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Flood of Fire (2015)

by Amitav Ghosh

Series: The Ibis Trilogy (3)

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5821740,515 (4.06)85
"The stunningly vibrant final novel in the bestselling Ibis Trilogy It is 1839 and China has embargoed the trade of opium, yet too much is at stake in the lucrative business and the British Foreign Secretary has ordered the colonial government in India to assemble an expeditionary force for an attack to reinstate the trade. Among those consigned is Kesri Singh, a soldier in the army of the East India Company. He makes his way eastward on the Hind, a transport ship that will carry him from Bengal to Hong Kong. Along the way, many characters from the Ibis Trilogy come aboard, including Zachary Reid, a young American speculator in opium futures, and Shireen, the widow of an opium merchant whose mysterious death in China has compelled her to seek out his lost son. The Hind docks in Hong Kong just as war breaks out and opium "pours into the market like monsoon flood." From Bombay to Calcutta, from naval engagements to the decks of a hospital ship, among embezzlement, profiteering, and espionage, Amitav Ghosh charts a breathless course through the culminating moment of the British opium trade and vexed colonial history. With all the verve of the first two novels in the trilogy, Flood of Fire completes Ghosh's unprecedented reenvisioning of the nineteenth-century war on drugs. With remarkable historic vision and a vibrant cast of characters, Ghosh brings the Opium Wars to bear on the contemporary moment with the storytelling that has charmed readers around the world"--… (more)
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» See also 85 mentions

English (15)  French (2)  All languages (17)
Showing 1-5 of 15 (next | show all)
Welp... Flood of Fire (Book 3) felt like a middle ground between the character driven narrative of Sea of Poppies (#1) and the more historical focus of River of Smoke (#2). As such, I enjoyed it somewhere in the middle, too. I don't mind historical novels but I felt that this got bogged down for the last third. Anyway... It was well worth my time and I'd recommend the Ibis Trilogy. ( )
  Jess.Stetson | Apr 4, 2023 |
This is an interesting read, as you seldom come across books with the Opium Wars as the setting. In this regard, this book is interesting. Ghosh also writes fairly well, keeping you gripped on the plot. But there is one thing that irritates me - Freddie likes to use 'lah' when speaking (Singaporeans call this Singlish). This is normal when the setting is contemporary but the setting took place more than 100 years ago. I am pretty sure back then people do not use Singlish. Also, Freddie's use of Singlish comes across as very deliberate and unnatural. ( )
  siok | Nov 26, 2022 |
It took a while, but I finally persevered and finished this series. It wasn't easy in many ways, but well worth the effort. In this 3rd book of the series, many people from previous books come together for the conclusion, where the some of them sail off into the sunset (hopefully, this won't be a spoiler).

It's hard for me to write a review of this series; anything I say will seem small compared to the power of the story, and the writing of a great author. The story was truly epic.

I learned a lot about the opium war (one of them, I suppose), and I'll have to say that the Chinese outlook made a lot more sense to me than that of the British, Indian, and American rationales. The poor viceroy, Lin, that was appointed to take care of the problem, thought it should be simple. After all, opium was illegal in Britain, and if the Chinese were to try to sell opium there, Britain would surely object, so why should the reverse not be true. But he underestimated the greed of the opium sellers, and the pride and hypocrisy of Britain - not to mention the effects of the trade imbalance between China and Britain. Britain was buying a lot of goods from China, and was forced to pay for them with silver, which they needed to purchase from other countries using gold. So opium was their solution; they used that to get back some of that imbalance.

I think Lin was an honorable man, and I feel bad that he ended up being treated so badly by both his own country and the foreigners. But the Chinese Emperor was far away, and got incorrect reports from his advisors, who were afraid to tell him the real truth, so I blame the emperor for the lack of a workable solution. Perhaps China was just too big for that period to deal effectively with something like this.

The difficult part of reading this is mostly the language used, which Ghosh tried to replicate without explaining; this was harder in the earlier books because after a while, I learned to just let it flow, and got the meanings out of context, or sometimes just didn't worry about not understanding it - much like in normal life, I think. Often, the idioms added spice and humor to the book.

In addition to the idiomatic language, keeping up with the sheer number of characters and their unfamiliar-sounding names made it a bit difficult. And some characters had more than one name.

( )
  MartyFried | Oct 9, 2022 |
It's not that this is a bad book at all, but by Amitav Ghosh's standards, it's not the best.

Much of the descriptive detail, for example, the conditions of the British v Indian troops, the pay, the access to the latest rifles and how they worked is impressive and, for the most part, adds valuable depth to the story.

On the other hand, the book feels too long for the story it's telling. In need of a bit of a trim in places.

The one aspect that bothered me rather more, was the development of some of the characters. I struggled to believe that some of the characters would behave as they did. That they might change I fully understand, but, and the most extreme example being Zachary Reid, that they metamorphosise into something unrecognisable I found hard to accept. For me that's an important flaw.

