The Glass Palace

Originally published in 2000, The Glass Palace is Amitav Ghosh’s fourth novel and tells the story of a family across three generations. It is set in Burma, Malaya, and India during a turbulent period in the region’s history. The book opens in 1885. In Mandalay, Burma, the British army begins to descend on the city and dethrone the royal family. An 11-year-old boy named Rajkumar is the only one who recognizes the thundering sound of the British cannon for what it is. He works at a food stall with a woman named Ma Cho, arriving in Mandalay after his family fled a sickness that spread through their village in India.

A dispute over timber has angered the British, and despite King Thebaw’s best efforts, the local forces are quickly defeated. Queen Supayalat is shown to be the mastermind of Thebaw’s reign. She has ruthlessly eliminated his rivals: nearly eighty men from the royal bloodline. Despite her violent efforts, she and the king have only held power for seven years. When the palace is sacked, the humiliated king and his entourage are sent to India by the British.

During the looting, Rajkumar gets swept along with the crowd. Like many commoners, it’s the first time he sees inside the famous Glass Palace. While there, he spots one of the handmaidens, Dolly, and is struck by her beauty. Immediately, he falls in love. The next day, as the royal family are being deported, he hands Dolly a packet of candies. He will not see her for another twenty years.

After the British arrive, Burma changes. No stranger to hard work, Rajkumar sees this as an opportunity. Through Ma Cho, he meets a man named Saya John. A Christian and a foreigner, Saya John is involved in the teak trade. Saya John becomes a mentor for Rajkumar, teaching him the intricacies of the trade: how timber is harvested in the jungle and moved down the rivers to the ports, where it’s sold for a handsome profit. Eventually, Rajkumar and Saya John become business partners. By the time Rajkumar is a grown man, he has made his fortune, but has also never forgotten his encounter with Dolly during the arrival of the British.

Dolly, meanwhile, has travelled with the Burmese royal family to India. Though they were rich in Burma, the royal family’s wealth is slowly eroding. Eventually, they are moved to Outram House in a town called Ratnagiri. Compared to their previous home, it is a disheveled, dilapidated bungalow. The king is haunted by his failure to protect his country, while the queen begins to loathe the British, who keep her imprisoned in exile.

The only handmaiden who remains with the royal family is Dolly. Her special connection with the Second Princess makes her a valuable member of the household and, before long, she rises through the ranks and becomes the royal family’s most important servant. As the royal family’s wealth shrinks, her importance only grows. The community in Ratnagiri begins to coalesce around the King and the Queen, who never leave Outram House.

The arrival of a new collector to oversee the region causes a stir. The queen resents the new arrival, while the king retreats further into himself. The divide is broached by Dolly, who befriends the collector’s wife, Uma.

Rajkumar has made money importing laborers from India to work in the dangerous Burmese oil fields. He invests in a timber yard of his own, with a man named Doh Say as his partner. His unfinished business compels him to travel to Ratnagiri, hoping to track down the girl in the royal family’s retinue whom he saw many years before. Through Uma, he arranges to visit Ratnagiri. There, he meets Dolly once again and, after a difficult first impression, they are quickly married.

Dolly’s marriage to Rajkumar compels the queen to disown her former handmaiden. Dolly is unceremoniously thrown out of Outram House and is free to return to Burma with Rajkumar. After her departure, the collector dies in a rowing accident, leaving Uma as a widow with a large pension and plenty of free time.

Over the course of the coming years, Saya John encourages Rajkumar to invest in rubber plants in Malaya. The plantation will take years to grow but will provide Saya John’s family with a profitable inheritance.

Meanwhile, Uma tours Europe and becomes politically active in the fight for Indian independence. She meets Mathew, Saya John’s son, who is now engaged to an American woman. After one miscarriage, Dolly becomes pregnant again and gives birth to a boy, Neel. One day, Neel contracts polio and, while he heals, Dolly cuts herself off from society. Though the queen moves to Rangoon, she denies Dolly’s every attempt to visit and eventually dies. Rajkumar and Dolly have a second son named Dinu.

After twenty years away, Uma returns to India. She meets with Dolly and her family in Malaya, at the rubber plant owned by Mathew and Elsa. There, Uma learns more about her friends’ children. She also meets Ilongo, the son of a woman with whom Rajkumar had an affair, and agrees to keep the secret.

Dolly and Uma rekindle their friendship in Rangoon. The city has changed since Uma last visited and she senses a palpable resentment toward Indians. This resentment erupts into riots that are eventually quelled.

Uma departs for Calcutta, where she meets her brother and his family. They have two twins–Arjun and Manju–and a daughter, Bela. Uma tries to raise awareness of the violence in Burma but to no avail.

After a listless life, Arjun is accepted into the army, part of the first generation of Indians to be trained as officers. Manju auditions for a role in a film but discovers that the producer is Neel. They fall in love and get married. Everyone attends the wedding, including Arjun and his batman, Kishan Singh. Dinu and Arjun seem diametrically opposed: one quiet, one loud; one thoughtful, one gung-ho. The wedding passes without incident and Manju travels to Rangoon with Neel.

Britain declares war on Germany three months later, though the people of Burma seem nonplussed. Rajkumar’s business is not as profitable as it once was. When he contracts pneumonia, he lays in his hotel room and decides to stockpile wood, in order to close one final deal to provide for his family.

