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The Hungry Tide: A Novel | 
 enlarge | Author: Amitav Ghosh
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Category: Book
List Price: $25.00
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Rating:  35 reviews
Sales Rank: 497242
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 352
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.2
ISBN: 0618329978
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN: 9780618329977
ASIN: 0618329978
Publication Date: May 3, 2005
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Product Description
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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| Customer Reviews: Read 30 more reviews...
 Sundarbens Revealed-Hungry for More May 21, 2005
Janis Rothermel (Longport, NJ USA)
33 out of 36 found this review helpful
I had never heard of the Sundarbens prior to reading this book. I will never forget them after reading it. I could not put this book down, and it is on my list of best books for the past year. The characters come from different places, yet come together through fate and circumstances. Ghosh gives us love stories interwoven throughout, and actually until the end we are not sure how these will play out. He writes great adventure and nature scenes, and introduces natural elements that most will not be familiar with. He will make you think about the environment and its inhabitants in several different ways (spoiler-tigers and residents, dolphins and residents-compare and contrast). It will make you think of your own hospitality. It has spirituality and myth interwoven throughout as well as their expression in poetry. Yet somehow all these different elements come together in the geographic setting of the story. The storm scenes will remain etched on my mind for years to come (compare it to the storm in The Perfect Storm). This book will make you look at what is most important posession wise in times of crisis and during regular times. His characters are well developed and defined, and I could picture each and everyone in my mind's eye. They are unforgettable. I cannot recommend this book enough, but at the same time I don't want to provide any spoilers. Brilliant writing. Confirms my own belief that India will be my next big trip. Take a chance on a book that is very different and just read it, you will be hungry for more!
 an enchanting, powerful story about a region unknown to most April 26, 2007
Aleksandra Nita-Lazar (MA, USA)
29 out of 30 found this review helpful
"The Hungry Tide" is the first novel by Amitav Ghosh I read. I am very interested in India and read a lot of Indian authors, but somehow Ghosh had escaped my attention. Till now - because now I will definitely read his other books.
I was drawn to "The Hungry Tide" by its setting - the action takes place in the Sundarbans, the archipelago in the Bengal Bay, at the mouth of the Ganges, partially belonging to India and partially to Bangladesh, where the fresh river water mixes with the saltwater from the ocean. The tides make the Sundarbans a difficult place to live for humans, but, at the same time, a unique habitat for fauna and flora. The mangrove swamps are dominant, and they provide the shelter for many species of animals, which are specific to the region or very rare in other areas. The example is the Royal Bengal Tiger, a man-eater, featuring in "The Hungry Tide" together with several species of dolphins and deadly crocodiles.
The novel starts with the meeting of two main characters, Piyali (Piya), an Indian-American field biologist specialized in dolphins, and Kanai, a sophisticated interpreter and businessman, on the train to Canning. Piya has a plan to collect data on the life of the rare river dolphins, which are the subject of her research. Kanai was summoned by his aunt, Nilima, to the island of Lusibari (he spent there only one summer as a schoolboy), where she runs a charity, to get the package left to him in the will of his late uncle, Nirmal, a leftist schoolteacher with literary ambitions. Kanai is interested in Piya, and when they part in Canning, he invites her to Lusibari.
From this point, the narration is separated into alternating chapters devoted to the doings of Piya and Kanai. Piya gets her travel permit and goes by motorboat to see the dolphins with the national forest guard and a thug of a boat owner. The accident, in which she nearly drowns, leaves her on the small fishing rowboat belonging to Fokir, a poor fisherman from Lusibari. Since then, Piya's fate is connected with Fokir's. After seeing some dolphins, they go to Lusibari and organize a bigger expedition, in which Kanai participates as a translator. The tension between the three becomes difficult to bear...
