The Hungry Tide: A Novel | Amitav Ghosh | Character is plot, plot is character

The Hungry Tide: A Novel | Amitav Ghosh | Lasting impression

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The Hungry Tide: A...

	The Hungry Tide: A Novel Amitav Ghosh Houghton Mifflin, 2005 - 352 pages average customer review:based on 35 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

The Hungry Tide is a very contemporary story of adventure and unlikely love, identity and history, set in one of the most fascinating regions on the earth. Off the easternmost coast of India, in the Bay of Bengal, lies the immense labyrinth of tiny islands known as the Sundarbans. For settlers here, life is extremely precarious. Attacks by deadly tigers are common. Unrest and eviction are constant threats. Without warning, at any time, tidal floods rise and surge over the land, leaving devastation in their wake.
In this place of vengeful beauty, the lives of three people from different worlds collide. Piya Roy is a young marine biologist, of Indian descent but stubbornly American, in search of a rare, endangered river dolphin. Her journey begins with a disaster, when she is thrown from a boat into crocodile-infested waters. Rescue comes in the form of a young, illiterate fisherman, Fokir. Although they have no language between them, Piya and Fokir are powerfully drawn to each other, sharing an uncanny instinct for the ways of the sea. Piya engages Fokir to help with her research and finds a translator in Kanai Dutt, a businessman from Delhi whose idealistic aunt and uncle are longtime settlers in the Sundarbans. As the three of them launch into the elaborate backwaters, they are drawn unawares into the hidden undercurrents of this isolated world, where political turmoil exacts a personal toll that is every bit as powerful as the ravaging tide.
Already an international success, The Hungry Tide is a prophetic novel of remarkable insight, beauty, and humanity.

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Character is plot, plot is character

I think they say that character is plot and plot is character. This book proves that theory. The meticulous detail lavished on developing each character including Piyali Roy, Kanai Dutt, Fokir and countless others is what gives this book it's raison d'etre. The descriptions of the Sundarbans are exquisitely embroidered into a vast tapestry of emotions, characters, places, animals, nature, and philosophy. Definitely worth reading.

Lasting impression

This is the third book by Amitav Ghosh which I have read now, after "In an Antique Land" and "Glass Palace". Each time I was not only gripped by the plot and the vivid descriptions, but I felt truly enriched by the many references to burning issues of our world. Among those three books I consider "The Hungry Tide" as the most finely worked-out novel. It provides a much-needed meditation on the relationship between man and nature, and between East and West.

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Hungry for more Amitav Ghosh!

Ghosh's writing transported me and them immersed me in another place that was completely unfamiliar and yet clearly portrayed. Good characters, interesting intertwined stories, worth your time if you like good writing. I wanted more when I finished. Now to decide which Ghosh novel to take up next...

Cetologist

I have to admit I love books about India and tigers. "jungle child" by norah burke especially. first the good things about The Hungry Tide: 1.It was written as a series of flashbacks all equally interesting: american girl, snobby Indian fellow and his sad-sap uncle. 2. it takes place in an unknown-to-me-part of the world: an archipeligo off the eastern coast of india/bangladesh. 3. It concerns ecology and the preservation of animals whose existance is fatally threatened by humans. It kind of makes the case for the humans vis-a-vis endangered species. Like why shouldnt people move into crappy low-life places where tigers roam free and then why shouldnt the people kill the tigers who have nothing left to eat so they eat the settlers? So that's the good part. Now for the drawbacks: 1. the author is not really an especially good writer. I still dont understand how islands can be totally submerged when the tides come in and still have huge tigers running around when the tide goes out. Do the tigers sit on the tops of the trees half their lives or what? 2. The characters were not especially inteligible. None of them ellicited any emotions. They were just cardboard characters. Like: hey look here is a american girl with short hair who is a cetologist. she also eats power bars and rejects local food for months and months. thats a lot of power bars in her back pack. 3. The relations between the sexes were bitter and mean in every single case. Does that mean something special or is the author just a grouch?

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Good read, but not Ghosh's best

This book kept me up past my bedtime last night, although I found it not entirely convincing. Still, parts were enthralling. Ghosh throws together an American cetacean researcher of Indian descent, a translator from New Delhi, an illiterate fisherman, and the turbulent landscape of the Sundarbans, and comes up with a tale that is part adventure story, part romance, part history and resonates with the hybrid mythology of its location throughout.

But while there is much to be savored in this novel, it flounders a bit in describing straightforward adult interactions--people explain themselves (in their thoughts and out loud) rather woodenly.

Still, it kept me reading, and I was glad to learn about a part of the world I'd barely even heard of. But I've enjoyed other Ghosh books more.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

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