I have been listening to the audio of The Hungry Tide this week while working. I am so sorry it's over. The narrator was very good, which naturally helps, but the language was beautiful, the setting was fascinating and the characters were so real to me that I am still thinking about them. The story is about adaptation, and about the interaction between humans, plants and animals. The author presents an excellent question: Do we have the right to promote conservation efforts in a place where those efforts will have the most detrimental cost to the people who can tolerate the cost least? Because of my biology background, I also enjoyed the bits of information about the mangroves, the weather, the dolphins and other wildlife indigenous to the Sundarbans. However, this is only incidentally a biology or natural history book. The real story is in the interactions between people of vastly different backgrounds and how they adapt to each other and their environment. If I were giving out stars, this one would get 5.

Loved every bit of it..the beautiful writing style, the characters, the dolphins, the tigers, the local legends, the complex yet simple stories of love, the underlying currents of emotions. the book was exactly my type!

This book belongs on the shelf next to thrilling narratives such as _The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte_, which is to say, somewhere in a dark corner where we can leave it and forget about it.

Ghosh's star character is the Sundarban region of India. He presents the hard realities of civilization on the edge of wilderness in copious, poetic detail. By contrast, his human characters--especially the principals--are presented as somewhat boring and prosaic. Grand claims of romance alongside suspense and poetry, promised by the _Washington Post Book World_ on front cover, are greatly exaggerated, at least when it comes to the romance part. Ghosh insists that there is a love-quadrangle here, but the reader may find it difficult to believe. The characters regard the objects of their affection with as much passion and interest as this reader regards a tuna sandwich.

Some novels, you just can't put down. Some you want to put down as soon as possible and move on. And then there are some which you want to read slowly, savoring every line. The Hungry Tide is a poignant work which transports you to the remote Sunderbans - a world away, both literally and figuratively, from the India of the new millennium. Ghosh succeeds in capturing life along the fringes of the 'tide country', a near-mystic land ruled by tigers and goddesses, where people's lives are dictated by the rhythms of the tide, and the natural and the super natural are intertwined in the folk lore. The multi-dimensional characters are constructed with great depth, and their evolution over time is mesmerizing. Written in a effortless yet beautiful prose, The Hungry Tide's characters and the Sunderbans are sure to stay with you a long, long time after you have read the last lines, which are -

'You know, Nilima,' she said at last, 'for me, home is where the Orcaella are: so there's no reason why this couldn't be it.'

Nilima's eyes opened wide and she burst into laughter. 'See, Piya,' she said. 'That's the difference between us. For me home is wherever I can brew a pot of good tea.'

The Hungry Tide sits comfortably amongst Amitav Ghosh's environmental novels brimming with gentle love for nature and concerns about the destructive effects of climate change (usually, on the delicate ecosystems of the Sunderbans). History, mythology, and geography intersect to form the intriguing narrative bubble of The Hungry Tide, and the reader has no choice but to fall in love with the wonder that is the Sunderbans. A lot of research has gone into this novel but it never sticks out anywhere, gently molded along with the memorable characters, curious chain of events, and marvelous descriptions of the marshlands that propel the narrative forward. The unlikely cast of characters - an American biologist, a Bengali fisherman, a snobby translator, and a social entrepreneur - add a brilliant texture to the novel, letting Amitav showcase his profound knowledge across a spectrum of subjects. I've become quite enraptured with the Sunderbans after reading his novels (his recent novel Gun Island is about the same region), and it's very unsettling to learn the numerous threats to human habitation in those islands, ranging from weather, flooding, and animal attacks to government policy. It may not exist in a century, given the alarming rate of climate change, and Ghosh's efforts to document the various facets of this region is essential.

An engrossing novel that doubles as a non-fiction chronicle about the Sunderbans. It recommends itself.

