At the beginning of Flood of Fire, Zachary finds himself paying off some debts by working as a “mystery” (craftsman) on a “budgerow” (a type of Indian river-boat) belonging to the wealthy Burnhams. Its linguistic playfulness is most evident in the story that concerns Zachary Reid, a Baltimore seaman and the son of a slave and her white master, who is himself taken by all who meet him as a white man. It is simultaneously wrong-footing and delightful, riveting and diverting. By making the narrative an ensemble piece – in Flood of Fire, four characters’ stories rotate and gently converge – and by an exuberantly ingenious hotchpotch of different languages and registers, Ghosh’s story roars along, constantly flipping between high seriousness and low humour. Ghosh’s ambition is also to show how it redrew the map of the region, prompting, among other things, the transformation of the backwater port of Hong Kong into a globally influential centre of enterprise.īut neither of the previous two novels nor this one reads as a dry history lesson. In this final instalment, that tension – essentially between a state resisting an unfettered trade that has kickstarted widespread addiction in its population and a conjunction of personal and corporate interests messianically committed to the cause of free trade – culminates in full-blown conflict.
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