Book Review- The Shadow Lines

The Shadow Lines by Amitav Ghosh
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Amitav Ghosh’s The Shadow Lines is an articulating blend of a unique narrative technique, imaginative renewal of time, events, experience and perspectives of political issues. It is a memory novel purely retrospective in nature weaving personal lives and public events in three countries, that are, India, England and Bangladesh. Memory is something which provides solace and comfort to the characters of the novel. The novel ensures intertwining of contemporary politics and personal turmoil of late and mid-nineties. Conventional chronological narrative is not used in the novel. There’s a constant shift in the events of different years making the plot non-linear. It moves backwards and forwards in time which makes political issues more realistic. 

The novel mainly focuses on the lives of the narrator, Tridib (narrator’s uncle), may, thamma (narrator’s grandmother) and Ila (narrator’s cousin). The vast knowledge and rambling stories of Tridib are responsible for influencing the narrator to a greater extent. His stories create a new vista of experience for the young narrator. 

However, Tridib’s memory is based on observation and processed remembering. Imagination and politics play a central role in the novel. The narrator is a very curious person and he can visualize almost anything in detail he is told about. Amitav Ghosh in his novel raises fundamental queries on imagination and reality, though it gives utmost importance to imagination. There’s a juxtaposition between witnessing and visualizing. 

There’s also a multiplicity of perspectives, for example contrasting perspectives of Ila and the narrator. The writer seems to suggest that just like there’s an imaginary line between borders of two countries; there’s a similar ‘shadow line’ between reality and imagination. He implies that the reality is multi-faceted and is limited to physical contours.

The reality of Ila is monotonous, she lacks imagination to perceive and feel. Narrator’s experiences tell us that imagination can create a more sustained and vivid reality. The narrator uncoils his memories during different stages of his life.

The focus on the grandmother is different. Imagination and reality enable her to recollect the concrete reality of her home in Dhaka and vicinity. Even after years, her childhood and the place of her ancestral home has remained fresh and real as ever. For both narrator and grandmother, the imagination is an ideal retreat. 

The narrator is always curious and excited by the thoughts of places he had heard of or seen on maps. Memory of a place makes it an ideal worth living for amidst the travails of daily life even if the place has changed during the course of time. Much of grandmother’s vision is nostalgic. Yet, this is a novel which acknowledges restlessness and political turmoil of those times. The partition of India, partition of Bangladesh from the Pakistan, communal riots of 1965 (which led to Tridib’s death) have utmost importance during the course of the novel. History is a recollection of memories and memories are deceptive, they are subjective person to person. The novel is global in terms of sensitivity and location but maintains local as well as cosmopolitan flavours. It also displays the inevitable urge for social mobility.

The death of Tridib is the climax of the political theme in the novel. The overall focus is on the meaning and nuances of the political freedom in the contemporary life. Communal strife and irresistible urge of nationalism is also highlighted in the novel through grandmother’s character. 

The concept of one’s ‘belonging’ is also important. As grandmother says- 

 “Ila has no right to live there… she doesn’t belong there. It took those a long time to build that country….” 

The statements show that the grandmother’s insights are sharp and full of clarity. She has an aggressive hold onto belonging as her home was taken away in Dhaka.  According to her, the feelings of nationalism can only develop through war and bloodshed. Emotions like regret and forgiveness are highlighted through May’s character. She faces a lifelong regret that she is responsible for Tridib’s death.  

The desire to be ‘free’ also plays a monumental role in the novel. Freedom was the core concept for the grandmother as she was nurtured in the environment of British rule in India. She is parochial and had concrete ideas of nationalism. Similarly, Ila had a different concept of ‘being free’. Ila wanted to live a carefree life away from social constraints and taboos of the society which was only possible in England and not a country like India which is patriarchal.

The narrator is a completely different person. He is incestuous and develops feelings for her cousin, Ila which are illegitimate according to the society. Though there’s a fluidity in his thinking and doesn’t have aggressive hold of thoughts like his grandmother. He is an empathetic person and has stream of consciousness and has multitudinous thoughts. The narrator acts as impresario deciding time and space of the novel, and often maintains distance to create illusion of objectivity.

The writer shows how different countries, their cultures and people merge together. Imagination, politics, memory and violence are the binding forces of Ghosh’s novel The Shadow Lines.