Terrible narration, fantastic novel

This is one of my favourite novels and indeed I love everything that Dr Ghosh writes, but at times I almost gave up on this audio version. The narrator has a pleasant voice but he insists on repeatedly, way, way, too often, to put a little breathy chuckle into the beginnings of people's sentences, as if they are talking to a child or everything is being said with a wry affectionate laugh. It grates so badly and is more often than not misplaced, implying emotions that often aren't there in the text. How I wish they would get this wonderful book prerecorded with another reader.

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Beautifully written and read

In the course of a very extended family saga, the author manages to work in some extra-ordinary discussions that elucidate aspects of life in India and aBurma throughout the past century. The dialogues among soldiers in the Indian army are well organised and enlightening as are the many discussions on art and literature none of which struck me as intentionally didactic even if they were.
The reading is clear and varied enough to maintain interest throughout what I experienced as a novel in need of abridgement. The plot is very complex and it is essential to be able to remember who is who, and the place of each in the families and it is only the very well crafted interweaving of the stories that maintained my interest, and here the reader must take s great deal of credit.
In my opinion this book may stand alongside ‘war and peace’ for its impact and the beauty of its characterisation, but, like Tolstoy’s masterpiece, it requires commitment and determination to follow in places, and the end for me is perhaps the weakest part of the book which is so often the case with these very long sagas. If the author ran out if puffas it were, before the end, he may have considered finishing the story earlier: his near worship of Angson Suchi dates the whole novel and reads rather sadly today.
Perhaps the most important thing to say in a review like this is that I shall almost certainly read the book again

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1 person found this helpful