In chronicling the dashed hopes, economic instability and uncertain livelihood for those trying to thrive in South and Southeast Asia in the late 19th century and throughout the 20th century, Indian author Amitav Ghosh in The Glass Palace cites the disruptiveness of strong-arm political struggles that often degenerate into shaky, desperate strangleholds. As he explains, "This is how power is eclipsed: in a moment of vivid realism, between the waning of one fantasy of governance and its replacement by the next, in an instant when the world springs free of its moorings of dreams and reveals itself to be girdled in the pathways of survival and self-preservation."
Ghosh offers in his third novel an ambitious and absorbing saga spanning three generations and set in Burma, India and Malaya. He not only delves into the big-picture expectations and lost causes, but also details, with remarkable subtlety, the breadth and depth of the vision and violence - both internecine and external - that sets up and besets such tenuous "fantasy of governances" as the old monarchy, imperialist British rule and military dictatorship. Among forthright presentations of rebellions, wars and interwoven relationships, the most striking and provocative feature of Glass Palace lies in the thorough, nuanced and unforced discussions and debates on such complex political and ethical subjects as colonialism, servitude, mutiny, societal roles for women and self- rule. One subject especially forceful and well-rendered concerns the dilemma of Indian soldiers in the British army confronted with the increasing impulses of nationalism.
The dizzying array of events, issues and characters in this epic novel reach, of course, epic proportions, but one unifying mainstay is constituted in the overarching, rags-to-riches-to-rags story of Rajkumar, patriarch to some of the characters. As an 11-year-old Indian peasant in Burma, he witnesses the 1885 invasion by British troops and the capture of the fabled Glass Palace, with the subsequent exile of the Burmese royal court, including 10-year-old Dolly, nursemaid to the Second Princess.
With intelligence and "watchful determination," Rajkumar goes on to make a fortune in the teak trade and to find and marry Dolly. After starting a family and going on to further success in the rubber industry, which collapses in the chaos of World War II, Rajkumar toward the end of his life comes to a conclusion profoundly at odds with his youthful disregard of "invisible bonds linking people to one another through personifications of their commonality." In response to the healthy cry of a baby, the opportunistic and self-centered Rajkumar grasps that "At that moment the world held no more beautiful sound than this utterance of rage: this primeval sound of life proclaiming its determination to defend itself."
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