’s The Glass Palace. This was the right balance of historical fiction, love story, and political commentary within a sweeping saga. Dolly is a woman who has been in the service of the Queen for as long as she can remember. Rajkumar is an orphan boy taken in by a teak logger and taught the trade. Glass Palace follows them through childhood, their storybook romance, growing families and the inevitable, old age. Intertwined are the stories of their children, their children’s children, war, economics, society, politics, fashion, feminism, and life. The way it was written the story could have been without end.
Quote to quote, “This is how power is eclipsed” (p 36). Don’t hate me but I thought of a John Mayer line, “Power is made by power being taken.” Same thing.
Book trivia: This should have been a movie. It has all the right components: war, beautiful women, explosions, death, romance, cars…Speaking of the cars, Ghosh was especially detailed with the automobiles.
Author fact: Ghosh also wrote Sea of Poppies which is on my Challenge list.
BookLust Twist: Two twists – from Book Lust in the chapter called “Historical Fiction From Around the World” (p 47) and again in Book Lust To Go in the chapter simply called “Burmese Days” (p 47).
~*LunaSea*~ 