I loved this one! The author is such a great storyteller. The story is masterfully woven. The prose is so immersive that it really feels like a piece of Bengal. The Hungry tide takes places on the edges of the Sundarbans. The descriptions are so detailed and (I assume) accurate that I could feel the ebbs and flows of the tides. The book speaks of folktales, beliefs, changes, forests, rivers, animals, humans, and most importantly, the connection among all these things. There is love. But somehow the language didn't seem to express the all consuming love the characters feel. In my mind their love is intermingled and devastating and tragic and more than a little blind. It might just be me. I have no problem with subtlety, it just didn't feel expressive enough. That's my only complaint. The rest of the book I adored. Now I shall include some large quotes because I felt them in my soul.

"A mangrove forest is a universe unto itself, utterly unlike other woodlands or jungles. There are no towering, vine-looped trees, no ferns, no wildflowers, no chattering monkeys or cockatoos. Mangrove leaves are tough and leathery, the branches gnarled and the foliage often impassably dense. Visibility is short and the air still and fetid. At no moment can human beings have any doubt of the terrain’s hostility to their presence, of its cunning and resourcefulness, of its determination to destroy or expel them."

"It is common knowledge that almost every island in the tide country has been inhabited at some time or another. But to look at them you would never know: the speciality of mangroves is that they do not merely recolonize land; they erase time. Every generation creates its own population of ghosts."

"..in the tide country girls were brought up on the assumption that if they married, they would be widowed in their twenties — their thirties if they were lucky. This assumption was woven, like a skein of dark wool, into the fabric of their lives: when the menfolk went fishing it was the custom for their wives to change into the garments of widowhood. They would put away their marital reds and dress in white saris; they would take off their bangles and wash the vermilion from their heads. It was as though they were trying to hold misfortune at bay by living through it over and over again."

It was with a little hesitation that I took up Amitav Ghosh's The Hungry Tide. Having got a bit bored with his Calcutta Chromosomes and not having read his acclaimed The Glass Palace, I wasn't quite sure what to expect here.
But thankfully, this turned out to be a worthy read, thanks to its fresh subject, thematic relevance and the tackling of its central characters.

Quite obviously, Ghosh’s interests as an anthropologist and professor shine though the novel and he’s tackled the central theme ie Sudarbans, in the same vein. As the jacket explains, ‘Between the sea and the plain of Bengal, on the easternmost coast of India, lies an immense archipelago of islands. Here there are no borders to divide fresh water from salt, river from sea, even land from water. For hundreds of years, only the truly dispossessed braved the man-eating tigers and the crocodiles who rule there, to eke a precarious existence from the mud’
However, the picture somewhat changed towards the start of the last century, when a visionary Scotsman, bought a few of these fragmented islands from the British to form a utopian settlement, where people irrespective of race, caste, culture could live together.
Considering the sheer scope that this kind of theme allows in terms of enumerating its legends, folk-lore, history and geological wonders, it's no surprise that it caught the author's interest.
Also, it enables Ghosh to highlight the raging socio-political debate about forest conservation vis a vis human settlement.

The story isn't much here. It's about Indian-born American marine biologist, Piyali Roy, in search of rare river dolphins and her encounter with two different kind of men, Kanai - a self-assured Delhi entrepreneur and Fokir, an illiterate but a proud local man of Lusibari.
While Piya is in Sudarbans for her project, Kania visits it for the second time since childhood, at the behest of his aunt, Nirmala, who’d like to hand over a notebook left for him by her deceased husband.
They’re paths cross and it is through their interwoven lives that Ghosh looks at the various elements in his theme. Piya, through her conscientious drive to unravel the hidden wonders of nature, is instantly attracted to Fokir's animal-like instinct and rustic charm. Kanai, on the other hand, manages to cuts no ice with her. Piya is not impressed with Kania’s urbane superciliousness and is constantly sees herself leaning towards the natural, unsoiled world of Fokir.
It’s only fair then that Ghosh brings in the debate about human settlements in forest lands through Piya and Kanai.
Given the vagaries of nature in this place, with its unrelenting storms, changing tides and its thriving wild life, Piya believes God probably intended it that way and any human intrusion that harms it must be disallowed.
On the other hand, Kanai supports the theory of human beings getting preference over animals. But again, Piya argues that this kind of short shrift shown to lesser beings will never end, whether they are animals or human beings.
The face-off between Fokir and Kanai that happens during their boat trip, is rightly then, the sign of the growing hostility between the ‘civilised world’ and rustics. Here, Fokir’s fear of the outsiders (Kania) can be alternatively read as the nature’s resistance to people like Forir who ‘intrude’ upon its territory. Again, the author manages to keep the debate alive when you see that people like him (Fokir) have water running in their veins and have become an inseparable part of this world -one of the reasons why Piya is so attracted to him. Would it be right to uproot him from this place then?

