From the author of The Soul of an Octopus and bestselling memoir The Good Good Pig, a book that earned Sy Montgomery her status as one of the most celebrated wildlife writers of our time, Spell of the Tiger brings readers to the Sundarbans, a vast tangle of mangrove swamp and tidal delta that lies between India and Bangladesh. It is the only spot on earth where tigers routinely eat people—swimming silently behind small boats at night to drag away fishermen, snatching honey collectors and woodcutters from the forest. But, unlike in other parts of Asia where tigers are rapidly being hunted to extinction, tigers in the Sundarbans are revered. With the skill of a naturalist and the spirit of a mystic, Montgomery reveals the delicate balance of Sundarbans life, explores the mix of worship and fear that offers tigers unique protection there, and unlocks some surprising answers about why people at risk of becoming prey might consider their predator a god.
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Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly
Sundarbans is a tidal forest, a vast mangrove swamp stretching between India and Bangladesh on the Bay of Bengal. Subject to devastating cyclones, it is infested with deadly snakes, crocodiles, sharks and more tigers than any other contiguous tract in the world. Here, tigers stalk and eat humans, about 300 every year. They swim in the sea and leap into boats to grab fishermen, or pounce on honey-gatherers and woodcutters in the forest. Montgomery (Walking With the Great Apes) made three trips to Sundarbans to study the tigers. She obtained firsthand accounts of killings and discovered that the people regard tigers as magic beings-feared but not hated, worshiped but not loved. The tiger god is called Daksin Ray. Montgomery provides a vivid picture of the coastal forest and its people, and takes us on a magical journey where nature, humans and myth coalesce. (Feb.)
Donna Seaman
Tigers have always been associated with magic and other manifestations of the divine, but nowhere on earth do tigers make their power felt more tangibly than in Sundarbans, the world's largest tidal delta and mangrove swamp on the Bay of Bengal. Here, in this mysterious, amphibious realm, tigers hunt men, killing dozens, even hundreds a year. Montgomery, author of Walking with the Great Apes" (1991) and other nature-related works, traveled to Sundarbans to try to understand this baffling, terrifying, and inexplicably tolerated relationship between man and beast. Her quest proved maddeningly difficult. She could barely communicate with her guides, and the tigers were as elusive as their reputation dictates. But as she spent day after day floating down tributaries and creeks and staring into the forest, Montgomery began to absorb the unique and surprisingly cosmic dynamic of the delta. Thus the hair-raising stories she tells about tigers stalking and killing men as they fish or collect wood and honey stand in curious counterpoint to her deeply moving explanations of the spiritual attitude the people of Sundarbans express toward their mighty foe, a mix of fear, respect, and worship. After all, there can be no revelation more humbling than the recognition that we, like other animals, are meat.
From the Publisher
"Clear, emotionally telling and always right to the point, her accounts of the other forms of life are without peer."—Farley Mowat, author of Never Cry Wolf
Library Journal - BookSmack!
Montgomery does not have a story of tiger v. man at the heart of her book, but she creates the same immersive world of place and character as Vaillant. In Montgomery's case, the place is the Sundarbans in India, the largest mangrove forest in the world. This watery wilderness is home to tigers, tiger sharks, deadly snakes, crocodiles, and flies that lay their eggs in human eyes. Montgomery journeyed here to study the culture, mythology, and lore of man and tigers. She found stories from the locals of tigers swimming out to boats and grabbing fisherman and she found records from Indian officials of 30 to 40 tiger-related deaths a year. But Montgomery's story is not about the killer beast, but instead about the land, people, and, most of all, the religious ideas of tiger worship, born out of centuries of man living next to a man-eater. . Neal Wyatt, "RA Crossroads," Booksmack! 10/7/10
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