Amitav Ghosh’s most recent novel Gun Island: A Novel, was a joy to read.
One may quibble, I suppose, whether this book is best described as a novel or as a fable, but under either rubric, it tells a story that takes the reader on a fascinating adventure and that provides a much-appreciated perspective on our world.
The story revolves around a middle-aged Indian-American rare books dealer--Deen--who, during an annual trip to Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), becomes involved in a mystery. Or is it a revelation? Into Deen’s quotidian life in Kolkata come two women; one, a new acquaintance, Piya, is also an Indian emigre to America, and she’s a marine biologist. She’s a skeptical scientist committed to her research into dolphins in the vicinity of the Sundarban islands in the Bay of Bengal, near Kolkata. The other woman, Cinta, is a long-time acquaintance from Venice, a historian, who has experienced what we might call the “paranormal’ or the“super natural” in her long life. Finally, two young men, Rafi and Tipu, are introduced into the plot, and things begin to move--across continents.
The confluence of the five main characters begins a chain of events that takes Deen to the Sundarban islands, back to his home in Brooklyn, to Los Angeles, to Venice, and onto a ship in the Mediterranean, all to solve a mystery. Or to pursue a vision. The mystery arises from the legend of the “the gun merchant” (or ‘Bonduki Sadagar’ in Bangla) and “Manasa Devi,” the goddess of snakes and other poisonous creatures. Deen is prodded into exploring this legend in part because of his work as a young doctoral student who wrote his dissertation about a Bengali legend. Although quite reluctant, Deen is compelled by personal connections (realized and hoped for), and he agrees to investigate the claim that there is a shrine in a swampy Sundarban island dedicated to the goddess. The shrine, he hopes, will also provide a memorial of the struggle between the gun merchant and the goddess. Almost against his will, Deen is drawn further and further into discovering and reconstructing the tale of the gun merchant.
But as Deen attempts to construct an account of the gun merchant, the natural world, the world of snakes and dolphins, for instance, keeps intruding in new and puzzling ways. To the rational mind, what the characters are experiencing is a sea-change (in part quite literal) in the environment that forces creatures to migrate or die. The natural world and the super natural world keep manifesting in new and unexpected ways. “Super natural”? In a bit of coincidence (or synchronicity), at the same time that I read The Gun Merchant, I read Jefferey Kripal’s The Flip: Epiphanies of Mind & the Future of Knowledge (2019). In his work, Kripal, a scholar of comparative religion, addresses what is often referred to as the “paranormal,” or as he suggests, the “super natural.” (My review in the works.) Of course, we’re dealing here with a work of fiction, but Ghose doesn’t open or close the door of explanation about what’s going on here; instead, he leaves the door ajar for us to ponder what lies on the other side. In any event, the confluence of events, by coincidence or synchronicity, natural or “super natural,” comes to a climax on the Mediterranean as a group of illegal immigrants seek to improve their lot in life by coming to Europe.
Through the course of the novel, we learn about the experience of immigrants, legal and illegal, human and animal. Some are impelled to move in the hope of a better life, others compelled to migrate just to survive in a rapidly deteriorating environment. While providing this account of our rapidly changing world--and the rapidly changing world of the gun merchant in the late 1600s--Ghose doesn’t preach. His story illustrates his points. The connection between the human world and the natural world (to the extent that they could ever be thought truly distinct) is displayed with such story-telling dexterity that Ghose needn’t exposit his themes or provide lengthy accounts from history. We watch the changing tides of history as we learn the story of the gun merchant and the adventures of Deen and his compatriots involved in bringing this quest to a conclusion. For me, it provided a compelling reading experience.