There’s another story that runs parallel to this one. Kanai reads out notes from his uncles' diary and I would think it’s a device to introduce the readers to a different time period in Sundarban’s history, it’s myths, legends, compulsions etc...

For the rest of the review, you could visit my book

Ghosh puts together a rich and riveting exploration of the Sundarbans that includes Ganges dolphins, Sundarban tigers, Hamilton's utopic town, lunar rainbows, the establishment of the Tagore Society of Rural Development. The topic and the poetic prose keep me spellbound. The dialog tended to be stiff and stilted; the characters sound like they are reading from textbooks at times. The characters tend to represent types, but I do appreciate Ghosh's work at representing multiple perspectives and complex issues: both dreamers and doers, modern and ancient ways, and the complexities of thinking about protecting both wildlife and people.
4+

So much research went into this book. The author has given us a beautiful story in a setting that many haven't explored.

4.5 Stars
In "The Hungry Tide," author Amitav Ghosh artfully interweaves history, myth, ecology with fictional but entirely credible characters and story-line into this dazzling novel that still has me thinking. I was very moved by this story and learned a lot about the Sundarbans, where this tale unfolds. These are a stretch of islands located in southern Bangladesh and western India where the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna Rivers empty into the Bay of Bengal. This is home of the world's largest mangrove forests, where the ferocious but endangered Bengal Tigers and the nearly extinct Indian river dolphins, as well as a long list of other animals, struggle to survive alongside a large human population with its own struggles to survive in a challenging environment. A relevant story that is thoughtfully researched and written.

This my second Amitav Ghosh read after "The Glass Palace" and I must say my opinion on the author has remained the same, for better and worse.
Ghosh, in my opinion, is an amazing story teller. His prowess as an author however, is questionable. To that extent, I don't read Ghosh to drown in a sea of imagination or literary beauty. In fact,I plough through Ghosh's work for the sheer plot that I know every time is sensational.
Chronicling is not one of Ghosh's strong suit. The story is presented in a very matter-of-fact manner. In fact, description is barely there, just about enough to carry on recounting the events. There were also times in the book, where Ghosh's excessive platitudes on dolphins made me want to skip an occasional paragraph. or two. The book however, did have its share of random nuggets of unexpected information. I know odd little things about dolphins, crabs and bengali sweets. That part was fun to know and retain.
The other thing about Ghosh's writing is that its always characterized with a lot of parellel side stories, which contribute to the main plot. They are however, not seamless at all. So sometimes its difficult to keep track of things where one second you're inside Piya's head learning about the habitat of Gangetic dolphins and the next second you're thrown thirty years back in time reading the contents of a dead man's journal.
The third point in my opinion, is language. It is very misleading. The prose is deceivingly simple consisting of simple compound sentences...and then suddenly you come across one very archaic word for which you have to stop everything and consult the thesaurus.
And here is an odd example:
" At the center of the village was a maidan, an open space not quite geometrical enough to be termed a square."
Had I personally not known what a "maidan" was, I would have had a hard time guessing he was talking about a field.
So yes, language and editing definitely could have been better.
But despite these drawbacks, I could not put the book down. The plot was just that great. It was so well thought out, that every time I read Ghosh's books, I feel as if he was talking from actual memories, not just spinning stories from his imagination.
Background information on all the characters were ..well, not there. But the events themselves were so vivid and so human, that the characters fleshed themselves out in their interactions with each other and their circumstances. And they demanded the reader's emotion.
As the story went on, I could imagine looking at the situation through Piya's eyes. My opinions on the two other characters Kanai and Fokir were the same as hers. I underwent the same emotions as she did when her feelings on these two people took shape and then changed over the course of events.The characters grew along with the events and their sheer human-ness make the story seem so real. And for that alone, I would grant all of Ghosh's books a permanent place in my reading list. He is not , an elegant writer, I think, but he is one helluva story teller.

