Tiger Hills by Sarita Mandana

Tiger Hills by Sarita Mandanna

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I first fell in love with Mandana's writing after reading a bunch of short stories by her in an anthology published by Unisun Publishers sometime back. Among the stories in the book, Mandana's beautiful words and stories stood out.I promptly copied a few passages that I found riveting into my book I keep for chronicling memorable writing i come across. And then ...boom.. Tiger Hills happened and she got catapulted into literary stardom.I have been wanting to read this book ever since i attended her book's launch in Chennai, and when I found a copy in my library ,I promptly picked it up. Set in Coorg, Tiger hills is the gut-wrenchingly sad tale that chronicles the lives and times of Devi, the fiery Coorg, Devanna ,her childhood companion, Machaiah, the famed Tiger-killer and their children. The book sprawls languorously across vast time periods (1800's to second world war) and is a beautiful essay in complex human emotions.

A saga of unhappiness is unleashed in the lives of the protagonists ,because of circumstances that are not under their control, really. Mandana's writing is magic:it is like perfectly tempered liquid chocolate waiting to crystallize into perfectly formed chocolate chunks. Coorg's gorgeous topography comes alive in her descriptions.Though a tad slow towards the end( the reason I had to reduce the rating to 4 stars from five I had initially planned on giving it), I enjoyed reading the book immensely. Devi has to be one of the strongest heroines I've encountered in a book in the recent times.Mandana has carefully sculpted her personality,making everything "grey" and not just simple black and white. I loved how Coorgi traditions and folk stories were woven beautifully into the narrative.

Tiger hills is a literary triumph, a celebration of meandering plot and lush words : an absolutely stunning debut novel. Highly recommended to all lovers of historical fiction.

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The very thought of You - Rosie Alison

“Of all the people we meet in a lifetime, it is strange that so many of us find ourselves in thrall to one particular person.Once that face is seen ,an involuntary heartache sets in for which there is no cure.All the wonder of this world finds shape in that one person and thereafter there is no reprieve ,because this kind of love does not end,or not until death.

For the lucky ones,this love is reciprocated. But for so many others everywhere,anywhere,there follows an unending ache of longing without relief.Incurable love is a great leveler.Yet I believe that this bittersweet love is better by far than the despair which blights those with a dead heart.”

If you loved reading these lines, you’ll love Rosie Alison’s book,The very thought of you. I picked up this book from the library when I spotted a list of accolades and awards the books has been considered for. It’s been shortlisted for Amazon Rising Star award 2009, Long listed for RNA Romantic novel of the year 2010 and Le prince Maurice prize and for Literary short stories 2010.When I spot a book has been nominated for a bunch of literary awards,I involuntarily wonder if I should be reading it, because a lot of such winning books seem to be filled with sad,lonely protagonists.Actually, Rosie’s book is no exception to this rule.But I must confess that it is an immensely readable book.

It is 1939 and the world is in the brink of a war. Thousands of children are evacuated from London to protect them from the bombings that everyone anticipates, with Hitler gaining momentum. Anna sands is an eight year old girl, who is displaced and is sent off to a school for evacuees in a large Yorkshire estate called Ashton Park along with 80 other children.There she meets Mr Ashton, the owner of the estate,a cripple who teaches them Latin ; Elizabeth Ashton, a beautiful ice queen; Ruth Weir ,the plain-Jane teacher who has a lovely way with children among many other minor characters. Ashton park,a rambling house with gardens and sculptures and secret nooks acts as a brilliant tapestry for the undercurrents that run in the household. Anna is a quiet, introspective child,who prefers keeping her own company rather than playing with the other children.

The Ashtons are a childless couple and both pine for a child of their own. Their marriage is on the rocks with both of them having receded into their private shells. They really need a baby to revive the marriage.Elizabeth gets anxious and lives a bohemian double life which nobody knows about. It is her way of escaping her soul- less, passionless existence. Then there is Roberta, Anna’s mother who lives alone in London .With Anne away at Ashton park and her husband away in Egypt in the army, Roberta feels the need for male company and starts seeing a man. Meanwhile at Ashton park, romance is on the cards for Elizabeth as a new guest enters the household.

Suddenly, Anna becomes a witness to things a girl her age shouldn’t witness and in a strange way gets drawn to Thomas and her teacher, Ruth. Will Elizabeth fall in love again? Will she leave Thomas? Will Anna go back to her mother? Will Thomas find love of his own ? Well, for answers to these questions,you need to read the book.

