 First edition | |
| Author | Amitav Ghosh |
|---|---|
| Country | India |
| Language | English |
| Series | Ibis trilogy |
| Genre | Novel |
| Publisher | Penguin Group |
Publication date | 18 June 2011 |
| Media type | Print (hardback) |
| Pages | 557 |
| ISBN | 978-0-670-08215-5 |
| Preceded by | Sea of Poppies |
| Followed by | Flood of Fire |
River of Smoke (2011) is a novel by Indian novelist Amitav Ghosh. It is the second volume of the Ibis trilogy.
The promotional text refers to the storyline which can be summarized as follows: The novel begins after the incidents on the Ibis, which was caught in a storm and eventually ended up in Mauritius, but with a few passengers less. From the details of the changing lives and traditions of Indian migrants in Mauritius, the novel traces the fate of other characters from the Ibis and describes the opium trade in China. The novel has a rich tapestry of characters from various cultural and geographical backgrounds whose common interest is trade with China. The plot is set in Fanqui town, a small strip of land used by foreigners to trade with local Chinese traders, a year before the First Opium War.
In 1838, three ships are caught in a raging storm in the Andaman Sea: the Anahita, owned by Bahram Modi, a Parsi opium trader from Bombay; the Redruth, owned by Fitcher Penrose, on an expedition to collect rare species of plants from China; and the Ibis (from the previous novel Sea of Poppies), carrying convicts and indentured labourers. The convicts Neel Rattan, a Bengali zamindar, and Ah Fatt, a criminal from Canton, escape from the ship along with a couple of lascars.
The story traces the lives of these principal characters in Canton. Bahram Modi, a lowly son-in-law of the rich Parsi shipbuilder Rustamjee Mistrie, has convinced his father-in-law to provide him seed capital to enter into the opium trade, carried out multiple successful expeditions to China, and created considerable wealth in the process for his in-laws. However, on the sudden demise of his father-in-law, he is forced by his brothers-in-law to retire from the export division. Bahram decides to ship a large consignment of opium to China, as he is confident that he would be able to earn a sizeable profit to buy out the export division, in spite of a ban on the trading of opium, issued by the Chinese officials. Bahram has a son (Ah Fatt) through a Chinese boat woman, Chi Mei, unknown to his family back in Bombay.
Fitcher Penrose, a botanist, is on an expedition to China to collect rare plants. He is joined by Paulette Lambert, daughter of a French botanist, in his search for the rare Golden Camellia. They are helped by Robin Chinnery, a fictional illegitimate son of the English painter George Chinnery.
Neel and Ah Fatt have escaped from the Ibis and they meet Bahram Modi, Ah Fatt's father. Neel joins Bahram as his munshi, a personal secretary and translator.
Does Mr. Moddie manage to sell his opium and redeem himself in spite of the Chinese government's crackdown? Does Mr. Penrose find the rare plant he is looking for? Does Neel manage to evade the long arm of the law?
The novel has received generally positive reviews from critics. David Davidar writing in Outlook notes, "Conventional wisdom has it that in the age of Twitter long striders in the world of fiction are doomed to extinction. Attention spans have dwindled, the pundits say, brevity is all, and the grand narrative is to be consigned to the trash heap. Well, thank God, Amitav Ghosh hasn't been paying attention to the so-called experts but has decided to go where his inclinations have led him. Generous helpings of humour, adventure (the hunt for the golden camellia was a favourite), history, romance, villainy and suspense are expertly blended into the narrative to make for a rich and entertaining read". [1]
Anjana Rajan writing in The Hindu says, "To have read Sea of Poppies is no pre-condition to enjoy the second. What is perhaps a pre-condition is an appetite for detail, a taste for complexities, and a love for words and their strange journeys. Robin Chinnery's conversation transports us to Jane Austen's England. And we are charmed by the sing-song of pidgin as Chi-mei sympathises with Bahram." [2]
Tessa Hadley in The Guardian says, "In historical novels the past can sometimes feel tamed; hindsight, hovering just off the page, tells us that we know what it all added up to and what came of it (the First Opium War, during which British gunboats enforced a treaty opening Chinese ports to international trade, comes shortly after the ending of this novel). But Ghosh's novels somehow succeed in taking us back inside the chaos of when 'then' was 'now'. His grasp of the detail of the period is exhaustive – he is so thoroughly submerged in it – that readers can't possibly remember all the things he shows them, or hold on to all the life-stories of all the characters he introduces." She also goes on to lament, "The novel feels stitched together clumsily in a few places. In particular, the section narrated in letters from Robin Chinnery (illegitimate, mixed-race and presumably fictional son of George Chinnery, a real-life painter of South China scenes) to Paulette the botanist, who appears in the previous book. Paulette is too absent and Robin feels like a contrivance to take us inside certain aspects of Canton life where Bahram can't go." [3]
