Rating: 
Summary: A Disappointment
Review: Having read his exquisitely crafted "In an Antique Land" and his almost lyrically beautiful "Glass Palace", which struck a special personal chord as I grew up in Burma and India, I couldn't wait to read "The Calcutta Chromosome". I found it disappointing, not sure if it was history, a medical who-done-it or what. Amitav Ghose is in my opinion one of the most talented writers alive, but this book which is written with his usual gift of language and expression, left me with an incomplete feeling.
Rating: 
Summary: Complex, but good if you like to use your brain
Review: I did not enjoy this book when I first began to read it, the reason being that at first it is like a puzzle. There are so many different stories, and you can't peice them together. But the brilliance and beauty behind this novel is that as you read more, you get more interested. It's like a trap really. It gets harder to put the book down, until you reach the point where you have to know what happens at the end, so you read to the end and are happy that you read a good novel. It's that simple. This is a good novel. And while it is in it's heart a mystery, Ghosh does a great job of mixing different fields of science together to create this mystery.
Rating:
Summary: Complex, but good if you like to use your brain
Review: I did not enjoy this book when I first began to read it, the reason being that at first it is like a puzzle. There are so many different stories, and you can't peice them together. But the brilliance and beauty behind this novel is that as you read more, you get more interested. It's like a trap really. It gets harder to put the book down, until you reach the point where you have to know what happens at the end, so you read to the end and are happy that you read a good novel. It's that simple. This is a good novel. And while it is in it's heart a mystery, Ghosh does a great job of mixing different fields of science together to create this mystery.
Rating: 
Summary: Malaria and Immortality?
Review: I enjoyed the book thoroughly but I'm left wanting greater closure. The resolution as it is leaves the protagonist knowing more than the reader thus ending in a state of suspense. Calcutta Chromosone will probably be one of those books torn apart and analysed in numerous literature classes. It unfolds its story by theme not by chronology. The path to discovery is perilous and only open to the chosen few. The Calcutta Chromone is about the journey on that path, not about the discovery itself.
Rating:
Summary: entertaining and thoughtfull
Review: I found this book full of interesting ideas. I've found myself comming back to ideas from it over and over again, even now some months after I read it. My only complaint would be that i wish it had gone into some things deeper. It was entertaining, really a fun read.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting, but took a while to get going
Review: I found this book quite interesting coming on to the end, however in the beginning there were several separate threads that didn't seem to be coming together in any way. The Author does manage to pull them together at the end (just in time!)and I was left asking the question "What happened next?" some people dislike open endings but I think it was an appropriate way to end this one.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I had great expectations from Ghosh when I started reading thisnovel, but in the end, it turned out to a disappointing read. Ghosh tries to brign together the mysticism of India, and the Sci-fi world of Arthur C Clarke, and in the end seems to fall short of capturing either of the two worlds, and brings them together in an incongrous way.
Some points in the novel were interesting enough to make me turn the pages faster, but at most points, I just wanted to finish the book so that I could go on to a next, more interesting read.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful discriptions but hard to digest , scientifically
Review: I like to think of this book as a literary masterpiece rather than a science fiction book. Ghosh, with amazing lucidity creates true to life pictures of New York and British India. The sequence of the ghost train is superb. It is some time since I read the book but I still can remember things from this book as pictures. Ghosh has this amazing ability to paint pictures for you with words.
One amazing fact is indeed Ronald Ross (the discoverer of Malaria parasite) had something to do with a guy named Lutchman (lakshman? Laxman?). I followed a link from the nobel laureates site (www.nobel.se) to info about ross and indeed there is the mention of Lutchman!
But otherwise some of the theories put forward in the book are sort of undigestible for the scientifically literate. Still this is fiction and counting other pluses of this book I give it four stars!!
Rating:
Summary: I do not understnd the end
Review: I loved the images the book evoked .I loved reading about the British in India and how they would behave and use euphemisms about the natives its so like how my mother and father would describe their experiences with the English in Malaysia. He writes very well ,he has a delicious sense of humour especially Murugan (call me Morgan) but although I understand the premise the end totally stumped me.I just cannot understand why he would end the book the way he did . I can accept some of the chromosome theory he tried to explain and the extraordinary coincidences with Lutchman and all that but why he chose to end it so weak is why I give it two stars.
Rating:
Summary: Ghosh is Great
Review: I met and introduced Ghosh at my university last year. Got to go to dinner with him and other faculty at Butler University. His work never disappoints me. He is as intersting in person as are his characters. The Calcutte Chromosome is the ultimate page turner. Im almost to the end and I can't wait to snap up my next Ghosh book. Read In an Antique Land too..its awesome!
|
