by ALICE ALBINIA
Drug addled British warships destroy Chinese junks, second battle of Chuenpee, 1841 IMAGE/Outlook
The third instalment of Ghosh’s Ibis trilogy blends high drama and deep historical learning to potent effect
Flood of Fire is the gigantic third novel in Amitav Ghosh’s extraordinary Ibis trilogy, a story of the Opium Wars told from the perspective of Indian and western participants, with a glance to the Chinese side, too. The first novel, Sea of Poppies (2008), describes opium production in India, and is mostly set on a former slaving ship, the Ibis. The second, River of Smoke (2011), follows an opium ship, the Anahita, to Canton. With Ghosh’s new book, the perfidy and brutality of British “free trade” comes into sharp focus. Ghosh’s characters convene in ways that unpick how and why the British went to war with China after the Emperor banned them from importing opium into his country. The Ibis, Anahita and other Indian and British ships assemble on the Chinese seaboard, poised like birds of prey, waiting for the kill.
There was no moral justification for the Opium Wars, and Ghosh arrays various characters to illustrate this point. Zachary, the young American hero of Sea of Poppies, succumbs to the temptations of lucre, corrupted by British example into becoming an opium trader. Ah Fatt, another traveller from the first book, becomes addicted to opium in China. But the ignominy, of course, is mostly retrospective. At the time, the British saw the military force they were assembling as a valiant strike against tyranny, as Ghosh’s pompous, moralising creation, the British trader Mr Burnham, puts it on the eve of battle: “On shoulders such as these will fall the task of?.?.?.?bestowing on the people of China the gift of liberty that the British Empire has already conferred on all those parts of the globe that it has conquered and subjugated.”
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If writing the trilogy involved years and years of reading and note-taking, Ghosh’s characters compensate for the sedentary labour of their creator by never sitting still for a minute. There is far too much history in the offing (to borrow a nautical term) to waste time on reflection and regret. Flood of Fire is all action. There are dangerous sea journeys, perilous trysts and strategic deaths. Vast fortunes are gained, intimate confidences betrayed.
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His British characters speak an amazing khichri of Indian-English. Some words still exist in British English (such as the Hindi word khichri, which has become “kedgeree”) but others are forgotten, as this lady’s sexual guidance to her lover reminds us: “I do not doubt that it is a joy to be a launder of your age, with a lathee always ready to be lagowed — and a dumbpoke is certainly a fine thing, not to be scorned. But you know, my dear mystery, a plain old-fashioned stew can always be improved by an occasional chutney.”
Conversations such as these are left unglossed, and even with the help of the word-history on Ghosh’s website, readers may be none the wiser (“launder” is a sailor, “lathee” a stick, “lagow” to secure, “dumbpoke” a stew, “mystery” a craftsman — the woman is suggesting that her lover vary his sexual technique a little). The witty ventriloquism is a reminder, to British readers, that their enriched language is just one of the things they owe to India.
Financial Times for more