Sea of Poppies

Good story and so much to learn alkng the way

I thought this was a great book, with an excellent and engaging story. It was difficult to put down, and I agree with all the other reviewers here who enjoyed it.Many people who are critical of it because they had a hard time understanding the language. It's really not bad -- there will be some words that don't make sense, but not that much, and there is enough context to get the gist of it. I would just say not to get caught up in that. Seems like some people get frustrated trying to figure out the meaning of every little Indian or pidgin word -- just move on through and enjoy the book, don't sweat that stuff.Also, the audiobook version is EXCELLENT.

This is a must read for anyone who realizes they don't know much about history and want to get it via a delicious read. Sea of Poppies is the first of the now completed trilogy - (Sea of Poppies, River of Smoke, and finally, Flood of Fire). I am reading the final volume presently and find it somewhat bawdier than the earlier books. My friend and I have read Sea of Poppies and River of Smoke aloud, and are now reading Flood of Fire. The ribald scenes in this final volume are a sort of joyful unwrapping of a lot of Victorian secrets. I strongly recommend this trilogy to anyone who wants to get a picture of 19th century British, American, and Indian commercial adventurism in China. The story is captivating and one learns something one should have (but probably did not) become aware of in high school and college. China is an issue today, right? So we have history with them. It's about opium and tea - it's business history (politics being the mere shadow of business) and a great story.

There are four main reasons why Amitov Ghosh’s “Sea of Poppies” is an excellent book: the time period, the characters, the language, and storytelling.The book takes place in 1839. Although the Opium Wars are mentioned only in passing, it is their coming that sets the book in motion. All the characters’ lives revolve around opium in one way or another, whether it is growing poppies, working in processing factories, owning the land in which the poppies are grown, or running the trading companies that move opium into China. This is a time period and setting rarely explored in fiction. The story takes place on Ganges and Hooghly Rivers before moving to the Bay of Bengal. Historically, this is clearly an important region in world politics, but I know little about it.The characters are all real and believable. They are all strangely and plausibly pulled into one another’s lives. They span a diverse gamut: from an American carpenter whose mother was a slave to lower caste Hindus, from colonial entrepreneurs to sailors of murky origins. Even when their backgrounds are shown in the narrative, many of the characters remain mysterious.The language of the book is just beautiful. Ghosh mixes any number of foreign languages along with period words and slang to keep the book moving. Using context clues, it is very easy to see what each word or phrase means. The language serves to give the book color and depth. It is not necessary to understand every single word, although it is possible, because the characters always act in character, with logic according to their situation.Lastly, the storytelling is spellbinding. It is cliché to say that Ghosh “weaves” storylines together, but he does. He runs with one storyline and only in its last paragraph does the reader realize the connection with another story or character. This is artful, modern, and very poetic.I have recently tried to branch out and read more fiction. Ghosh shows exactly why I should be reading more fiction. I look forward to reading the next two books in this series.

Something must be said to counter the negative reviews which seem to center on tough-to-understand language. It is true that there are many strange words sprinkled throughout the book but mostly they can be understood by the context in which they occur. There is however one passage early in the book which goes on for several pages of near complete incomprehensibility unless one were familiar with the particular pidgin English of the time and place, which probably few if any of us are. I suggest that instead of writing another negative review you do what I did and just skip past those pages which don't last long and whatever was missed from them is more than made up for by the treasures of the rest of the book. As for the one reviewer who stated this was the worst novel he's ever read, I imagine his experience of novels stopped after Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys. This is a great novel in the classic tradition, giving full treatment to its settings and characters. It is a surprisingly interesting look into an exotic place and time, including a full sea story with as much fascinating ship's detail as you find in Moby Dick. It is a story of people's transformations, the high and the low experiencing life-altering experiences which are both moving and life-affirming. This is a novel for novel lovers, of which few or none will be disappointed.