A neat piece of good craftsmanship. Review on Shadow Lines - Amitav Ghosh

This is a good and worth reading novel in which the author has covered a wide range of themes and dealt with multiple subjects at once. the novel is typically brilliant in the psychoanalytic element and shows a careful and neat workmanship in this regard. it examines the insidious folds of the human nature as well as its outspoken and outward behavior. although a postcolonial novel essentially, the novel has gotten ripe beyond thinking of otherness. the shadow lines of the title are philosophically and geographically accurate. old characters who belong to the old generation, such as the grandmother, still maintain that older way of thinking that had lived imperial days and schisms. therefore they think of belonging and patriotism. in other words, they believe in hard lines though they experience them as shadow lines as in the case of the grandma and her flight to dekka. she expected to see the lines (borders) but they were shadow lines, yet she persisted in her beliefs of belonging. the new generation are far from believing in these lines and they cross them time and again proving their shadowness. the flights and planes are symbolic in this context. they show that lines are artifitial like shadows. today's world is a common one. the author does not think or present things in dualities. people cross across countries and continents to one another freely.

philosophically I liked the novel's reflection on the unfinalibility of meaning. there are many things the meaning of which lies beyond the confines of our knowledge. there are also unspeakable moments whose expression lies beyond the restrictedness of our languages. these and many other issues are presented in a well-written and enjoyable novel.