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The Devourers

par Indra Das

Autres auteurs: Voir la section autres auteur(e)s.

MembresCritiquesPopularitéÉvaluation moyenneMentions
6162338,126 (3.66)8
"For readers of Neil Gaiman, Margaret Atwood, China Mieville, and David Mitchell comes a striking debut novel by a storyteller of keen insight and captivating imagination. On a cool evening in Kolkata, India, beneath a full moon, as the whirling rhythms of traveling musicians fill the night, college professor Alok encounters a mysterious stranger with a bizarre confession and an extraordinary story. Tantalized by the man's unfinished tale, Alok will do anything to hear its completion. So Alok agrees, at the stranger's behest, to transcribe a collection of battered notebooks, weathered parchments, and once-living skins. From these documents spills the chronicle of a race of people at once more than human yet kin to beasts, ruled by instincts and desires blood-deep and ages-old. The tale features a rough wanderer in seventeenth-century Mughal India who finds himself irrevocably drawn to a defiant woman--and destined to be torn asunder by two clashing worlds. With every passing chapter of beauty and brutality, Alok's interest in the stranger grows and evolves into something darker and more urgent. Shifting dreamlike between present and past with intoxicating language, visceral action, compelling characters, and stark emotion, The Devourers offers a reading experience quite unlike any other novel. Advance praise for The Devourers "A wholly original, primal tale of love, violence, and transformation. I've never read anything quite like it."--Pierce Brown, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Red Rising Trilogy "Astonishing. a narrative that takes possession of you and pulls you along in its wake."--M. R. Carey, author of The Girl with All the Gifts "Intense and thrilling. Indra Das's writing is powerful and precise."--Kim Stanley Robinson, author of Red Mars "Every sentence of this ferocious and extraordinary book pulses with life. An absolute masterpiece."--Daniel Jose Older, author of Half-Resurrection Blues "The Devourers tears the throat out of the traditional shapeshifter tale. With a story that spans cultures, generations, and mythologies, and characters that make your heart both pound and ache, this book will leave you breathless. You've never read anything like it, and you won't forget it anytime soon."--Mallory O'Meara, filmmaker"-- "A dreamlike novel about a young historian and a persuasive and beguiling stranger coming together in modern-day Kolkata, India to transcribe an ancient journal. A collection of paper, parchment, and skins, the journal tells of bloodshed, kidnapping, magic and shapeshifting, set against the harsh landscapes of the 17th-Century Mughal Empire. It reveals the story of hunters and prey, lovers and the beloved, and, in the end, the choice to be transformed, or be quarry"--… (plus d'informations)
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Affichage de 1-5 de 23 (suivant | tout afficher)
Some of this multi-layered debut-novel is set in the present, and some of it is set during the Mughal era, the 1640s, around the time the Taj Mahal was about halfway done. It is a tale of an India invaded by the Raj, infected by foreign demons and mythological creatures, such as werewolves and weretigers. The protagonist of The Devourers, a young man named Alok, is a a history professor in Kolkata (Calcutta) who is solicited by a stranger, Izrail, to help transcribe a series of handwritten scrolls on parchment made of skin. The stranger claims he is a “half werewolf,” a shapeshifter who can turn into a wolf-like beast at will. Glamoured by this stranger and taken by the tale, Alok agrees and types out each manuscript, which contain the life stories of two past individuals: Fenrir, a werewolf from the Norse lands, and Cyrah of Lahore, a young woman. The shapeshifter/werewolf mythology here does not have its origins in India, but rather in Norse mythology: Fenrir is the monstrous wolf meant to kill Odin at Ragnarök.

Through Fenrir’s first-person account we learn of his obsession with Cyrah, and that he raped her and committed acts of violence to protect their unborn child. This rape narrative is difficult, but the novel then shifts its focus to Cyrah, whose voice dominates most of the book. The remainder of Cyrah’s scroll recounts her journey to track Fenrir down and her struggle to come to terms with the half-human child inside of her. In order to understand Fenrir and his motives, however, Cyrah must also wrestle with understanding how shapeshifters are different from humans, confronting in the process difficult questions about what exactly it means to be “human” at all. The book is too violent and vicious for my taste (although it is an integral element of the story), and deeply disturbing; it appears to be making a statement about colonialism. ( )
  bschweiger | Feb 4, 2024 |
I don't think this was a bad book, but I got stuck at 60%. I was attracted first by the cover, than by the Indian werewolves. That is certainly original! And it was cool in the beginning, but at some point it got some pacing issues. There was just not enough happening. Getting to know the werewolves was enough for the first half of the book, but I got bored when the story didn't progress and my attention got drawn away by another book... ( )
  zjakkelien | Jan 2, 2024 |
Library ebook! That I DNF'd just past 3%. One star for a few pages of pretty sentences.

