Bhumika Mahida: Thinking Activity : Gun Island

Thinking Activity : Gun Island

Hello ,

I am Bhumika Mahida Student of the Department Of English M K Bhavnagar University. Here I'm going to write a blog on the 'Gun Island' novel by Amitav Ghosh. I have to write this blog in response to the blog 'Gun Island' by Dilip Barad sir , M K Bhavnagar University. So , let's begin…

Author's Introduction :

Amitav Ghosh

Amitav Ghosh (born 11 July 1956)[1] is an Indian writer and the winner of the 54th Jnanpith award, India’s highest literary honor, best known for his work in English fiction. Ghosh's ambitious novels use complex narrative strategies to probe the nature of national and personal identity, particularly of the people of India and Southeast Asia.[3] For more information visit the given link 👉https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amitav_Ghosh

Gun Island

Amitav Ghosh’s latest novel, Gun Island, traces familiar crosscultural patterns evident in his earlier novels. There are journeys by land and water, diaspora and migration, experiences aboard ships, the world of animals and sea-creatures. Ghosh foregrounds environmental issues like climate change and the danger to fish from chemical waste dumped into rivers by factories, concerns that carry over from earlier books like The Hungry Tide and The Great Derangement.

Gun Island describes the quest of Deen, a scholar and collector of rare books, who returns from New York, his city of domicile, to the Sunderbans in West Bengal to unravel the mystery and legend of a seventeenth-century merchant, Bonduki Sada-gar, translated “The Gun Merchant,” and his persecution by Manasa Devi, mythical goddess of snakes. In a talk held in New Delhi after the release of the novel, Ghosh stated that the merchant “was a trope for trade.” The merchant and the goddess dramatize “the conflict between profit and the world.” In the novel, the goddess pursues the merchant to make him aware of other realities like the animal world: “Humans—driven, as was the Merchant, by the quest of profit—would recognize no restraint in relation to other living things.” for more reading visit the given link 👉https://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/2019/autumn/gun-island-amitav-ghosh#:~:text=Gun%20Island%20describes%20the%20quest,his%20persecution%20by%20Manasa%20Devi%2C

Let's discuss some points of the novel…

1. How does Amitav Ghosh use the myth of Gun Merchant 'Bonduki Sadagar' and Manasa Devi to initiate discussion on the issue of Climate Change and Migration/Refugee crisis / Human Trafficking?

Amitav Ghosh uses the myth of Gun Merchant 'Bonduki Sadagar' and Manasa Devi to initiate discussion on the issue of Climate Change and Migration/Refugee crisis / Human Trafficking.In this novel we can find many incidents that are talking about climate change.The incidents like the floods in Sundarban , tides in Venice and The wildfire in Los Angeles.While reading we can see that Nilima talked about the cyclone that came in Sundarban.Because of pollution and human disturbance many animals and various species are changing their places. Fertiliser and other chemicals create a dead zone in water and because of that dolphins have to change their place and path often.

In Gun Island with the use of myth Ghosh wants to talk about the serious problem that we are facing today and these problems are climate change and migration. Amitav Ghosh very intellectually used this myth of The Gun Merchant and Manasa Devi.The whole story is about the pilgrimage of Gun merchant as well as of Dinanath.

Ghosh’s novel intervenes in mainstream discussions on the “migrant crisis” in two ways: by positing human migration as a continuum rather than an exceptional event, and by underscoring the agency of the migrants by showing how Rafi and Tipu carefully execute their plans against pressures from human traffickers and border security guards. Gun Island’s juxtaposition of a premodern myth with ongoing anthropogenic climate change reframes contemporary discourses of climate change migration by pointing out that our shared species history is marked by both human and non-human migrations. By so doing, one also recognizes how the environmental humanities can offer interventionist criticism of events such as the Poland-Belarus face-off by critiquing the utilitarian and sedentarist view of the nation-state, foregrounding an ethics of alterity by situating humans relationally with other non-human and geophysical agencies.

2. How does Amitav Ghosh make use of the 'etymology' of common words to sustain mystery and suspense in the narrative?

Etymology is the study of the history of words.By extension, the etymology of a word means its origin and development throughout history.In this novel Ghosh uses many words with its etymology.

1.Gun Island

2.Bhut - Ghost

3.Possession

4.Land of Palm Sugar Candy

5.Land of Kerchieves

6.Island of Chains

1.Gun Island

Gun here is refer as a reference of foundry.There is one foundry where armaments, including bullets, were cast. And the word used for foundry in Venetian dialect is "ghetto". And the world "ghetto" is derived from "getto" and it is connected with Jews.But again there is no reference of Jews in the novel.

2.Bhut - Ghost

Deen explains that in Bangla bhoot/bhuta means according to Sanskrit root "bhu" means "to be" or "to manifest". So "bhuta" simply means "a being" or "an existing presence". This word "bhuta" also refers to the past, in the sense of "a past state of being".

3.Possession

There is reference to the word possession in the novel. Possession is when someone is taken over by a demon. And the demon is nothing but it's just a metaphor for greed, an imaginary thing. So possession is not like someone's soul comes into our body and all things ! It's our greed that we have taken over that greed. It is a kind of awakening also, you are waking up to things that you had never imagined or sensed before.

4.Land of Palm Sugar Candy

The Bengali word for this is "taal-misrir-dish". Desh = country, taal= kind of palm tree that produces a sugar syrup, Bengali word for sugar candy is misri. Cinta said that the Arabic word "Misr" is used for Egypt. So this place is referred to as Egypt.

5.Land of Kerchieves

Cinta asked for the Bengali translation of this word. Deen told her it was called Rumaali-desh. In Bengali Rumaal is a handkerchief. Chinta said it is about Rumelia, and this Rumeli-Hisari is located in Turkey.

6.Island of Chains

The Bengali word for this is "shikol-dwip". And this is a reference to Sikelia and that is now Sicily. So the Island of Chains is used for Sicily.

3. What are your views on the use of myth and history in the novel Gun Island to draw the attention of the reader towards contemporary issues like climate change and migration?

Gun Island uses the myth of the Gun Merchant as a nexus to draw parallels between the Little Ice Age and our present-day scenario where droughts, floods, cyclones, wildfires and epidemics have become a part of our everyday lives. Gun Island projects unprecedented climatic conditions as the primary cause for these natural disasters. It becomes a clarion call for climate induced migrations as it skillfully portrays people and entire communities being uprooted from their native land and the drastic changes in the migratory patterns of different species due to changing climes and warming waters. Instead of projecting warnings of impending doom and apocalypse Gun Island focuses on giving the readers hope for a better tomorrow.

4.Is there any connection between 'The Great Derangement' and 'Gun Island'?

Gun Island may seem like a fun, fast-paced adventure story, but there’s a lot going on beneath the surface that’s easy to miss on a first read. To really get the most out of this novel, it’s helpful to read it critically using Amitav Ghosh’s nonfiction book The Great Derangement as a guiding framework.In the novel, Ghosh explores the hesitancy of literary fiction to address climate change and questions why books that do address climate change are often disregarded or looked down upon by the literati as pulp or science fiction.

5. There are many Italian words in the novel. Have you tried to translate these words into English or Hindi with the help of google translate app ? If so, how is machine translation helping in proper translation of Italian words into English or Hindi ?

Yes , there are lots of Italian words in the novel. I've tried to translate the words from Italian to English and also I got a proper meaning of particular words. With the help of Google Translation it has been done successfully , for reading this novel Machine Translator is the most important tool.

Here are some videos for better understanding of the novel…👇