In Paste magazine, writer Zack Shlachter calls the Ibis trilogy "one of the most inspired explorations of global encounters by a 21st-century writer," noting that in River of Smoke Ghosh focuses on the simultaneous dangers and potential—for exploitation as for more benevolent kinds of exchange—inherent in trade. [4]
The novel has received some awards and recognition. It was shortlisted for the 2011 The Hindu Literary Prize; longlisted for the 2011 Man Asian Literary Prize; and shortlisted for the 2013 DSC Prize for South Asian Literature. [5] NPR listed the book as one of the year's best historical novels. [6]
Opium is dried latex obtained from the seed capsules of the opium poppy Papaver somniferum. Approximately 12 percent of opium is made up of the analgesic alkaloid morphine, which is processed chemically to produce heroin and other synthetic opioids for medicinal use and for the illegal drug trade. The latex also contains the closely related opiates codeine and thebaine, and non-analgesic alkaloids such as papaverine and noscapine. The traditional, labor-intensive method of obtaining the latex is to scratch ("score") the immature seed pods (fruits) by hand; the latex leaks out and dries to a sticky yellowish residue that is later scraped off and dehydrated. The word meconium historically referred to related, weaker preparations made from other parts of the opium poppy or different species of poppies.
The Parsis are an ethnoreligious group of the Indian subcontinent adhering to Zoroastrianism. They are descended from Persians who migrated to Medieval India during and after the Arab conquest of the Persian Empire to escape religious persecution and conversion to Islam. The Parsi people comprise the older of the Indian subcontinent's two Zoroastrian communities vis-à-vis the Iranis, whose ancestors migrated to British-ruled India from Qajar-era Iran. According to a 16th-century Parsi epic, Qissa-i Sanjan, Zoroastrian Persians continued to migrate to the Indian subcontinent from Greater Iran in between the 8th and 10th centuries, and ultimately settled in present-day Gujarat after being granted refuge by a local Hindu king, Jadi Rana.
The First Opium War, also known as the Anglo-Chinese War, was a series of military engagements fought between the British Empire and the Qing dynasty of China between 1839 and 1842. The immediate issue was the Chinese enforcement of their ban on the opium trade by seizing private opium stocks from merchants at Canton and threatening to impose the death penalty for future offenders. Despite the opium ban, the British government supported the merchants' demand for compensation for seized goods, and insisted on the principles of free trade and equal diplomatic recognition with China. Opium was Britain's single most profitable commodity trade of the 19th century. After months of tensions between the two states, the British navy launched an expedition in June 1840, which ultimately defeated the Chinese using technologically superior ships and weapons by August 1842. The British then imposed the Treaty of Nanking, which forced China to increase foreign trade, give compensation, and cede Hong Kong Island to the British. Consequently the opium trade continued in China. Twentieth-century nationalists considered 1839 the start of a century of humiliation, and many historians consider it the beginning of modern Chinese history.
Shekhar Kulbhushan Kapur is an Indian filmmaker and actor. Born into the Anand-Sahni family, Kapur is the recipient of several accolades, including a BAFTA Award, a National Film Award, a National Board of Review Award and three Filmfare Awards, in addition to nomination for a Golden Globe Award.
Lin Zexu, courtesy name Yuanfu, was a Chinese political philosopher and politician. He was a head of state (Viceroy), Governor General, scholar-official, and under the Daoguang Emperor of the Qing dynasty best known for his role in the First Opium War of 1839–42. He was from Fuzhou, Fujian Province. Lin's forceful opposition to the opium trade was a primary catalyst for the First Opium War. He is praised for his constant position on the "moral high ground" in his fight, but he is also blamed for a rigid approach which failed to account for the domestic and international complexities of the problem. The Emperor endorsed the hardline policies and anti-drugs movement advocated by Lin, but placed all responsibility for the resulting disastrous Opium War onto Lin.
Amitav Ghosh is an Indian writer. He won the 54th Jnanpith award in 2018, India's highest literary honor. Ghosh's ambitious novels use complex narrative strategies to probe the nature of national and personal identity, particularly of the people of India and South Asia. He has written historical fiction and also written non-fiction works discussing topics such as colonialism and climate change.
