The Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh | Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

The Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh

An old-fashioned, multi-generational novel, it tells a story, as E.M. Forster tiredly remarked. Oh yes, it tells a story.

The story is set in Burma, around the time the British ruthlessly conquered it, sending the Royal Family into exile in India. A new breed of Indian entrepreneurs flooded Burma, making fortunes in a the dazzling new world of the gentle Burmese.

The central romance of the novel is the story of a self-made entrepreneurial Indian who become a millionaire in the rapidly changing Burma–teak!! rubber!!–and a gentle Burmese girl, essentially a mystic, who rather reluctantly, becomes his wife, though she ultimately gratefully escapes into a Buddhist monastery.

The novel spans a century, through the Second World War and the brutal Japanese invasion of Burma, ending with the equally brutal and mindless coming to the power of the current junta, and a cameo of the gentle Aung San Suu Kyi.

It’s fun, it’s relaxing, you learn an enormous amount. If you have nothing better to do, forget everything and curl up with this well-spun and well-written tale–when you have a couple of days free!!