Latitudes of Longing | 
pickThis book is in four parts, part one is an amazingly beautiful whole story that I loved. The last two seemed a bit in pieces and like the stories didn‘t have a clear arc. The end felt a bit rushed but the language, setting, and imagery throughout are unbeatable ☺️
Current Read. #goodreadsbookchallenge2021 #book2of30
“Perhaps Pangaea dreamed of being a million islands. Perhaps the million islands now dreamed of being one. Like the ridiculously dressed sailors sent forth by mad queens, perhaps the continents also discovered that the end of one‘s world is another‘s beginning.”
so-so2021 Jan - debut novel / South Asian Author - loved the wonderful words but not the story. Comprised more like several short chronological vignettes based on similar themes. Will look for second book but not an omg devotee
^^the scientist confronting grief, loss of wife in childbirth, turning to his understanding of life cycles and nature
P107 Life and death are a continuum. No one has studied this as closely as he has. “All of us are burdened by the twin destinies of saying good-bye to our loved ones and departing from our loved ones ourselves ... Let this not obliterate the greater destiny we all share—the fleeting moments we have together.”
so-soMagical realist travelogue novel. Loosely linked stories from Andaman Islands, Burma, Nepal, India, Pakistan. First section vivid, with island jungle wildlife & ghosts of colonizers. Thin on plot and rich on description in lulling, lyrical prose. Landscape=protagonist. Tectonics & history (political & natural). Well researched, from centipede bites to prison conditions. Lush & lovely, but settings seemed more developed than characters. 2018
I've been relying on audiobooks for much of my literature needs this month, since I've been busy in the garden and my dye studio. Also, nonfiction count is unusually low because I've been gearing up for my participation in the shadow Giller by reading as much of the eligible fiction and short story collections as possible. More about that project very soon!
What happens every few hundred years just happened yesterday and can happen again tomorrow.
pickOceans, glaciers, rivers, islands, mountains & valleys: all of these, as well as plants & various other life forms are as vital to this amazing novel as the vivid human characters. Told in 4 novellas, within a larger framework of eons, shifting tectonic plates, the universe as witness—the sun & moon quarrelling or falling in love, while on Earth the brief lives & loves of humans in South Asia. The comfort in feeling part of a larger whole.
Billions of years pass […] Unable to sustain itself in the battle between hot and cold, life moves on to other places, while the sentimental few attached to the Earth choose extinction.
“When I ate it last, it was alphonso. Now it is shivaji. Who would have thought that even mangoes would change their identity after Independence.”
(Internet photo)
Islands, intuitively speaking, made the perfect canvas for practicing the art of nomenclature. The heightened isolation would cause species to become endemic, sooner or later, demanding a unique name. The only exceptions to the rule were the British themselves. They had broken most laws of nature by leaving their island to multiply on others without losing any of their original characteristics, only their marbles.
(Internet image: Andaman Islands)
Yeti/cheemo and sasquatch … I didn‘t expect this Bigfoot connection between concurrent reads, one Canadian, one Indian. 🐾
When he wakes up a few hours later, he finds the two of them sitting in his room.
“I don‘t like the army and I don‘t like science.” Apo switches to Hindustani as he speaks, before proceeding to urinate in a chamber pot. “Armies fight wars and science creates reasons to fight wars.”
(Internet image of the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan)
There‘s a section in the tagged audiobook that reminds me of a novel I read more than a decade ago and will never forget: Karen Connelly‘s The Lizard Cage, which is about a political prisoner in Burma/Myanmar. Torture is a more visceral experience in audio format than in print, so I‘m relieved that the prison section in Latitudes of Longing isn‘t very long. Has anyone else read The Lizard Cage?
HealthTea crate day!
I absolutely love HealthTea Book creates. It almost doesn't even matter what book they sent. Almost.
pickThe prose is really lyrical and I enjoyed parts of the story but the pacing was a little rough for me. There were some metaphysical philosophical sections where my mind wandered a bit and that felt a little tedious. Overall a lovely book, I just didn‘t click with it as well as I expected to. #ARC
"When human bloodshed seeps into the cracks of the land, the earth‘s scabs and wounds cannot heal… They can only fester. Your violence and your wars are like gangrene to the earth‘s flesh. You possess gadgets that can take you to the moon, yet you are blind to the mountains and rivers right in front of you. We have hacked Hindustan into a hundred islands with our borders, mutinies and wars. It is crumbling into the ocean."
pickShubhangi weaves a tale that transcends geographical and emotional thresholds of love and longing. She writes of a love that transcends the flesh. It is about a love melds into the banality of everyday life and that is as true as time.
Shubhangi Swarup's debut novel seems well crafted for a debut. Her writing is sheer pleasure to read. This is one book I would ask everyone to read to fall in love with the beauty of a narration.