The novel is full of extraordinary, powerful characters. Each protagonist has very distinct characteristics and all of them stand out of the crowd. They are all strongly tied to the Sundarbans, but each of them understands the life in the islands differently: Fokir is rooted in the old traditions; his wife, Moyna, who trains to be a nurse, wants to have a better life and help the local people; Nilima runs a charity - a hospital, a guest house and educational services; Piya and Kanai become infected with the Sundarbans and want to go back...
I liked the construction of the novel, which, in addition to alternating chapters about Piya and Kanai, which finally merge, has many other threads, most important of which is Nirmal's notebook, which Kanai is reading, and which reports the events leading to Nirmal's death. These events are, of course, the happenings essential in the newest history of the Sundarbans. Nirmal, who is an admirer of Rilke, quotes Rilke's poems all the time (sometimes, to me , a little too freely, and I cannot see the connection between his thoughts and Rilke's lines, but - licentia poetica...).
There is also an evocation of the local myth of the goddess Bon Bibi, which is beautifully woven into the story.
I could compare "The Hungry Tide" to James Michener's novels, it is in the same way well researched (Ghosh is an anthropologist so his interest and knowledge of the natural sciences are profound) and concentrates on the specific region. Unlike Michener though, Ghosh tells one actual story and his book is a real novel, not an attempt to span the centuries of history, so it is way less superficial and concentrated on the characters.
A warning for those living in a translated world October 1, 2004
M. Abhijit (Dhakuria, India)
24 out of 27 found this review helpful
Amitav Ghosh is a master of the genre "Fictionalized Thesis". Before this one he excelled in ' In An Antique Land' in mixing fiction with facts gathered through painstaking research and the synergy turns out to be extraordinarily capable of conveying the message creating the desired effect. Though he extensively deals with science, Ghosh has appeared to nurture mystic elements within his basic views of the world, history. He seems to believe in destiny and recognizes omen as would be evident through his 'Calcutta Chromosome' also. His perception of history has its full quota of heroes. As he lamented in 'Dancing in Cambodia At Large in Burma' that the postmodern world has taken away from the middle class its heroes, here (in Hungry Tides) he is very firm in acknowledging them in his definition of things. And, as always, with a quotation of Rilke here and a passionate interpretation of his own there, he enthralls the poetically oriented one to one's heart's content.
Sundarbans, a vast forest that insulates the inland of lower Bengal in India from the ocean, is slowly being denuded of its bio-diversity; the ecological balance is seriously being threatened. And all these are because the life of the ordinary, extremely poor people living there do not count for anything to the political establishments. As the scientist Mr. Piddington warned, if the forest is itself endangered that is certainly to diminish the possibility of Calcutta being protected any more against the devastating oceanic storms of Bay of Bengal. Interestingly that threat of a sad destiny where the guilty will not be spared destruction is hinted at very clearly through a metaphorical local tale of Bon-bibi and Dakshin Rai among the dwellers of Sundarbans. The educated city people, the enlightened, unfortunately live in a translated world of their own and they failed to interpret the meaning of science, progress, civilization to the under-privileged, neither have the plight of these hapless people been earnestly conveyed to the outer world which could extend an effective helping hand. Ghosh attempts to bring back the memories of S'Daniel Hamilton to stress upon the importance of true enlightenment and indomitable human spirit keeping aside unnecessary categorizations of revolutionary, bourgeois, secular, pagan and so on. The author exhibits a rare sincerity in describing the life of the underprivileged but struggling people of Sundarbans with true respect. A hint of a development of romance between an illiterate boatman Fakir and the US born cetologist Piyali Roy who studies marine mammals, has been a remarkable technique to steer the narrative with cohesion.
And about the dolphins - appreciation of the book and its subsequent popularity will create innumerable experts and well-wishers all over the world -no doubt about that!
A masterpiece May 19, 2005
wicked_beatz (India)
15 out of 17 found this review helpful
I picked up "The Hungry Tide" on a visit to a friend's place in Bombay, and finished it one sitting while I waited up for him to return from work. Since I'm an incorrigibly impatient reader, that says something about this novel. This is not just lucid, gorgeous writing: this is a testimony to the sheer depth of details the author plunges into to flesh out his characters, of his keen sense observation, of evoking the essence of a land and its people. Ah, also of its poetry. Like tides, this should engulf you.