What could have been a wonderful, flowing narrative from the word go, sags because of a lot of flashbacks The book is an essay in melancholy and flows slowly letting us delve more into every character. The 3^rd person POV doesn’t work for this book and after a point gets choppy and repetitive as you have all the main characters talking about their loneliness and inadequacies.

The language is beautiful and serenades you, making you fall in love with it. With the war on, the need for comfort in another human being is so heightened that morality and the question of being right or wrong becomes secondary to the guiding emotion itself.The book makes you realize this at every juncture.That a wife is not just a wife, but a woman with hot-blooded passion.A cripple is not just a cripple,but a wounded man who is grappling with questions about his self-worth.

Overall, a lilting book that left its haunting mark on me, despite some minor complaints.

3.5/5 for this lovely, brooding tale.

War on the Margins by Libby Cone

When Libby Cone mailed me about reviewing her book War on the Margins and told me that it was a prequel of sorts to the Guernsey Literary and Potato peel society, I wanted to get my hands on the book.Her mail also told me that I would like the book if I had liked the Guernsey book. I expected a saccharine sweet account of the war and was pleasantly surprised with the way Libby has tackled the subject.

France has fallen to the Nazis.Britain is under siege.As BBC bulletins grow bleak,residents of Jersey expect invasion and begin to abandon their homes.When the Germans take over,they bring Nazi racial doctrine with them and the handful of Jews left on the island are forced to relinquish their livelihoods. Marlene Zimmer, a shy clerk at the aliens office, tries to conceal her Jewish ancestry but is forced to flee, and transforms herself into a resistance member under the protection of female artists and lovers, Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore.

The book spans five years (1940-45) and chronicles the lives of a bunch of residents of Jersey during the Nazi upsurgence. The narrative is interspersed with original letters, ordinances and notices that were circulated during the period. Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore were surrealist artists and propagandists who lived in Jersey during this time period and put up a resistance against the Nazis in their own subversive way by writing anonymous letters. The book talks of the wonderful relationship between the two artists and their efforts at undermining the Germans. Libby has drawn on the experiences of several Britons and her research that she did for her MA in Jewish studies to write this book.

Narrated from several viewpoints, the book is a gritty tale of the difficulties that normal civilians and Jews faced during the war.I don’t think I will ever take a piece of soap or a bar of chocolate for granted ever again ,now that I’ve read of how these were a luxury during the days of the war and that average civilian meals consisted of scraps of potato bread and pieces of wrinkled swedes. The narrative did seem a little choppy at times with the narrative switching between viewpoints of Marlene;the surrealist Artists; Peter,a prisoner and Mrs Erica Richardson, another inhabitant of the island.However,I must confess that I liked the book immensely.

I found the parts where Peter and his comrades are tortured by the Nazis and description of the sub-human conditions under which they lived heart-wrenching. It just made me wonder about the amount of hatred Hitler had stored up inside him to inflict such horror on fellow humans.I am not sure if any character stood out enough for me to like him/her more than the other,but all of them served their purpose of furthering the story. The book is cleverly written and is full of examples of bravery shown by normal people.When,at the end of the book the war ended and people could walk out in broad daylight and buy a loaf of bread ,I almost cheered.As you read about the BBC radios spewing music to kindle hope in people or about the planes roaring overhead,you’ll be transported back in time to a world that not only brimmed with hatred(thanks to the Nazis) ,but also with hope and bravery.The letters that the surrealists wrote to each other while in prison appear here for the first time.Love the cover!

Thanks to Libby for sending me this book to review.Looking forward to your next book now.

Overall, I liked the book, despite the choppiness. Libby Cone’s book is an intimate account of the war that lovers of historical fiction will enjoy.I am not very sure if people who liked Potato peel book will like this as War on the Margins is most definitely more real with real people.3.5/5 from me for the book.

A bit about the author and the book : Libby cone eared her MA in Jewish studies in 2006 and lives in Philadelphia. This book was initially self-published and found a publisher (Duckworth) after being championed by UK bloggers (YAY!!). The book has been nominated for People’s book Prize for 2010 .The US paperback as well as a kindle version has been released recently. You can find more information on the book here

The book is available on Amazon.Click here to access the Amazon page. They also have a Kindle version. The imported edition is available on Flipkart.