Jeanne Baret was a member of Louis Antoine de Bougainville's expedition on the ships La Boudeuse and Étoile in 1766–1769. Baret is recognized as the first woman to have completed a voyage of circumnavigation of the globe, which she did via maritime transport.
The former communities of Jewish migrants and their descendants from Baghdad and elsewhere in the Middle East are traditionally called Baghdadi Jews or Iraqi Jews. They settled primarily in the ports and along the trade routes around the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea.
The Cantonese people or Yue people, are a Yue-speaking Han Chinese subgroup originating from or residing in the provinces of Guangdong and Guangxi, in Southern Mainland China. More accurately, "Cantonese" refers only to people with roots from Guangzhou and its satellite cities and towns, rather than generally referring to the people of the Liangguang region.
George Chinnery was an English painter who spent most of his life in Asia, especially India and southern China.
Indian English literature (IEL), also referred to as Indian Writing in English (IWE), is the body of work by writers in India who write in the English language but whose native or co-native language could be one of the numerous languages of India. Its early history began with the works of Henry Louis Vivian Derozio and Michael Madhusudan Dutt followed by Rabindranath Tagore and Sri Aurobindo. R. K. Narayan, Mulk Raj Anand and Raja Rao contributed to the growth and popularity of Indian English fiction in the 1930s. It is also associated, in some cases, with the works of members of the Indian diaspora who subsequently compose works in English.
Sing-song girls, also known as flower girls, is an English-language term for the courtesans in China during the 19th century AD.
The naval history of China dates back thousands of years, with archives existing since the late Spring and Autumn period regarding the Chinese navy and the various ship types employed in wars. The Ming dynasty of China was the leading global maritime power between 1400 and 1433, when Chinese shipbuilders built massive ocean-going junks and the Chinese imperial court launched seven maritime voyages. In modern times, the current People's Republic of China and the Republic of China governments continue to maintain standing navies through the People's Liberation Army Navy and the Republic of China Navy, respectively.
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The Government Opium and Alkaloid Factories (GOAF) is an Indian government-owned organisation. Its headquarter is located in New Delhi. The overall supervision of the organisation comes under the purview of Department of Revenue, Ministry of Finance. There are two factories under this organisation - Government Opium and Alkaloid Works, Ghazipur (U.P.) and Government Opium and Alkaloid Works, Neemuch (M.P.).
Foo Choo Choon, a Hakka tin miner, revenue farmer and businessman from Penang and Perak was, in his time, said to have been the richest Chinese man in the world.
Sea of Poppies (2008) is a novel by Indian novelist Amitav Ghosh which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2008. It is the first volume of the Ibis trilogy. In the words of Rajnish Mishra, "the Ibis trilogy is Ghosh's most vehement indictment of the source of imperialism and colonialism." The second volume is River of Smoke.
The Second Battle of Chuenpi was fought between British and Chinese forces in the Pearl River Delta, Guangdong province, China, on 7 January 1841 during the First Opium War. The British launched an amphibious attack at the Humen strait (Bogue), capturing the forts on the islands of Chuenpi and Taikoktow. Subsequent negotiations between British Plenipotentiary Charles Elliot and Chinese Imperial Commissioner Qishan resulted in the Convention of Chuenpi on 20 January. As one of the terms of the agreement, Elliot announced the cession of Hong Kong Island to the British Empire, after which the British took formal possession of the island on 26 January.
The Ibis trilogy is a work of historical fiction by Indian writer Amitav Ghosh, consisting of the novels Sea of Poppies (2008), River of Smoke (2011) and Flood of Fire (2015). A work of postcolonial literature, the story is set across the Indian Ocean region during the 1830s in the lead-up to the First Opium War. It particularly focuses on the trade of opium between India and China and the trafficking of girmityas to Mauritius. The series has received critical acclaim and academic attention for its historical research, themes and ambition. A television series adaptation was announced to be in development in 2019.
Flood of Fire is a 2015 novel by Indian novelist Amitav Ghosh. Following the Sea of Poppies (2008) and River of Smoke (2011), the novel is the final installment of the Ibis trilogy, which concerns the 19th-century opium trade between India and China. The book was first published by the English publisher John Murray, and later by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in the United States. The novel was shortlisted for The Hindu Literary Prize and received the Crossword Book Jury Award in Fiction in 2015.