The Tigers in India July 14, 2007
Robin Friedman (Washington, D.C. United States)
12 out of 12 found this review helpful
"The Tigers in India" is a short essay by William James in which he contrasted knowing that there were tigers in India by hearing about them from knowing that there were tigers in India by actually seeing and coming into contact with them. Amitav Ghosh's fine novel "The Hungry Tide" made me feel I knew the man-eating tigers of India in this second, more intimate way. Ghosh's novel is at its best when it describes the wild, untamable and fierce qualities of nature which do not bend to human will. The novel is full of vivid descriptions of tigers and their human prey, crocodiles, snakes, large forests of mangroves, storms, and fatal typhoons.
"The Hungry Tide" is set in a remote part of northeast India known as the Sundarbans which consists of thousands of small islands formed by the interflux of two rivers as they flow into the Bay of Bengal. Life is precarious with shifting islands, tigers and other predators, poor soil, and minimal contact with the outside world. Ghosh describes the people of the Sundarbans, their history, and their struggles with the natural world. He made me yearn to visit this unfamiliar place.
The novel develops slowly. There are three major and a host of secondary characters. It is a great deal to follow and absorb. The first primary character is Piya, a young American scholar of Indian descent. She is a student of marine mammals and has come to the Sudabar to study the river dolphin. We learn a great deal about dolphins in this book, but the descriptions don't have the vividness of the scenes with the tigers or crocodiles. The second main character, Kanai, is urbane, 42 years old, a successful translator, and a womanizer. He is in the Sundarbans at the request of his aunt Nilina who wants him to read a journal left by her late husband, Nirmal. Nilina is a pragmatist and activist who has built her life by helping others and creating a hospital on a small island. Her husband, a would-be poet, radical, and dreamer lived in her shadow. His journal tells the story of a group of Bangaladeshi immigrants who were forced out of a Forest Reserve in the Sundarbans by the Indian government in order to preserve the tigers.
The third main character is an uneducated fisherman named Fokir. Fokir comes to Piya's rescue at several points in the novel and he helps her find dolphins. Fokir doesn't speak English and he and Piya cannot verbally communicate. Fokir's wife Moyna has struggled to get an education and to become a nurse. There are tensions between her and her illiterate husband.
The portions of the book that deal with nature and the Sundarbans interthread with the stories and relationships of the characters. In particular, Ghosh explores the tension between love and sexuality on on hand and education and career on the other hand, especially as this tension applies to women. This theme is developed in three characters: Piya has seemingly abandoned the possibility of a committed relationship in order to pursue her research on the river dolphin. She must identify and struggle with her developing feelings for both Fokir and Kanai. Nilima became an organizer and a force in the Sundarbans by building the hospital and organizing the community while her schoolteacher husband remained on the sidelines -- creating unhappiness between them. Fokir and Moyna struggle to raise their son and keep their marriage in the face of the differences between them in education and ambition. Ghosh subtly develops this theme throughout the book. He shows how changing gender roles and expectations affect both life in the developed world of the United States and urban India and in rural, isolated areas such as the Sundarbans.
There are many other themes, including the modern conservation movement, explored with understanding and balance in Ghosh's novel. At times, indeed, there was something of an overload. I thought the book was awkwardly constructed as it moves back and forth from chapter to chapter between Piya's story and Kanai's story until they gradually interconnect. The narrative is frequently delayed by long stories which, while interesting in themselves, interfere with the flow of the action. At times I grew impatient and wanted the story to proceed.
In summary, what most impressed me in this book were first the dramatic pictures of raw and violent nature in the Sundarbans and second the nuanced discussion of issues that people face involving the priorities of love and work, as these issues continue to unfold and evolve in all parts of the world.
Robin Friedman
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