When Tolkien used mythopoeia or myth-making in the 1930s, he not only created fictional mythology but also opened up a portal for numerous writers to take up this tradition of creating artificial/fictional mythic worlds in their prose or other forms of fiction. This tradition has gone through a subtle distortion when we talk about contemporary literature. The myths or the making of them doesn’t adhere to just creating new myths, they are now more invested in morphing the old into the new, in applying the myths within the contemporary linguistics and in creating a literature that can be considered in hindsight as modern myths.
According to me Amitav Ghosh is a modern myth maker. In his newest novel, Gun Island he creates the myth of the ‘Bonduki Sadagar’ or as we come to know him as, the Gun Merchant. The Gun Merchant sails through adventures to escape the persecution of Manasa Devi, the goddess who rules over snakes and other poisonous creatures. Ghosh creates the legend of the merchant and through the story guides us on an adventure of our own. We are moved temporally and spatially to understand that this modern day myth has more to do with contemporary global issues of dislocation and migration of both humans and animals alike.
The protagonist of this story is Dinanath Dutta, a rare books dealer set up in Brooklyn. He finds himself drawn to the local myth of the Sadagar when he visits Calcutta (his place of birth and upbringing) on his yearly visits. Through the pull of the story and aided by other characters from the novel, Dinu/Deen travels to the mangrove forests of Sundarbans and then to Venice to unravel the myth of the Sadagar. Through the numerous references to the myth of the Sadagar and the symbols associated with it, Deen/Dinu along with two women – a marine biologist (Piya) and a Venetian historian (Cinta) and two youngsters – Rafi and Tipu unravel the story behind the travels and adventures of the Gun Merchant.
Ghosh has created an interesting protagonist in this novel. He is not the most heroic of heroes as you may want to read in an adventure novel, and Gun Island is an adventure of discovery and nostalgic storytelling. Dinanath is on the other hand, a very realistic portrayal of a man who doesn’t really believe in this adventure but finds himself entangled in it. Through the help of Cinta, he deciphers sections of the myth of the Gun Merchant and with the help of Piya he is able to understand the complex dynamics that is created between the human and the animal world. Ghosh doesn’t just stop here. He merges the natural with the supernatural and the explainable with the unbelievable. Tipu’s visions here come handy in pushing the narrative forward. One of the things that didn’t work out for me was the pacing of the novel. But having said that, I feel that nothing else could have been done as an alternative as that pacing also is a remark on the kind of storytelling that an adventure novel needs.
Verdict: Buy! And if you do get a chance then meet Amitav Ghosh and hear him talk about this novel.
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