Have you ever thought about reincarnation? What if memory stretches beyond a single lifetime? These questions emerged as I flipped through the first few pages of Amitav Ghosh’s new novel ‘Ghost Eye’. When little Varsha Gupta demands to eat a fish (something she has never tasted), and talks about another life with a different house and a different mother, we are taken along to a journey of intertwined narratives of past and present. The boundaries between lives, species and planetary futures are examined.
From the very beginning, the novel is gripping. Amitav Ghosh writes with such immersive clarity that the world doesn’t feel constructed but awakened. The moment you begin reading, you are no longer outside the text. You are inside it, moving through its landscapes, breathing its air. The book is written so well that it was a struggle to put it down. There’s a lingering quality to this novel, a kind of quiet haunting that follows you even when you’re not reading. Part of this comes from its fascinating engagement with reincarnation. It is not dealt with as mere belief or myth, but almost as an academic inquiry. And yet, it never loses its sense of mystery. It leaves you wondering.
Going in, I knew that the novel was about reincarnation but I was pleasantly surprised to find the familiar characters like Dinanath Dutta, Piya Roy, Tipu, and Rafi. It felt like walking into a room and unexpectedly finding old friends waiting for you. These characters start off from where we left them in ‘Gun Island’, but this is not simply a continuation, rather it's an expansion. The emotional resonance of these characters deepens, especially in the case of Dinu, who is given an entirely new arc that adds layers to what we thought we knew of him.
Among the new presences, Varsha stands out as one of the most unsettling and fascinating figures. A child who remembers her past life, she exists in a space that is both surreal and deeply human. There’s something profoundly disquieting about her because she challenges our understanding of what is natural. Similarly, the character of Dev, a Burmese guy who came to Calcutta and became a part of Dinu’s life, lingers in the mind long after the book ends. His life feels like it should extend beyond these pages and have a novel of its own.
The setting, particularly the Sundarbans, is rendered with extraordinary vividness. The forests, the waterways, the rhythms of rural and Bengali life, they don’t just form a backdrop but they breathe alongside the characters. Ghosh brings an incredible level of detail to his portrayal of rural Bengali communities. The descriptions of dietary habits, the varieties of fish, the ways they are caught and prepared, are so rich and meticulously researched that they add another layer of authenticity to the narrative, grounding its more surreal elements in a vividly real world.
Another aspect that makes ‘Ghost Eye’ feel so immediate and lived-in is its engagement with the recent past. The depiction of the COVID-19 period with its quarantine, travel restrictions, the constant uncertainty, all of this is handled with such precision that it feels almost too close. Even though it has been a few years, those memories come rushing back, making Dinu’s journey feel deeply personal and relatable.
There is a constant interplay between environment and narrative, reinforcing one of the novel’s central concerns: the interconnectedness of humans, animals, and the natural world. This is where the novel’s thematic power lies. Beneath its layers of mystery, surrealism, and even contemporary references like climate change and the pandemic, ‘Ghost Eye’ is ultimately about connection. It is about how deeply entangled we are with the world around us, and how our actions ripple through it in ways we are only beginning to understand. It is unsettling in the way it makes you reflect on human impact, on the strange and often disturbing shifts in nature that seem increasingly frequent.
The readers familiar with ‘Gun Island’ would know how Ghosh tends to mingle the mythical legends and scientific reality. This can be seen in ‘Ghost Eye’ as well. One line in particular has stayed with me:
“Trust me: it's not we who choose the myths that guide our lives; it's they who choose us. But once you've been chosen, beware, because they'll always be with you.”
That sentiment captures the essence of the novel. Its belief in stories not just as narratives, but as forces that shape and follow us. A five out of five rating feels almost insufficient. This is not just a great read but it’s an amazing experience.
I would especially recommend it to readers of ‘Gun Island’, who will find an added layer of emotional richness in revisiting these characters. But beyond that, this is for anyone who has ever been drawn to questions of reincarnation, to the intersection of myth and reality, or simply to stories that immerse you so completely that the world outside fades away.
I finished it quite literally shaking.
And I don’t mean that lightly. The final chapter doesn’t just conclude the story but reconfigures it. It reveals something so fundamental, so quietly groundbreaking, that everything you thought you understood shifts beneath your feet. I won’t spoil it, but this is one of those endings that forces you to mentally retrace the entire narrative, looking at it through a completely altered lens. This is a book I know I will return to. Now that I know where it leads, I can already sense that a rereading will uncover layers I missed the first time.
Ratings - 5 out of 5 ✨
Words -
Images - 5
Comments
Post a Comment