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A review by bowman
The Devourers by Indra Das
3.0
Let's say, at the very least, I have mixed feelings about this book.
Starting with the good. The worldbuilding is solid, the prose fantastic, and Das' marriage of western and eastern folklore, weaving it through a history told for hundreds of years, is just phenomenal. It had a very Elizabeth Kostova's The Historians feel to it, with the interplay between past and present, and how the consequences of actions taken hundreds of years ago perpetuate through the ages. The characters themselves were sympathetic, and many passages were incredibly moving. The author also has a wonderful way of deeply setting a scene, of conveying the most visceral, primal and disgusting feelings into beautiful prose. I found myself, more than once, inadvertently muttering "gross!" as I read. That was not always a bad thing.
But it also wasn't always a good thing, either. It wasn't so much the spurting cum, the gratuitous violence, the scenes of sexual assault or the unending streams of piss flying from half-hard werewolf dicks. No, these are gross in a fun way. What was a bit gross in a different way, was Cyrah.
The Devourers fits into a subgenre of literature I keep accidentally coming across, in which male authors attempt to use meta-narrative to Do a Feminism while running their female characters through the gamut of rape, kidnapping, physical violence and all the other juicy bits of oppression in voyeuristic detail (see Imajica by Clive Barker). Though of course I appreciate the meta-narrative that Das intersperses (albeit via dialogue and internal monologue rather than action and plot), it only serves to fight the narrative itself.
Similarly to Imajica, where Barker rapes and tortures his entire female cast and then says, through his cis male narrator, that women are strong and powerful, Aluk takes the role of advocate for our rape victim Cyrah. She questions Fenrir's actions, speaks on behalf of the reader when she refuses to feel sympathy for a rapist (I can almost hear the voices of every woman present at whatever workshops Das put this manuscript through). But these protests of Cyrah's treatment in the narrative do not change the bones of the narrative itself. Though the reader is explicitly told that Cyrah is strong, that she has her own life and agency, the reader is shown through the story that she is still the abused plaything of the male characters—no matter how sassy her internal monologue gets about it. She talks big, she challenges orientalism, she has her own thoughts and dreams--and then she gives in to the will of men more powerful than she. She allows Fenrir to use her womb as a vessel for his creation, she sacrifices her blood for a man who had only planned to devour her, she does not destroy the product of her rape (just for once, please, for once, I want see a narrative where a woman contemplates terminating her rape pregnancy and it's not depicted as killing an innocent child).
This battle between meta-narrative and narrative is particularly stark when Cyrah tells Fenrir, “I will not be your human idol, your little goddess of suffering.” But, functionally, in the narrative, she is our goddess of suffering. When she suffers Fenrir’s rape, when she is violated in her sleep by Gevaudan’s probing tongue, when she endures physical abuse by his hand, when she bleeds to save his life, and then bleeds again to give birth to Fenrir’s son, and then, again when she is murdered and eaten by that son.
All Cyrah ever does is bleed for these men, over and over, while insisting: “I will not bleed for you. I will not be a victim.”
And that’s kinda gross. Less of that, more werewolf piss, please.
Also, the trans stuff. Though it's handled a bit more delicately than Cyrah's agency, I feel like if Das had leaned into Aluk's identity earlier, given clues and foreshadowing (if you're about to argue that her being bisexual is foreshadowing to her being trans, then please direct yourself to the closest Gender 101 class), then it would've ended with a much better payoff. As it is, Aluk's transition is addressed in about 5 glorious sentences at the very end. The transness of werewolves is present throughout the book, an it's one aspect of the world that I found very interesting, but it wasn't woven particularly smoothly with Aluk's identity. I would've loved to have learned more about the gender politics of werewolves (because let's be honest, being AFAB and trans makes you real tired of human gender politics real fast).
I appreciate Das’ commentary at the back, admitting he has never been sexually assaulted, tacitly acknowledging he has never had to fear pregnancy, he has never known what it is like to have reproductive agency taken away from him. He does admit that he accepts feedback and is willing to do better, and I hope he does. I would read his prose from here to the end of the earth, it really is that good.
