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| The Hungry Tide | 
 enlarge | Author: Amitav Ghosh
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
Category: Book
List Price: £7.99
Buy Used: £0.01
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Avg. Customer Rating:  12 reviews
Sales Rank: 10759
Media: Paperback
Edition: New Ed
Pages: 400
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.7 x 5 x 1.1
ISBN: 0007141785
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780007141784
ASIN: 0007141785
Publication Date: May 3, 2005
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: In Stock **DESPATCHED IN 24 working HOURS**
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| Customer Reviews: Read 7 more reviews...
Ghosh just gets better and better September 15, 2008
I am a big fan of Ghosh's writing and this is the latest one I've read - which, as usual, didn't disappoint. It has perhaps a simpler, less expansive plot than other works but still has various themes including nationality, poverty, some natural history and isolation - both personl and on a wider level. As usual though, the focus is on the relationships between the characters. At the end you are left wanting more; in many ways there could be a sequel.
 Evocative, intelligent, philisophical - though lacking in characterisation February 5, 2008
"The Hungry Tide" is the latest novel from Indian-born author Amitav Ghosh. Set in the Sundarban archipelago in the delta of the River Ganges, it follows the experiences of two people after they meet on a train from Calcutta: Piya Roy, a young American marine biologist of Indian parentage; and middle-aged Kanai Dutt, a commercially successful interpreter and translator. Piya is arriving for the first time on a research trip to study the river dolphins of the Sundarbans; Kanai, on the other hand, is returning for the first time in many years, after a lost notebook left to him by his long-deceased uncle suddenly turns up. As outsiders, however, they both soon find that this environment is more alien to their ways of life than they once thought.
Ghosh's ability to evoke a sense of time and place is evident; his depiction of the 'tide country', as the Sundarban archipelago is often referred to, is excellent. The reader is shown a timeless place where history, myth and the present merge into one, in which Man and nature are locked in constant competition, vying for domination of the land. In stark contrast to this almost primitive struggle for survival, however, the author brings out the richness and diversity of these islands' culture in great detail. The Sundarbans themselves transcend geopolitical boundaries, lying as they do on the Indian-Bangladeshi border, and their culture reflects this, drawing on Hindu, Muslim and Christian traditions as much as local folklore.
A setting as fully realised as this requires strong characters to act as counterpoints. Unfortunately both Piya and Kanai come across as rather two-dimensional and struggle to hold the reader's interest. It is difficult to get a feel for the relationship between them or to understand the reasons behind their actions. Piya's entire raison d'etre appears to be her study of the river dolphins; never do we get the chance to see her as an emotional human being outside of her occupation. Sometimes, too, what we are told about a character jars with how he or she is portrayed: for example, Kanai's propensity for womanising fails to tally with his apparent unease around women. Part of the problem of characterisation may rest with the dialogue, which can on occasion feel somewhat clumsy. Also, though intelligently researched and full of thought-provoking themes, the prose is sometimes heavy-handed and lacks subtlety, instead of allowing the imagery to speak for itself and leaving the reader to draw his own conclusions.
In many ways "The Hungry Tide" feels less like a novel and more like a fictionalised study of Ghosh's chosen setting, with stories within stories within stories all serving to weave a complex tapestry of the places, people and histories that make up this fascinating environment. Although the characters require some patience from the reader, it therefore remains an absorbing read.
 Enjoyable and better written than Glass Palace November 27, 2007
I enjoyed this book. I liked getting an insiders view into an area I am very unlikely to visit in person woven into fiction. Characters come and go but I think that adds to the nature of the story.
It was a bit freaky and sad reading the sections about the cyclone and then the same day seeing images of same region (November 07) with its cylone devestation images blasted across the TV news.
In my view it was much better written than the Glass Palace and I shall look for new books out by this author.
A bit confusing January 30, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I'd heard great things about Amitav Ghosh and was looking forward to getting stuck into this, but as other readers have pointed out it wasn't easy to relate to the characters. The chapters are short and alternate between the stories of Piya, Kanai and Kanai's uncle which can become a bit confusing and choppy. I found that the character i liked best was Fokir and we barely hear him talk! This novel is clearly well researched and the descriptions of the sundarbans and the animals found there are lovely, however i did struggle to get through it and doubt i'll read it again.
Beautiful, evocative, thoughtful, but weak characterisation December 31, 2006
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
I enjoyed reading this book for its setting most of all. The boat journeys through the Sunderbans area of Bengal were very evocative and a joy to read. It's a pity Ghosh could not work the same magic in devising his characters. Like other readers I was not convinced by the attraction between Piya and Fokir, and did not really understand the relationship between Kanai and Piya. It was almost as if the Sundarbans was the main character and the characters Piya, Fokir and Kanai were the backdrop.
I was intrigued enough to keep going with the subplot of the uprising but felt it was an anticlimax when Kanai came to the end of his uncles book detailing the uprising involving Fokir's mother but without actually telling us what happened to her. And anyway I did not care enough about Kanai to relate the uprising to him. The book is well researched and well written, with interesting insights and beautiful descriptions, however without well-drawn characters it feels like a beautifully written essay rather than a novel. Still, one can enjoy an essay, too, so a well-deserved four stars for this one. As a lover of books about India, I find that Ghosh is a strong writer and I intend to read more of his work. I have just bought the highly acclaimed `Glass Palace'
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