Sea of Poppies

Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh was a sweeping, epic, historical novel set in nineteenth century India. It had romance, it had tragedy . . . it had a lot of characters to keep track of. That, plus the heavy use of Indian dialect, sailing terms, and pirate-esque slang made it very hard to get into. The first hundred and fifty pages, especially. After that, the characters' paths started crossing, so it was easier to keep track of who was who and became a more interesting story.

The main action surrounded the Ibis, a former slave ship that is being used to transport people to Mauritius. The many characters we meet in the first couple hundred pages either run the ship or end up as one of its passengers. Deeti, who could be considered the main character, was supposed to throw herself on her husband's funeral pyre, but instead escaped with a lover. Puli is a French orphan who falls for the ship's second mate Zachary, an American mixed-race sailor. Amidst the many love triangles and such there is quite a bit of commentary on the strict caste system in play at the time, as well as race politics.

Once I got into it, I thought this was a good read. If you can get past the jargon, it goes pretty quickly. I was about to give up around page 120, but kept going because a friend of mine had recommended it. (See comments to the When You Reach Me post.) She was right, and I would recommend this to others.