Taming Unruly Islands

...For if you compared it to the ways in which dolphins' echoes mirrored the world, speech was only a bag of tricks that fooled you into believing that you could see through the eyes of another being...

...Kanai because his aunt Nilima, founder of a hospital on the island of Lusibari, has discovered a long-hidden letter written to him by her late husband...

...He is the author of three previous novels and three works of nonfiction...

...The stories of these beings embody a moral universe...

...Nirmal's letter recounts a massacre long ago of settlers, deemed squatters by the government, on the island of Morichjh...

...The birds had been trying to stay within the storm's eye...

...Not least among them are the many narrative threads too easily tied up into neatly packaged little moral lessons by the end of the novel...

...In each instance it was as if the instrument of language had metamorphosed-instead of being a barrier, a curtain that divided, it had become a transparent film, a prism that allowed him to look through another set of eyes, to filter the world through a mind other than his own...

...Both are taking a train to the Sundarbans-Piya for her research...

...Crocodiles, nearly as dangerous as the tigers, lurk in the tidal rivers that alternate between fresh and salt water...

...On this subject Kanai-interpreter, cynic and self-styled ladies' man-carries the seed of optimism: "In Kanai's professional life there had been a few instances in which the act of interpretation had given him the momentary sensation of being transported out of his body and into another...

...Ninnai, and she is afraid to entrust it to the local mail service...

...She feels a growing attraction for this unusual man, who is revealed to be Kusum's son...

...It was a flock of white birds...

...Reconciliations occur, debts are repaid, everyone laudably does the right thing, and behavior changes for the better...

...Covered by mangrove forests, the islands of the archipelago are still actively formed and reformed by the interaction of three rivers-the Ganges, the Brahmaputra and the Meghna-that empty into the Bay of Bengal on the border of India and Bangladesh...

...There is, however, brilliance in Ghosh's prose when he describes the thick mangrove landscapes, the creatures and storms of the Sundarbans...

...Whenever Ghosh needs to pass on cultural, scientific or historical information, he supplies his characters with leading questions...

...Reviewed by Philip Graham Author, "Interior Design, "How to Read an Unwritten Language" AMITAV Ghosh could not have chosen a more promising setting for The Hungry Tide than the Sundarbans, considered one of the last truly wild regions on earth...

...The Hungry Tide proceeds chapter by chapter with the perspective switching between Piya and Kanai...

...Bom Bidi's spirit reigns supreme...

...The light of the moon, shining through the spinning tube, illuminated the still center of the storm As for the island itself, it was entirely submerged, and its shape could be deduced only from the few thickets of trees whose uppermost reaches were still visible above water...

...or to interfere with Fokir's finding necessary shelter in the middle of a raging storm...

...Thenrivalry mirrors the shifting balance of fresh and salt water in the rivers, or the earthen dikes built to keep out the daily rising tides and the fearsome encroachment of crocodiles...

...The benevolent spirit Bom Bidi, a "savior of the weak and a mother of mercy to the poor," is balanced by the demon-king Dokkhin Rai, "who held sway over every being that lived there-every animal as well as every ghoul, ghost and malevolent spirit...

...Piya, after a disastrous initial outing in the tidal waterways with an official guide, meanwhile discovers Fokir, an illiterate fisherman whose vast knowledge of the various rivers and islands leads her to a first sighting of her beloved dolphins...

...Worse, dialogue is frequently loaded with unmediated information sent directly from author to reader...

...Their presence brings to the Sundarbans Piya Roy, a cetologist who has already studied Irrawaddy River dolphins in Southeast Asia...

...Unfortunately, The Hungiy Tide is marred by numerous beginner's errors, unworthy of a writer of Ghosh's stature...

...The thought of experiencing your surroundings in that way never failed to fascinate her: the idea that to 'see was also to 'speak' to others of your kind, where simply to exist was to communicate...

...Kanai Dutt, who runs a translating business in New Delhi, spots her immediately as a foreigner by her confident American body language...

...Piya's interest in the dolphins rises from her pessimism about human communication: "She imagined the [dolphins] circling drowsily, listening to echoes pinging through the water, painting pictures in three dimensions-images that only they could decode...

...The Sundarban Bengal tiger roams throughout, stalking and killing human prey so fearlessly that no one dares speak its name...

...Human beings came equipped, as a species, with the means of shutting each other out...

...and the local people's deeply held beliefs in mythical beings, as much a part of the natural landscape as the tigers, crocodiles, mangrove forests, and unpredictable storms...

...If only Ghosh's imagining of his human characters had been more deeply influenced by this wild and unruly part of the world he so clearly loves...

...Her words read like an artless rehash of the author's research, interesting as that research might be...

...Born in Seattle to Bengali immigrants, she arrives in India speaking no Bengali...

...Such vibrant depictions of the natural world abound and make TheHungry Tide worth reading, despite its faults...

...Ghosh repeats this narrative tactic again and again, and his obvious prompts turn his characters into wooden puppets...

...What was that...

...Many had been snapped in half and reduced to shattered stumps...

...He discovers the wider context of his nearly forgotten memories: the tragic life of a charismatic young woman, Kanai's childhood friend Kusum...

...A white cloud floated down from the sky and settled on the remnants of the drowned forest...

...How far had they flown...

...Even the magnificently wild tigers are narratively domesticated, appearing reliably at appropriate dramatic moments-just in time for Kanai to be frightened out of his shallow existence, for instance...

...I don't recall it exactly.'" Nilima then dutifully furnishes an explanation...

...Too often clich?©s pock the surface of the prose, as "furrows appear on foreheads," characters "steel themselves," and internal reflection is rendered "deep in thought...

...Here the author is truly inspired, as in this glimpse into the momentarily calm eye of a tremendous, destructive storm: "A full moon hung above the top of what seemed to be a whirling stovepipe that reached far into the heavens...

...In their first conversation after a long absence, Kanai's aunt Nilima says to him: '"It was around the time of the Morichjhapi incident, so I was beside myself with worry.' "'Oh?' said Kanai...

...Such a tidy wrapping up seems like a betrayal of the very heart of the novel: The Sundarbans are a protean landscape where rivers change patterns, islands are swallowed in storms and reappear reshaped, and invisible beings clash...

...These trees had a skeletal, forlorn look...

...Also frequenting these waterways are rare river dolphins, Orcaella brevirostris...

...The structure reflects their entwined destinies and their contrasting personalities...

...It draws Kanai deeper into the world of the Sundarbans than he is at first aware...