Should've read reviews before checking this out. Pretty sentences do not an enjoyable read guarantee, nor should they, since I am but one reader. I don't want to read a rape, and I am too easily squikked-out by gross things, so I'm out. ( )
  terriaminute | Dec 4, 2022 |
This is a tough one to review. There's so much here to love--the language, the world-building, the characters--and at the same time, I'm finding it hard to pull together my final feelings. The pacing was, for me, the big difficulty. There were passages and chapters where I couldn't stop turning pages, and was absolutely in love with this book. But there were also whole passages and chapters--some long--where I was simply reading to read, having trouble engaging with the story and words on any level, as if all inertia had been sucked out of the read.

Someone in my book group suggested that they were looking at the book as being about story-telling, which I think makes the most sense to me. Thinking about it like that, and especially when I focus on the best moments and the writing itself, I find myself a little bit in love with the book. Especially when I extend that theme to thinking about memory-making (purposefully) and the purposeful building of identity, there's a lot to think about here, and a lot to admire. ( )
  whitewavedarling | Nov 17, 2022 |
Attending a local outdoor music performance, Alok, a young Indian professor, meets a peculiar but intriguing man who casually announces that he is a werewolf. While most people at this point would begin to look furtively for a means of extricating themselves from further conversation, Alok is inexplicably intrigued. The stranger begins to weave tales of the supernatural that are so immersive that Alok finds himself temporarily transported to another time and place, and when they meet again the following day, the stranger convinces him to undertake a transcription project involving historical documents, giving him an entrancing yet nightmarish peek into an unimaginable alternate world.

This was a strange but oddly fascinating book — I would probably categorize it as fantasy and light horror. A frequent thought throughout my reading experience was, "What in the world...? Werewolves? In India?" And yet I kept reading and eventually there was no turning back. I didn't love it, but it was certainly unforgettable. ( )
  ryner | Aug 21, 2021 |
Affichage de 1-5 de 23 (suivant | tout afficher)
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Nom de l'auteurRôleType d'auteurŒuvre ?Statut
Das, IndraAuteurauteur principaltoutes les éditionsconfirmé
Norey, VirginiaConcepteurauteur secondairequelques éditionsconfirmé
Panatier, ChrisArtiste de la couvertureauteur secondairequelques éditionsconfirmé
Stevenson, David G.Concepteur de la couvertureauteur secondairequelques éditionsconfirmé
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"For readers of Neil Gaiman, Margaret Atwood, China Mieville, and David Mitchell comes a striking debut novel by a storyteller of keen insight and captivating imagination. On a cool evening in Kolkata, India, beneath a full moon, as the whirling rhythms of traveling musicians fill the night, college professor Alok encounters a mysterious stranger with a bizarre confession and an extraordinary story. Tantalized by the man's unfinished tale, Alok will do anything to hear its completion. So Alok agrees, at the stranger's behest, to transcribe a collection of battered notebooks, weathered parchments, and once-living skins. From these documents spills the chronicle of a race of people at once more than human yet kin to beasts, ruled by instincts and desires blood-deep and ages-old. The tale features a rough wanderer in seventeenth-century Mughal India who finds himself irrevocably drawn to a defiant woman--and destined to be torn asunder by two clashing worlds. With every passing chapter of beauty and brutality, Alok's interest in the stranger grows and evolves into something darker and more urgent. Shifting dreamlike between present and past with intoxicating language, visceral action, compelling characters, and stark emotion, The Devourers offers a reading experience quite unlike any other novel. Advance praise for The Devourers "A wholly original, primal tale of love, violence, and transformation. I've never read anything quite like it."--Pierce Brown, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Red Rising Trilogy "Astonishing. a narrative that takes possession of you and pulls you along in its wake."--M. R. Carey, author of The Girl with All the Gifts "Intense and thrilling. Indra Das's writing is powerful and precise."--Kim Stanley Robinson, author of Red Mars "Every sentence of this ferocious and extraordinary book pulses with life. An absolute masterpiece."--Daniel Jose Older, author of Half-Resurrection Blues "The Devourers tears the throat out of the traditional shapeshifter tale. With a story that spans cultures, generations, and mythologies, and characters that make your heart both pound and ache, this book will leave you breathless. You've never read anything like it, and you won't forget it anytime soon."--Mallory O'Meara, filmmaker"-- "A dreamlike novel about a young historian and a persuasive and beguiling stranger coming together in modern-day Kolkata, India to transcribe an ancient journal. A collection of paper, parchment, and skins, the journal tells of bloodshed, kidnapping, magic and shapeshifting, set against the harsh landscapes of the 17th-Century Mughal Empire. It reveals the story of hunters and prey, lovers and the beloved, and, in the end, the choice to be transformed, or be quarry"--

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