"The Calcutta Chromosome" is what I would called distinctly non-Western speculative fiction. I can't put my finger on it, but no American could write in this style, unless they had grown up in South Asia. It's a somewhat chaotic ride, shifting from past to future, and as the book goes on, it gets more complicated as more and more twisted connections are revealed. Finally, at the end of the book, all the threads have been tied together into a tangled mass that has no beginning or end. I'm still not sure I understood all the links.
With that introduction, you can understand that it's hard for me to summarize the plot. Basically, this is a book about the scientific research quest that began in the late 19th century to understand and cure malaria. But we don't really observe the scientists at work-- instead, we see the quest through the eyes of those peripherally associated with the research, or those from the present trying to reconstruct the history. This is a really an anthropological text.
As if that weren't confusing enough, Ghosh centers the story around a mystical theme that postulates that this malaria discovery was actually some sort of guided conspiracy instead of conventional Western science. The main characters in the book are unraveling a convoluted plot whereby the scientists were fed clues at just the right time to allow them to grasp certain concepts and have certain revelations. The more they learn about this plot, the more they realize that they are part of the plot too-- that is, their historical research into the science is part of the research itself. They are being manipulated just as surely as the scientists were guided along in their malaria discoveries.
Who is behind all of this? Naturally, the book is a bit vague. And I don't want to give too many details, but basically it's a force outside of Western science (and therefore invisible to scientists) that operates on the principle that having knowledge about something changes it (basically an extension of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle into the realm of cognition, as opposed to merely "observation"). Thus, the process of scientific discovery changes the things that we are using science to understand. And the people behind this conspiracy use science as a way to effect change: that is, when they want to bring about some changes, they guide scientists to certain discoveries, thus modifying the world through our increased knowledge of it.
It's hard to explain, but comes off pretty well in the book.
"The Calcutta Chromosome" is a fast read, but confusing after you've put it down, fading sort of like a dream (even though it made sense at the time). I think I will enjoy reading it again in a year or so.Overall, a "+".
Copyright © Kim Allen 2000