Amitav Gosh riesce sempre a catturare e coinvolgere il lettore grazie alle bellissime descrizioni dei paesaggi, all'interessante background storico, all'accuratezza dei temi trattati (si capisce perfettamente che fa studi approfonditi, qualsiasi sia l'argomento di cui parla).
Il romanzo è ambientato nelle Sundarbans, una foresta di mangrovie sul delta di tre fiumi (Gange, Brahmaputra e Meghna) che appartiene in parte all'India e in parte al Bangladesh. L'autore ci descrive dettagliatamente i vari fiumi e canali d'acqua di questo delta, gli animali che vi abitano (tra cui la famosa tigre del Bengala), la difficoltà della vita sulle varie isole, il movimento delle maree, l'arcobaleno lunare, la leggenda di Bon Bibi (la dea della foresta), etc.
Seguiamo tre personaggi: Piya, biologa marina di origine indiana ma cresciuta negli Stati Uniti che si trova nelle Sundarbans per studiare la platanista gangetica, ovvero il delfino di fiume; Kanai, traduttore che vive a Delhi ma arriva sull'isola di Lusibari perché chiamato dalla zia per via di un diario che lo zio defunto aveva lasciato in eredità al nipote; Nirmal, lo zio defunto che tramite il suo diario ci riporta nel passato. Tramite questo diario non ci racconta soltanto delle difficoltà a vivere su queste isole del delta, ma anche del massacro di Marichjhanpi avvenuto nel 1979. Dopo la partizione dell'India molti induisti che vivevano in ciò che fu per alcuni anni il Pakistan orientale si spostarono in India. I più poveri vennero chiusi in campi per rifugiati che avevano ben poco di un centro di accoglienza ma erano veri e propri campi di detenzione. A un certo punto questi rifugiati decisero di scappare e occupare un'isola disabitata delle Sundarbans per vivere con il lavoro della terra e la pesca. Il governo locale non voleva più occuparsi di questi rifugiati, li considerava solo un peso e una spesa superflua, e con la scusa che avevano occupato una ecoregione protetta, mandò la polizia per risolvere il problema. Bloccarono ogni passaggio, gli abitanti rimasero senza viveri, senza acqua potabile, iniziarono a morire di stenti o ad ammalarsi e la polizia a un certo punto iniziò anche a sparargli addosso. Fu un vero massacro e morirono a migliaia finché la corte suprema non intervenne per far terminare questo sterminio.
C'è anche un quarto personaggio, Fokir, un nativo che diventerà il barcaiolo di Piya durante le uscite per osservare il delfino di fiume. Fokir sta sempre zitto, ma è colui che meglio di chiunque altro conosce la foresta e i canali d'acqua, che rappresenta gli abitanti e la vita del posto, ma è anche il collante tra i vari personaggi.

Leggendo Il paese delle maree non veniamo a conoscenza soltanto del massacro di Marichjhanpi, ma impariamo a conoscere questa zona del golfo del Bengala sicuramente poco conosciuto da noi occidentali; ne impariamo flora e fauna, la vita dura degli abitanti, tradizioni e leggende. Anche i dettagli e le curiosità sulla platanista gangetica sono stati molto interessanti e per niente noiosi. Come gli altri libri di Amitav Gosh che ho letto finora, anche questo è talmente interessante e scorrevole che le 500 pagine non si sentono per niente.