Amitav Ghosh
“People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but *actually* from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint – it’s more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly… time-y wimey… stuff.” ~ Steven Moffat. This probably best describes the narrative structure of the book – it moves forward and backward in time, sometimes seeking parallels, and sometimes closure, it would seem.
Many books in one, that’s a way to describe this work. It is Tridib’s life and relationships, seen through the eyes of the narrator. It is the narrator’s own story – in Calcutta where he grew up, in Delhi where he studied and then in London. It is his view of the world he lives in, the people who inhabit it and his changing relationships with them. It is also the relationships within the Datta Chaudhari family and with their friends – the Prices. But across these, I could see at least a couple of common threads. One, the aspect that gives the book its title (I assume). Places, events and people have lines connecting, and sometimes disconnecting them, but these lines exist only in some perspectives. Hence, shadow lines. In this book, I felt the focus is largely on places – the boundaries between nations are lines, and the connection between Calcutta and Khulna seems much stronger than between Kolkata and Srinagar though the latter pair exist in the same country. The second aspect that offers a connection is the end of the story, it is something that brings closure of sorts to all the three narratives I mentioned earlier.
But beyond the depth of the book and its perspectives, I think what made it really work for me was the extent to which I could relate to the narrator as a personality – shy, introspective and with a habit of attributing significance (and clinging on) to events and people that is unfathomable to others. (“..because stories are all there are to live in, it was just a question of which one you chose..”) There were pages, reading which, I wondered how any other person could know a particular feeling and capture it so poignantly.
The book is split into two parts – Going Away and Coming Home. I’d say that it is the same thing, because as the narrator says, “a place does not merely exist, it has to be invented in one’s imagination”.
I didn’t think anything would come come close to the poignancy of The Glass Palace, but this is stiff competition. Fantastic read, I wished it would never end.
