THE GLASS PALACE

Another Great Book from the stables of Amitav Ghosh. The Book takes you back into the times of the occupation of Burma by the British.

The book revolves around the fate of an orphan Bengali boy who lands up in Burma and by his sheer hard work, cunning and shrewdness makes a mark for himself.

The Book has an interesting genere as it revolves in two parallel fronts, one moving along the adventures of the young boy and the other dealing with the trials and tribulations of the exhiled royal family of Burma and their young maid.

The story in the end takes a somber turn (like all of Ghosh's novels), when the book starts to deal with the part with the Japanese invade the territory of Burma. How the family breaks up and flees and all that is left is the old man (a distant memory of what he was as a young boy) and his infant grand daughter.

Ghosh is an expert at vividly describing the scenes and scennarios which he himself at times might have not experienced.

His descriptions of the logging camps in the mountains and the plantaion manor houses is exquisite.