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River of Smoke cover art

River of Smoke

By: Amitav Ghosh
Narrated by: Lyndam Gregory
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Summary

In September 1838 a storm blows up on the Indian Ocean and the Ibis, a ship carrying a consignment of convicts and indentured laborers from Calcutta to Mauritius, is caught up in the whirlwind. When the seas settle, five men have disappeared - two lascars, two convicts and one of the passengers. Did the same storm upend the fortunes of those aboard the Anahita, an opium carrier heading towards Canton? And what fate befell those aboard the Redruth, a sturdy two-masted brig heading East out of Cornwall? Was it the storm that altered their course or were the destinies of these passengers at the mercy of even more powerful forces?

On the grand scale of an historical epic, River of Smoke follows its storm-tossed characters to the crowded harbors of China. There, despite efforts of the emperor to stop them, ships from Europe and India exchange their cargoes of opium for boxes of tea, silk, porcelain and silver. Among them are Bahram Modi, a wealthy Parsi opium merchant out of Bombay, his estranged half-Chinese son Ah Fatt, the orphaned Paulette and a motley collection of others whose pursuit of romance, riches and a legendary rare flower have thrown together.

All struggle to cope with their losses - and for some, unimaginable freedoms - in the alleys and crowded waterways of 19th century Canton. As transporting and mesmerizing as an opiate induced dream, River of Smoke will soon be heralded as a masterpiece of twenty-first century literature.

©2011 Amitav Ghosh (P)2011 John Murray

What listeners say about River of Smoke

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  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

Why?

The book seems amazing just like the publisher promises in their own rave review. There is, however, a very unfortunate issue with the audiobook: the narrator, while undoubtedly a skilled reader with a good voice, stresses the wrong words (in, of... ) and makes weird breaks in sentences (maybe in an effort to make the reading more interesting/unusual?) and thereby succeeds to make listening to this book highly annoying while making the text seem ridiculous when it is clearly not.
WHY?

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7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Love the story, not enjoying change of narrator

I loved the first book, and I loved Kish Sharma's narration and character interpretation. I was disappointed to note that the narrators are different for each book in the trilogy. opinions may differ, but I feel Lyndam Gregory's narration style would be more suited to childrens books, as he has an unusual style, with pauses and emphasis in strange places, and for me, too much accentuation and intensity at times. It makes me feel slightly patronised. The story itself is still fascinating and I am persevering despite not enjoying the new narration style. Sorry Lyndam!

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

What were they thinking?

Have just finished the wonderful first volume (superb in every respect) And have tried to dive right into this volume but oh dear! Whoever picked Mr Gregory as narrator for volume 2 needs to have a rethink. He is simply awful - lumbering, patronizing and sounding like he thinks he is reading a book for young children. Simply the worst experience I have had with any Audible title so far. Right I'm off to buy the kindle edition before returning for volume 3

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars

Accents and style

The story is huge and detailed and I found it quite difficult to maintain the flow unless I listened to large swathes and even then I got a little confused by the many characters. Excellent research but a little too much of the verbatim arguments in the council. The reader was excellent with all the different accents and languages and mostly managed to maintain characteristic voices for the characters, but oh, that irritating, patronising reading style, strange hesitations and inflections, I found it very irritating and had to consciously listen past it.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

The narration spoiled the book for me

I found the story very fragmented and most unlike the first book. The narrator read as if reading to a child with exaggerated interpretation of the dialogue.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

River of Smoke.

A far too drawn out, confusing and rambling book, Too many characters who come and go without much significance. Too much detail and the reading style did not help. I had to listen to parts of the book time and time again to try and gather and then regather my understanding and search for a storyline.... which in the end, I simply gave up trying to find but only after several hours. A very frustrating listen.... and the first time I have had to ditch a book from Audible.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Different

This is a very finely crafted and interesting account of the opium trade in China. While some people have complained about this particular narrator, once I got used to his idiosyncratic cadences I found his reading quite musical, and found his grasp of the dialects to be excellent.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Great story

2nd part of a trilogy and really does need reading in conjunction with Sea of Poppies and Flood of Fire. So many wonderful stories woven together. I had previously read both of the first two books in the series but lived Flood of Fire so much that I wanted to hear the audible versions. The narrator on this was not as good (for me) as the others and I much preferred the narration of Flood of Fire by Raj Ghatak. I'm glad though that I didn't let the reviews of River of Smoke put me off buying it as I still enjoyed it.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Stick with ‘Sea of Poppies’

I enjoyed the first book in this trilogy rather more than this one: there seemed to be very scant continuity between the two, not theat it mattered very much because clearly the author was constructing his own devices and after a while the original story mattered less than the work of over-doing the wickedness of the mercantilist nabobs. In ‘The Glass Palace’’ Ghosh achieves more with less - indeed a lot less- moralising. Interesting today that he makes the American, Charles King, the good guy!
Chinnery was a real live painter and a good one, but the device of using his ‘nephew’s’ correspondence with Paulette as a line of continuity might - only might - have worked better if the reader hadn’t chosen to ham it up like a very exaggerated Noel Coward:: this became embarrassing as well as thoroughly tiresome, and it’s difficult to imagine anybody being so prolix in a letter.
The opium wars were a stain on the British conscience and the discussions were well handled; in fact the whole book was well researched but my impression is that the narrative took a very poor second place to the message which most people interested in history or who are likely to pick up This book knew already.
I’m now very much in two minds as to whether to carry on with the third book in this series:: book one has its weaknesses but the topography was great, as was the characterisation, but I can do without wasting nearly a day in my life being bored and frustrated: perhaps it might have been better to stick with tidying up ‘Sea of poppies!’


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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Not a patch on the first book

I absolutely loved the first book. The many characters were intriguing, the plot was exciting, the history fascinating. The readers accent sounded authentic but understandable. I was really looking to this second book.
BUT so disappointed. The plot became too complex, I didn’t so much care what happened to the new characters, the reader had a weird accent, not very engaging…

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