Customer Reviews

Incendiary Circumstances: A Chronicle of the Turmoil of Our Times

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This book is a collection of essays, written from a variety of locations around the world for various magazines, over the past fifteen years or so, by the Indian journalist Amitav Ghosh. To my taste they were uneven in quality. The first piece in the book, covering the effects of the 2004 Tsunami on the Indian inhabitants of some islands to the southeast of the Indian mainland, is beautifully written, engrossing and stands out as a masterpiece. It was very worthwhile reading a piece about life in India by a gifted Indian writer.

I learned a good deal from a number of the other pieces as well. However the quality of the pieces seems to go down in relation to the distance Ghosh is removed from what he knows best (India and Indians), he has a habit of trying a little too hard to have profound insights, and seems a little preachy at times. On the other hand, as someone from a different background, I found the book quite useful for improving my knowledge of Indian viewpoints on topics dealing with politics and society.

A collection of articulate essays written at different times and on different places and about different experiences. Though the piece on 9/11 was disappointing. It lacks depths of the other essays. The reader gets a glimpse of different places, different people, different politics, and of course how the "incendiary circumstances" have changed/affected/moulded peoples lives across borders. A superb pastime reading indeed !