The Calcutta Chromosone

The Calcutta Chromosone by Amitov Ghosh (vintage)

I'm sure you're familiar with the old adage, "good things come in small packages." Well, Amitav Ghosh's The Calcutta Chromosome is proof that the reverse may also be true--bad things can come in big packages.

When I picked up this bulky 300-plus page novel and read the raving reviews spewed on the back cover, I opened to the first page with a sense of excitement and anticipation, only to find that soon I was eagerly awaiting the final page.

While I acknowledge that I am merely an undergrad with less experience than any established critic, I couldn't help but wonder who these critics were and how long and hard the book's publisher had to look to find such flattering reviews.

The novel plays with an intriguing subject matter of scientific cover-ups, foreign espionage, and taboo religions, but Ghosh's writing style and character development leaves much to be desired.

The novel begins in an old manhattan apartment where Antar, a widowed, middle-aged man of Egyptian decent, unwinds after a long day's work to find a curious and unrecognizable image emerging on his computer screen.

Soon, the deciphered image of one L. Muragan (a man who has spent most of his professional career tracing the events and key figures in Malaria research) appears. With this, the story of Muragan's journey to Calcutta, his unrelenting scientific research, and his mysterious disappearance begin to unravel.

As the story shifts between the past and the present, fluctuating from Antar's computer and Muragan's startling discoveries it becomes evident that there is some spiritually sadistic power plaguing science and scientific discovery.

As the plot indicates, Ghosh does tackle some difficult and innovative concepts in this novel, but his writing lacks the fluidity that is characteristic of any great novelist. He desperately tries to be creative in his descriptions and dialogue, but ultimately fails to captivate his reader with any novel or engaging images or insights. Indeed, at times Ghosh seems to struggle with language--the appropriate words seem to constantly elude him.

The characters themselves are as shallow and undeveloped as any character in a John Grisham novel. While, on the surface, they have some fascinating and charming qualities, their words and actions fail to reflect Ghosh's descriptions. Ghosh has trouble providing interesting or amusing dialogue between his characters; they often say and do things that seem to be out of character.

Instead of creating characters that add to the plot, Ghosh presents his readers with a set of unsophisticated and shallow characters that hinder the development of the plot instead of enhancing the quality of the novel.

Ghosh also fails to investigate the psyches of his characters by entering their minds and investigating their thoughts as most great writers would. Instead of playing with the narration and elaborating on the thought processes of these individuals, Ghosh simply ignores any internal consciousness so that his characters are merely figures that fit into the plot to perform a distinct function.

While the novel's plot raises many questions, it's ability to develop its characters makes it little more than a mildly entertaining story.

That said, it seems quite plausible that, with the state of the movie industry today, which spits out multi-million dollar movies that are about as meaningful as the lyrics to a Presidents of the United States of America song, The Calcutta Chromosome may very well make it to the big screen. We can only hope that Keanu Reeves gets the lead role.

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