THE CALCUTTA CHROMOSOME by Amitav Ghosh (Avon Books, 1995)

I really don’t know what to make of this novel. It’s as if the Indian author had an idea for four books and decided to cut his losses by batching them all together into one package. The result is that there’s a bit of Sci-Fi, a mix of historical fact and fiction, strands of ghost stories and a convoluted mystery tale spanning two centuries.

I pressed on hoping that the end would bring all these disparate elements together in an illuminating climax but sadly this was not to be. Instead, Ghosh seems to take perverse pleasure in adding numerous shaggy dog stories, each of which is sporadically interesting until you realise they lead the reader down a series of blind alleys. Continue reading →