Amitav Ghosh isn't a refugee and he probably wouldn't describe The Glass Palace as a book about refugees. It isn't - but it is. I chose to review this novel because it honors the lives of people who are forced to migrate in a way that fiction does best - through centering the story not on their flight or their suffering, but on the characters, themselves. We come to know the complete lives of the characters and for some of them, forced migration is a recurrent source of havoc.
The book begins with a recognition of two relocations that helped shape the complex, even convoluted relationship between Burma and India: our patriarch Rajkumar arrives in Rangoon on a small boat from Chittagong to put the story in motion before meeting the beautiful Dolly as she and the Burmese royal family are being pushed out of their residence (the glass palace) and exiled to Ratnagiri. Later, WWII forces hundreds of thousands of Indians out of Burma on foot, and our main family isn't spared as we're forced to acknowledge the enormous emotional losses that accompanied their flight. We're also obliged to remember this particular refugee crisis, which in the western world, has been largely forgotten. Finally, after his own clandestine move from Malaysia back to Burma, we end with Rajkumar's son Dinu (U Tun Pe) living in modern day Yangon under the stifling rule of the military junta that had by that point forced many ethnic minorities in Myanmar to flee.
Movement is a constant in the The Glass Palace. So is epic scale. For one, it’s 591 pages long (I read the Kindle version). It’s also a multi-generational drama that plays out across Burma, Malaysia and India during the tumultuous decades from 1885 to 1996. I will admit that when I started this book it felt slow and became my backup-read- usually when I found myself lying on my son’s bedroom floor, in the dark, waiting for him to go to sleep. I wish I could have known then what would be in store later. The story picks up in a big way maybe half-way through, and considering the book as a whole, the slower pace early on is actually a smart artistic choice. It allows us to feel the pace of the times as we work and dine our way through the early days, then pray the break-neck speed of war and catastrophe will let up, until it comes to a forced standstill at the hands of an oppressive junta. Ghosh ensures you will live these times with the characters.
Books like this one remind us that history doesn’t happen in a vacuum and the major events that become enshrined in our school lessons are not isolated incidents, but the result of an infinite number of minor events that have been lost to memory. Nothing really gets to the heart of that like digging into the details of a family history (even a semi-made up one), especially when the author, as is the case here, has done extensive homework to honor the truth of the times. Through stories like this history is made personal. In the Glass Palace, Ghosh delves into the ways colonialism shaped lives in India and Burma; how men and women across three generations adapted to, grappled with, or fell victim to the consequences of being tied to an exploitative power during the world’s most wide-spread and devastating war.
As mentioned in the Author’s Notes, Ghosh’s father’s family were ethnic Indians living in Rangoon and he learned of their lives in Burma through their stories. As a non-fiction writer and wanna-be journalist, it would be fascinating to talk with Ghosh about his personal inspiration for the book, among other things. I’m also in awe of his process for gathering relevant information to create the scenes and extremely well-developed characters for The Glass Palace. It was not only extensive, but at times risky. Myanmar in the 1990’s was a dangerous place to be any sort of fact-finder, for all parties involved.
Additionally, it is evident at the end of the book that Ghosh shared contemporary Burmese (mid-90’s) sentiments of awe and hope towards Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. This element was just as emotional for me as the saga, itself. I was also once enamored with Suu Kyi’s words and charisma. Her prominence in the progressive Thein Sein government gave me a sense of hope for the future of Myanmar and that of its people compelled to live outside its borders, from Thailand and Malaysia to the US, UK and elsewhere. The leader’s past achievements for her country were obviously immensely important to the people's morale and to Myanmar's democratic reforms, but now her refusal to protect, or even show any support for Burma’s Rohingya population as her government systematically eradicates them, is heart-breaking. I’ve been unable to find any recent commentary by Ghosh on the subject, and would be highly interested to read what the literary giant has to say about the now controversial figure. (The Glass Palace is my first piece by Amitav Ghosh. I now have all of his novels on my to-read list, but please know that if he has addressed the issue of Suu Kyi through fiction, I haven’t yet had the chance to read it. But would love for you to let me know here!)
On a side note, I am also fascinated by the character of Dolly. If anyone else is too, and would like to discuss her, I’m game!
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