The Shadow Lines
BOOK REVIEW
Novel : The Shadow Lines
AUTHOR : Amitav Ghosh
Awards : winner of the Sahitya Akademi Award (1989).
Bibliography : The Shadow Lines(novel), Wikipedia(Internet).
Main Characters : Mayadebi, Tridib, Ila, May, Narrator, Nick, grandmother.
POLITICAL SCENERIO :
The novel is set against the backdrop of historical events:
1.Swadeshi movement
2.Second World War
3.Partition of Country
4.Communal riots of 1963-64 in Dhaka and Calcutta
CHARACTERS ANALYSIS :
The characters in this novel – except that of Tridib – are realistically portrayed and are not larger than life. Each one is portrayed with all the weaknesses that make them endearing. Each one is believable . But Tridib does not seem to belong to this world. He comes across as a ‘seer’, someone endowed with extra-sensory and extra-visionary abilities.
1. Narrator : The protagonist is a middle class boy who grows up in a middle class family. He is sexually attaracted to Ila but he never tells her. He is very close to his grandmother and knows about her more than anyone. As a young boy he seldom gets to travel farther than his school. And yet his world spans far beyond, across continents. He paints up this world, rather vividly, borrowing colours from others. He uses Tridib’s eyes to view a certain family in London, their house, the streets, the panic of war. He uses his grandmother’s eyes to see her life in Dhaka as a young girl, her uncle and cousins, the other side of the big house where everything was upside down. He uses his cousin’s eyes to view different parts of the world where she travelled, her aspirations for belonging, her heartaches caused by a reality as different from her dreams as she and her background was from those with whom she lived in those foreign lands.
2. Tridib : He was the son of Mayadebi, and so by relation he was the second uncle of Narrator. He is well-travelled but he prefers to live his life in Calcutta, where he works at a Ph.D. in archaeology. For
Novel : The Shadow Lines
AUTHOR : Amitav Ghosh
Awards : winner of the Sahitya Akademi Award (1989).
Bibliography : The Shadow Lines(novel), Wikipedia(Internet).
Main Characters : Mayadebi, Tridib, Ila, May, Narrator, Nick, grandmother.
POLITICAL SCENERIO :
The novel is set against the backdrop of historical events:
1.Swadeshi movement
2.Second World War
3.Partition of Country
4.Communal riots of 1963-64 in Dhaka and Calcutta
CHARACTERS ANALYSIS :
The characters in this novel – except that of Tridib – are realistically portrayed and are not larger than life. Each one is portrayed with all the weaknesses that make them endearing. Each one is believable . But Tridib does not seem to belong to this world. He comes across as a ‘seer’, someone endowed with extra-sensory and extra-visionary abilities.
1. Narrator : The protagonist is a middle class boy who grows up in a middle class family. He is sexually attaracted to Ila but he never tells her. He is very close to his grandmother and knows about her more than anyone. As a young boy he seldom gets to travel farther than his school. And yet his world spans far beyond, across continents. He paints up this world, rather vividly, borrowing colours from others. He uses Tridib’s eyes to view a certain family in London, their house, the streets, the panic of war. He uses his grandmother’s eyes to see her life in Dhaka as a young girl, her uncle and cousins, the other side of the big house where everything was upside down. He uses his cousin’s eyes to view different parts of the world where she travelled, her aspirations for belonging, her heartaches caused by a reality as different from her dreams as she and her background was from those with whom she lived in those foreign lands.
2. Tridib : He was the son of Mayadebi, and so by relation he was the second uncle of Narrator. He is well-travelled but he prefers to live his life in Calcutta, where he works at a Ph.D. in archaeology. For