Starting with the good. The worldbuilding is solid, the prose fantastic, and Das' marriage of western and eastern folklore, weaving it through a history told for hundreds of years, is just phenomenal. It had a very Elizabeth Kostova's The Historians feel to it, with the interplay between past and present, and how the consequences of actions taken hundreds of years ago perpetuate through the ages. The characters themselves were sympathetic, and many passages were incredibly moving. The author also has a wonderful way of deeply setting a scene, of conveying the most visceral, primal and disgusting feelings into beautiful prose. I found myself, more than once, inadvertently muttering "gross!" as I read. That was not always a bad thing.
But it also wasn't always a good thing, either. It wasn't so much the spurting cum, the gratuitous violence, the scenes of sexual assault or the unending streams of piss flying from half-hard werewolf dicks. No, these are gross in a fun way. What was a bit gross in a different way, was Cyrah.
The Devourers fits into a subgenre of literature I keep accidentally coming across, in which male authors attempt to use meta-narrative to Do a Feminism while running their female characters through the gamut of rape, kidnapping, physical violence and all the other juicy bits of oppression in voyeuristic detail (see Imajica by Clive Barker). Though of course I appreciate the meta-narrative that Das intersperses (albeit via dialogue and internal monologue rather than action and plot), it only serves to fight the narrative itself.
Similarly to Imajica, where Barker rapes and tortures his entire female cast and then says, through his cis male narrator, that women are strong and powerful, Aluk takes the role of advocate for our rape victim Cyrah. She questions Fenrir's actions, speaks on behalf of the reader when she refuses to feel sympathy for a rapist (I can almost hear the voices of every woman present at whatever workshops Das put this manuscript through). But these protests of Cyrah's treatment in the narrative do not change the bones of the narrative itself. Though the reader is explicitly told that Cyrah is strong, that she has her own life and agency, the reader is shown through the story that she is still the abused plaything of the male characters—no matter how sassy her internal monologue gets about it. She talks big, she challenges orientalism, she has her own thoughts and dreams--and then she gives in to the will of men more powerful than she. She allows Fenrir to use her womb as a vessel for his creation, she sacrifices her blood for a man who had only planned to devour her, she does not destroy the product of her rape (just for once, please, for once, I want see a narrative where a woman contemplates terminating her rape pregnancy and it's not depicted as killing an innocent child).
This battle between meta-narrative and narrative is particularly stark when Cyrah tells Fenrir, “I will not be your human idol, your little goddess of suffering.” But, functionally, in the narrative, she is our goddess of suffering. When she suffers Fenrir’s rape, when she is violated in her sleep by Gevaudan’s probing tongue, when she endures physical abuse by his hand, when she bleeds to save his life, and then bleeds again to give birth to Fenrir’s son, and then, again when she is murdered and eaten by that son.
All Cyrah ever does is bleed for these men, over and over, while insisting: “I will not bleed for you. I will not be a victim.”
And that’s kinda gross. Less of that, more werewolf piss, please.
Also, the trans stuff. Though it's handled a bit more delicately than Cyrah's agency, I feel like if Das had leaned into Aluk's identity earlier, given clues and foreshadowing (if you're about to argue that her being bisexual is foreshadowing to her being trans, then please direct yourself to the closest Gender 101 class), then it would've ended with a much better payoff. As it is, Aluk's transition is addressed in about 5 glorious sentences at the very end. The transness of werewolves is present throughout the book, an it's one aspect of the world that I found very interesting, but it wasn't woven particularly smoothly with Aluk's identity. I would've loved to have learned more about the gender politics of werewolves (because let's be honest, being AFAB and trans makes you real tired of human gender politics real fast).
I appreciate Das’ commentary at the back, admitting he has never been sexually assaulted, tacitly acknowledging he has never had to fear pregnancy, he has never known what it is like to have reproductive agency taken away from him. He does admit that he accepts feedback and is willing to do better, and I hope he does. I would read his prose from here to the end of the earth, it really is that good.