( )
  peterjt | Feb 20, 2020 |
Flood of Fire completes Amitav Ghosh’s colourful trilogy of the linked histories of China, India and the colonizing forces, particularly Britain. I enjoyed it more than the last book, which got bogged down in ideological argument, but perhaps not quite as much as the first, which revealed a detailed story of people and places in the opium trade. This novel takes us into the early phases of the British invasion of China now known as the Opium Wars.
Looking at the history from a South Asian perspective, Ghosh brings in the Indian traders who hoped to profit from the opium sales and Indian soldiers who had to fight the wars, as well as an educated noble class that found itself disposessed from its former privilege in India. The character of the mystic gomusta, Baboo Nob Kissin, adds a slightly comic viewpoint as he helps bring all the forces together for what he hopes will be a destructive cataclysm that will launch a new spiritual world. The British, the Chinese and the Americans all have characters representing their viewpoints, but the main focus is the characters from the Indian subcontinent.
I found the clash of these varying national and personal interests brought a lot of interest to events that I knew of only as a historical note. Ghosh describes home life, ship life and warfare in concrete detail that gives a real sense of what’s involved and what’s at stake for the characters that he chooses for his story. (Except for a few soldiers, he chooses only relatively wealthy middle and upper class characters.) The Indian soldier Kesri, for example, lives the farce of military bureaucracy as well as 19th century cannon fire and hand-to-hand combat in conditions where food, water and ammunition had to be carried to soldiers by hand. The advantage of modern weapons over traditional ones is violently clear.
Each character’s personal motivations also develops and plays into the broader historical forces. Zachery becomes a key character as he develops from a naïve and generous American sailor with mixed-heritage into a self-interested businessman who wants status and wealth. He finds his way to prove his merit by making vast profits in the drug trade. In this, he follows the model and the moral justification of the British. They regard him as a useful tool in facilitating their own acquisition, and his anger at the emotional and social costs he has to pay is key to his motivation. However, it is Zachery that Baboo Nob Kissin is thinking of when he envisions the destruction of the world through greed. Pointedly, Zachery sees the bombardnent of Canton as the high point of rational civilization, where technology and science come together to project modern comercial values on a recalcitrant country.
There are some things in the novel that, for me, don’t entirely fit. The characters are all drawn to travel together on the Hind in their passage from ancient India to modern Hong Kong, but somehow they are all connected through the Ibis, the schooner that was at the centre of the first novel in the trilogy. The Ibis was carrying its characters to a range of new lives in Mauritius when it was hit by a storm. The ghost of a key Indian trader appears on the Ibis before another storm sinks the ship in Hong Kong harbour. This is all a bit mystical and I’m not sure what it adds to the story. Modern transport and communications are the instrument that links new and old and brings about their destruction? It is obviously a factor, but it’s not the only one or the most powerful one, and it doesn’t act in a mystical way.
Nevertheless, the narrative is a gripping way of looking at the history of southeast Asia. It shows not only the economic and political forces at work, but also their impacts on individuals of many classes. The narrative and the characters are interesting and keep the story moving along through its considerable length. ( )
  rab1953 | Dec 12, 2019 |
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Havildar Kesri Singh was the kind of soldier who liked to take the lead, particularly on days like this one, when his battalion was marching through a territory that had already been subdued and the advance-guard's job was only to fly the paltan's colours and put on their best parade-faces for the benefit of the crowds that had gathered by the roadside.
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"The stunningly vibrant final novel in the bestselling Ibis Trilogy It is 1839 and China has embargoed the trade of opium, yet too much is at stake in the lucrative business and the British Foreign Secretary has ordered the colonial government in India to assemble an expeditionary force for an attack to reinstate the trade. Among those consigned is Kesri Singh, a soldier in the army of the East India Company. He makes his way eastward on the Hind, a transport ship that will carry him from Bengal to Hong Kong. Along the way, many characters from the Ibis Trilogy come aboard, including Zachary Reid, a young American speculator in opium futures, and Shireen, the widow of an opium merchant whose mysterious death in China has compelled her to seek out his lost son. The Hind docks in Hong Kong just as war breaks out and opium "pours into the market like monsoon flood." From Bombay to Calcutta, from naval engagements to the decks of a hospital ship, among embezzlement, profiteering, and espionage, Amitav Ghosh charts a breathless course through the culminating moment of the British opium trade and vexed colonial history. With all the verve of the first two novels in the trilogy, Flood of Fire completes Ghosh's unprecedented reenvisioning of the nineteenth-century war on drugs. With remarkable historic vision and a vibrant cast of characters, Ghosh brings the Opium Wars to bear on the contemporary moment with the storytelling that has charmed readers around the world"--

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Haiku summary
Les bateaux anglais
Ont su gagné la bataille
Contre les Chinois
(Tiercelin)

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