Customer Reviews

Tamastara

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This book is wonderful. Some of the stories do seem a bit hard to follow, but I would recommend a second reading then. That should help you understand it better. The first time I read it, I was reading Siddhartha by Hesse at the same time, and found echoes of it (Siddhartha) in Lee's book. Each story is a gem, and I would recommend this book to anyone interested in fantasy.

Tanith Lee's fantasy strengths are very evident in this collection of short stories. Each is succinct and sensual as well as conveying the radical differences between Western culture and the mythology, storytelling, and belief system of India, most clearly in what is important to a story. Each story has it's own point and own focus, and convey them well. It's fairly evident that she consulted well with an Indian cultural expert and she remains true to that. It is also, in some ways, the problem. She starts at the Western end, with a British boy and family and each progressive story gets more and more into the Hindu and Indian culture as well as steadily into more modern times. The last two stories lost me in the weave of things that I felt that I possibly should have understood if I'd known more about the Indian movie culture and scene, but since she didn't provide all the necessary background information, I just got lost. There were several of the earlier stories that were very good. Especially the one of the reluctant man and wife.