Skip to main content

Book Review - The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh


“How do you lose a word? Does it vanish into your memory, like an old toy in a cupboard, and lie hidden in the cobwebs and dust, waiting to be cleaned out or rediscovered?”

If you would ask me to describe this book in one word, it would be descriptive. There are so many details that your mind will explode. It will be like you are getting to know the geography of a region without being present in that location. The tales of the past adds spice to the story. Prima facie the book revolves around the coastal area of India and Bangladesh, Sunderbans and dolphins, but there is more to it. It talks about human interactions, the people you meet in your line of work and how they make you feel, what you have to go through to follow your dreams, how some people feel themselves superior that they forget to treat people in the right manner and what environmentalists and social servants do might not be in the best interest of everyone every time.

The story took off well, but I lost interest after some time and it felt like a chore to pick this up. Then, I needed a time out and went again, and it felt nice this time with all the intricate details of the current story and how it ties in with the old one. Every chapter feels like a memory from a lost time. It’s a beautiful book about love and human interactions. It tells you how fear will make you do things which you might have avoided otherwise and let you meet with your opposite self. Each character in the story is well crafted and has a proper space to grow, so you end up feeling towards few characters more than others.

Rating - 3.5/5

Genre- Historical Fiction

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review - Summer Requiem by Vikram Seth

                                            It is a book that will take you to places and circumstances that once upon a time were your humble abode. Now things have changed and, we have moved forward in life where things or people that matter live far away. The poems were deep. One has to focus on what he is trying to say, else you'll lose the plot. I enjoyed some and, some were out of my reach. I feel I should go back to those again in the latter part of life to understand them better. Not merely reading it, but feeling them as well will only make me closer to the truth. Even though I didn't get few poems, I wish to read them again. It happens very rarely when I feel like re-reading a book. So, if it is happening, that means it has left an impact on me. Like every other poetry book, go slow with this. My favourites from this book are – Can’t, This Room, In Touch, Day and Nig...
3 comments
Read more

Review: Marry Me, Stranger by Novoneel Chakraborty

Well, I'm not one of those who just write a review, but then this book requires one I think so. When I started this book I was thinking that I don't want to read another typical love story (though I have read all his other books). So I just wished me luck and started reading it. Even first few pages took me by surprise and as I moved on, it was a roller coaster ride full of overriding emotions. I usually take time to read books as I love going through the depth of book by slowly taking them in my world but completed this one in one go.  The best thing about the book is its story line and obviously the characters because even if the story is good and the characters are not portrayed well you cannot connect much with them. Here, everything is in total synchronization, be it emotions, social responsibility or situation handling issues. I will not call it a love story because it is not. It is more about social issues, your own self, situation that you come across in your ...
2 comments
Read more

Review - Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

  I don’t know what to make of this book as it left me with so many things to think about regarding the scenarios/situations I read. Also, if it falls into the romance genre, I can only find revenge and desperation to prove the other person wrong. The book is tricky as it has a story within a story. But after some time, it becomes easy to identify one from another, and it doesn’t feel like a chore. I found it hard to understand what is going on at the beginning.  Also, the gothic parts were very few and were not scary at all. They added little to the story; I feel. I felt something would come out of it, but found nothing. There are two main characters, Heathcliff and Catherine, and both were just okay. I didn’t like Heathcliff at all. His traits were brutal and harsh. Despite that, I was always looking forward to what he is up to next. On the other hand, Catherine is too sweet and gullible (not the Catherine you are thinking about, though). The book has a theme of love, frie...
5 comments
Read more