In essence, Gun Island is a classic tale of a man finding himself through adventure and encounters with others only Ghosh is a master storyteller and the novel is an inventive and contemporary reimagining of an old-school adventure yarn, linking legends and folk tales with immigration and climate change through a wonderful cast of characters.

Deen, the main character is a middle-aged rare book dealer, originally from Kolkata, now living in New York. Mild mannered and straight laced, on a visit to Kolkata, Deen reluctantly indulges an old auntie and visits Sundarbans, the birthplace of a lesser known local legend. This visit introduces him to a number of characters connected to the place – from a young fisherman eking existence in the shadow of a forgotten temple to a marine biologist concerned with the falling numbers of Irrawaddy dolphins. Over time, the lives of the people Deen encountered in Sundarbans become more interconnected with his own as the story shifts to Los Angeles where local firefighters struggle to bring spreading wildfires under control and to Venice full of Bangladeshi immigrants threatened by tightening immigration laws.

Deen is familiar with the history of the subcontinent but, having emigrated to the US a long time ago, is somewhat out of touch with the present. So, as in other novels of Ghosh’s that I’ve read, there is a postcolonial element. At times, I wandered why Ghosh created a bit of a boring main character but seen in this context, Deen becomes enriched through the encounters with the locals in Sundarbans and later with Bangladeshi immigrants in Venice – people he wouldn’t have normally had any interest in but now forms meaningful relationships with.

Gun Island could be read as a contemporary inversion of the classic Victorian colonial adventure and Deen as a sort of inverted Conan Doyle or Rider Haggard hero. This is, however, just one element in a richly textured novel. Migration and displacement are another, the suffering and hardship of people crossing the Mediterranean in search of a better life in Europe increasingly deaf to their pleas. And so is the plight of animals, their irregular behaviour caused by changing weather patterns, pollution and climate change. At the same time and despite dealing with these heavy themes, Gun Island was a pleasure to read and is not without hope.

On occasion I found Deen’s ignorance of history (he has a Phd in early Bengali folklore) a little bit clumsy, done only as a lead into exposition by one or another character but apart from that, I thought Gun Island very good. I haven’t read The Hungry Tide but will do since it features some of the characters from Gun Island when they were younger.

My thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review Gun Island.