River of Smoke in Around the World in 80 Books

May 02, 2013 Sam rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 1-contemp-literary, setting-asia-east, setting-asia-south, reviewed, read-2013, authors-asian-descent-outside-asia

River of Smoke’s predecessor, Sea of Poppies, was such a lovely book. Shaking me awake as reader with the curious language; the coming together of people of disparate backgrounds and conflicts; the remaking of identities; telling a story that felt both intimate and sweeping at the same time. So this second book in the trilogy was doomed to fail in living up to the the installment before it. I sensed this, never quite working up enough motivation to pick up this book right when it was released in River of Smoke’s predecessor, Sea of Poppies, was such a lovely book. Shaking me awake as reader with the curious language; the coming together of people of disparate backgrounds and conflicts; the remaking of identities; telling a story that felt both intimate and sweeping at the same time. So this second book in the trilogy was doomed to fail in living up to the the installment before it. I sensed this, never quite working up enough motivation to pick up this book right when it was released in 2010.

Sea of Poppies left off at a cliff hanger. How would our beloved characters on (and now off) of the Ibis fare? No worries, because surely we’ll find out in book 2, right? Not quite. But I had fair warning from early reviews that we would not be seeing much of the characters from book 1. So I had been mentally prepared to go with the flow, to take River of Smoke on its own terms. If Ghosh wants to introduce me to new characters and expand the world beyond the Ibis, then I was going to put my trust in him and just take in a good story, carried along by the faith that he’ll tie it all together later in book 3.

So only getting throwaway references to the Sea of Poppies characters was fine. Getting thrown into the goings-on in Fanqui-town, the bustling traders’ enclave in Canton, was entertaining for a while. It’s a mélange of sights and sounds and and tastes, with pidgin languages, a mishmash of cultures leaving their marks. You could tell Ghosh had a great time using his research to recreate this vivid world for us. This setting really was a major character in the book. This was all nice and fine.

What was not so nice and fine was the lack of action. Most of the action takes place when a Parsi opium trader arrives in Canton at a time when there are rumors that the Chinese empire is ready to get serious about shutting down the opium trade plied by the British Empire mostly. Most of the book deals with this struggle between opium traders not taking the Chinese edicts seriously, feeling genuinely affronted that the Chinese empire would violate the precepts of Free Trade—regarded almost as a religion by many of the traders. If regular Chinese citizens want to get addicted to opium and ruin their lives and ruin society, what right did the Chinese emperor have to put a stop to this? Interesting conflict, of course.

Actually, now that I've recounted the above, it's not the lack of action, but how that action is presented to us that bothers me. Most of this story doesn’t unfold for us to witness in “real time.” Rather we’re told the story after most of the incidents have happened, and we find out about them in letters that a painter based in Canton writes to another character, or through conversations among the traders who report on whatever has already happened. I find this a curious choice taken by Ghosh. Why couldn’t we just see the action happening? Why did we have to instead be told of the action later? It just made the entire story feel stagnant and removed.
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Jun 05, 2011 Lara rated it it was amazing

I love these books! So interesting and image-filled! I know some people haven't liked this as much as Sea of Poppies but I don't see how you couldn't love River of Smoke if you enjoyed Sea of Poppies. ...more

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