Fiction
Verdict: Read it
Amitav Ghosh is another author that I am become extremely fond of reading. Sea of Poppies has taken two very different characters and placed them next to each other and you can't help but contrast them.
One character, an orphaned white woman, leaves her adoptive home due to unreasonable restrictions. She comes from a place of privilege, sanitation, and servants.
The other is a woman from the central plains of India. One that still covers her head, but had the courage to run away with a man after he foiled plans for her to be burned on her husband's pyre and is hunted there forward.
Both women find themselves on a ship headed to Sri Lanka in the hope that working on a plantation will bring them safety and a comfortable life - more comfortable than the one they are running from.
Set in a time when Britain was present in India, the language is stunningly confusing to understand at first. It's a bastardized mix of English and Hindi that apparently was common and popular among the English when they colonized India. As someone who understands both languages, it's a confusing ride for a while. Once one catches on, it's very amusing as well as horrifying to watch both languages being butchered so badly with so much arrogance.
Read it.
Becky
Verdict: Read it
Amitav Ghosh is another author that I am become extremely fond of reading. Sea of Poppies has taken two very different characters and placed them next to each other and you can't help but contrast them.
One character, an orphaned white woman, leaves her adoptive home due to unreasonable restrictions. She comes from a place of privilege, sanitation, and servants.
The other is a woman from the central plains of India. One that still covers her head, but had the courage to run away with a man after he foiled plans for her to be burned on her husband's pyre and is hunted there forward.
Both women find themselves on a ship headed to Sri Lanka in the hope that working on a plantation will bring them safety and a comfortable life - more comfortable than the one they are running from.
Set in a time when Britain was present in India, the language is stunningly confusing to understand at first. It's a bastardized mix of English and Hindi that apparently was common and popular among the English when they colonized India. As someone who understands both languages, it's a confusing ride for a while. Once one catches on, it's very amusing as well as horrifying to watch both languages being butchered so badly with so much arrogance.
Read it.
Becky
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