River of Smoke Audiobook

Quotes

• “No writer in modern India has held a novelistic lamp to the subcontinent’s densely thicketed past as vividly and acutely as Amitav Ghosh…River of Smoke, the second volume of his ambitious Ibis trilogy, is the work of a writer with a historical awareness and an appetite for polyphony that are equal to the immense demands of the material he seeks to illuminate…Evenly written and engaging…The force of Ghosh’s ideas and the beauty of his tableaus of Canton are two of the book’s achievements; the semantic ripples of the variety of dialects he folds into the narration are a third. River of Smoke is both a stirring portrayal of the past and, novelistically, a prescient beacon for the future.”

  — New York Times Book Review

• “The period detail is meticulously researched and lovingly described…A monumental tribute to the pain and glory of an earlier era of globalization.”

  — Washington Post

• “Eloquent…Fascinating…[River of Smoke’s] strength lies in how thoroughly Ghosh fills out his research with his novelistic fantasy, seduced by each new situation that presents itself and each new character, so that at their best the scenes read with a sensual freshness as if they were happening now.”

  — Guardian (London)

• “Gripping…Ghosh has made humanely clear the cold cynicism of the Opium Wars.”

  — Boston Globe

• “Ghosh continues to amaze. Few authors since Melville and Joyce have excelled at both rambunctious, rangy linguistic play and deeply and lovingly observed human insight like this.”

  — Minneapolis Star-Tribune

• “Like a wonderful multicolored tapestry Ghosh has woven a story made up of a series of vibrant threads made from a multitude of materials…Masterful…While Ghosh’s descriptive abilities allow us to create intricate portraits of people and locations, it’s his agility with languages which gives River of Smoke an extra level of verisimilitude…River of Smoke is a wonderful mixture of people, places, and story that captures a moment in history like an insect snared in amber.”

  — Seattle Post-Intelligencer

• “On one level, [River of Smoke] is a remarkable feat of research, bringing alive the hybrid customs of food and dress and the competing philosophies of the period with intimate precision; on another it is a subversive act of empathy, viewing a whole panorama of world history from the ‘wrong’ end of the telescope. The real trick, though, is that it is also fabulously entertaining.”

  — Observer (London)

• “[This] vast book has a Dickensian sweep of characters, high- and low-life intermingling…Ghosh conjures up a thrilling sense of place.”

  — Economist

• “Spellbinding and astute, Ghosh continues the nineteenth-century historical saga about the opium trade that he launched with Sea of Poppies. This is an even more fluid and pleasurable tale, however dire its conflicts, and stands firmly on its own, though readers shouldn’t miss the first installment…With one more novel to go, Ghosh’s epic trilogy is on its way to making literary history.”

  — Booklist (starred review)

• “Ghosh triumphs both through the clarity of his style and the sweep of his vision, and he leaves the reader eager for volume three.”

  — Kirkus Reviews