Arjun is stationed in Afghanistan and is coming to terms with military life. The institution is fraught with social, racial, and class idiosyncrasies he must navigate to become a successful officer.

Mathew and Elsa die in a car accident. Alison is distraught and Saya John, now in his eighties and suffering from memory issues, is no comfort. In recent months, however, he has adopted Ilongo and brought him into the family business. The young man cares for Saya John while Alison oversees the plantation. Dinu arrives from Rangoon to help Alison and the two slowly fall in love.

Now pregnant, Manju gives birth to a daughter named Jaya. Dolly is present to help her raise the child, though Neel is away helping his father with the business. Arjun receives his posting and is sent via ship to Singapore. There, he and his fellow officers encounter racism from westerners, even though they are fighting the war on the west’s behalf.

Arjun’s posting eventually takes him close to the rubber plantation where Dinu is staying with Alison. He visits once and then more regularly, causing a rift between Alison and Dinu. This culminates in Arjun and Alison visiting the beach. They make love but Alison immediately regrets it. Before she can talk about it, Arjun is called away by the military.

Japan attacks before Arjun and the army can form a defense. After the frontline forces are roundly beaten, Arjun and his battalion are moved to Siam and told to defend a rubber plantation. The Japanese attack and Arjun’s battalion is decimated. Arjun finds himself alone, his comrades dead or missing.

After Alison leaves for the beach with Arjun, Dinu spends the night with Ilongo’s family and resolves to leave the next day. Before the train departs, he decides to take one final photograph and climbs the nearby mountain. There, he sees the Japanese bombers pass overhead. Worried, he searches for Alison but cannot find her. She eventually arrives back at the plantation and they make plans to flee together.

Arjun finds his battalion again and spends the night talking to a fellow Indian, discussing potentially mutinous subjects. The next day, Arjun leads the men to a house and they eat dinner. The officers eat separately from the men and Hardy makes another faux pas. The British officer reveals that he understands the mutinous conversations from the night before and that, on some level, he sympathizes. Before he and Arjun can finish the conversation, the Japanese arrive. Arjun heroically holds off the enemy as the men escape but he is shot in the leg.

Rajkumar sells his stockpile of teak for a vast sum. He has to hire additional workers to move it all, so he reaches out to Doh Say for assistance and, with his family, worries about Dinu and Arjun.

Dinu and Alison drive to the station with Saya John, attempting to flee to Singapore. When they try to board a train, however, they are told it’s for Europeans only. Dinu, angered by this, fights back and is beaten by the guards. He tells Alison to take the small car and travel to Singapore with her grandfather, saying he will meet them later. Reluctantly, she agrees. They travel back to the plantation and Alison and Dinu spend their last night together.

Arjun is found by Kishan and helped into a hiding place. Once his wound is treated, they talk at length about the political situation in India. The Japanese don’t find them, and the next day they walk until they find many of their men intermingled with a coolie line. The men have mutinied and switched allegiances to the Indian National Movement, led by Hardy. Though Arjun pleads with the men to return to their posts, they refuse. Eventually, Arjun agrees to join them on the sole condition that they free the British commanding officer.

Alison leaves the next day, after agreeing to marry Dinu when they meet in Singapore. She takes the car, a gun, and her grandfather and drives away as planes pass overhead. The car breaks down after a short while and they must wait until morning to proceed. When Alison wakes up, Saya John has forgotten where he is and wandered off. She tries to find him but encounters Japanese troops. While she hides, she watches them stab her grandfather to death. She fires at them with her pistol and kills two men before turning the gun on herself to avoid capture.

A bombing raid hits Rangoon while Rajkumar is at the bank. When he returns to his timber yard, he finds it entirely on fire. Neel is dead. He has lost everything. He returns home to Dolly, Manju, and the baby. They flee the city, heading toward India with thousands of others. The walk is exhausting and, after many miles, Manju cannot continue. Leaving the baby with Dolly, she throws herself from a raft and drowns.

Bengal is in the grips of a famine. Uma and Bela live together and, one day, an elderly couple with a child arrive on their doorstep. It is Dolly, Uma, and Jaya, who have walked all the way from Burma. They are welcomed in and given a home. Years later, Dolly decides to retire to a nunnery. Rajkumar stays behind and helps raise the baby, never seeing his wife again.

Dinu leaves Malaysia shortly after Alison’s death and reaches Rangoon. He meets with Doh Say in Huay Zedi and helps them guard the town against rampaging soldiers. When he meets the soldiers, they are led by Arjun, with Kishan at his side. Arjun is a husk of his former self and gives what little food he has to his starving men. The soldiers agree to leave the village alone.

Kishan tries to desert and, to keep the respect of the men, Arjun must execute him. The act does nothing to preserve the battalion and, eventually, he dies alone in the jungle. Dinu makes a humble career as a photographer and eventually moves to Rangoon. Burma wins independence in 1948, though is taken over by a dictatorship in 1962. Dinu marries his assistant and they become politically active in opposition to the military dictatorship. When his wife is killed during a riot, Dinu gives up his political career.

Jaya studies for a PhD in the history of Indian photography and, later in life, follows her family’s history back to Ratnagiri and eventually finds Dinu, who fills in the gaps in her story and gives her hope that one day Burma might win real independence.