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A review by archytas
Tomb of Sand by Geetanjali Shree
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
"People aren’t willing to believe that stories can be true. They think they’re exaggerations, unrealistic, mythical. Flimsy. But actually, what isn’t true are the stories that are flimsy versions of reality—which is itself considered true."
Shree's writing here reminded my of Waanyi writer Alexis Wright's breathing, beating prose. Shree writes as things feel, sweeping the reader along in stories told circuitously, where the effort to follow is significant but equally rewarded. And like Wright, Shree writes of hard lives with hearty humour, the wicked, irrepressible sidebars of survivors. At the outset of the novel, Ma is unable to contain her emotions, devoured by grief, and ultimately, this unsupressible emotion becomes a force of empowerment, of liberation beyond constraints or borders. Borders in this novel are liminal points, places of transformation not imprisonment, moments of engagement. And it is these stories of encounters and collisions which demand to be heard.
Shree's tale, of one woman's journey to find the bits of herself she lost, is too large to be held by simple human perspectives. Her narrator/s wheel around her central cast, including birds and the unseen, and blurring lines between bystanders and participants. Through this, the story of this woman and her loved ones swells into granduer, unable to be contained, and becomes something transcendent.
Lest it not be clear, I kinda loved this.
Shree's writing here reminded my of Waanyi writer Alexis Wright's breathing, beating prose. Shree writes as things feel, sweeping the reader along in stories told circuitously, where the effort to follow is significant but equally rewarded. And like Wright, Shree writes of hard lives with hearty humour, the wicked, irrepressible sidebars of survivors. At the outset of the novel, Ma is unable to contain her emotions, devoured by grief, and ultimately, this unsupressible emotion becomes a force of empowerment, of liberation beyond constraints or borders. Borders in this novel are liminal points, places of transformation not imprisonment, moments of engagement. And it is these stories of encounters and collisions which demand to be heard.
Shree's tale, of one woman's journey to find the bits of herself she lost, is too large to be held by simple human perspectives. Her narrator/s wheel around her central cast, including birds and the unseen, and blurring lines between bystanders and participants. Through this, the story of this woman and her loved ones swells into granduer, unable to be contained, and becomes something transcendent.
Lest it not be clear, I kinda loved this.