Book Review: Eating Wasps

“Ghosts and writers are more alike than you think. We can be what you want us to be. We can hear your thoughts even if you don’t tell us. We can read the silences and shape your stories as if they happened to us. And I was both: a ghost and a writer,”

Eating Wasps made me a book adulterer. I’m a serial monogamist when it comes to books –never picking up a book without finishing the one I am currently reading. I was already reading another book when I noticed that my pre-ordered copy of Eating Wasps had been downloaded.

“I’ll just take a peek,” I thought, and before I knew it, I was reading it the whole day, through my breakfast, lunch and dinner, and then staying up late to read it, because I just could not put it down. That is how powerful the storytelling is here.

Book Cover from Amazon

The story begins with the suicide of a writer –Sreelakshmi. Without delving into the how or why of the tragedy, the book introduces us to the sutradhar, Sreelakshmi’s ghost, who is our constant companion through the rest of this book. Decades after her death, a piece of Sreelakshmi’s mortal remains, a finger bone, is found by a frightened child from the secret compartment in an antique cupboard in a resort by the river Nila. From this point, a series of events ensure that the bone is passed from one female resident of the resort to another, and Sreelakshmi, the ghost and the writer, absorbs their stories and narrates them to us.

The women in these stories are from diverse walks of life. There are children, mothers, adultresses and prodigies. They are from different religions, castes and social classes. They have individual voices and personalities. What ties them together is that they are all choice makers and consequence facers. Anita Nair, through Sreelakshmi, immerses us in their stories completely, so that we feel what they feel, we think what they think.

When pop-culture in general is obsessed with giving us “strong female characters”, which are usually women with so-called masculine traits, Anita Nair redefines strength and gives us women who are not afraid to be vulnerable; not afraid to own their emotions. This is truly refreshing, because it makes these women relatable. I can easily slip into the skin of any of them –partly the reason why this book is so difficult to put down.

The other reason of course, is the atmospheric, addictive writing. Each word flows into the next, and the reader is simply borne along.

Eating Wasps then, is like my amma’s aviyal. Usually, aviyal isn’t a compliment –it is used to refer to something that is a hodge-podge; a mess. But when I say that this book is like my amma’s aviyal, I mean something else entirely. Like her aviyal, it is the perfect combination of tastes –it is tangy, spicy, with just a hint of sweetness and each bite will leave you longing for more.

Have you read this book? What did you think of it? Have you read any other books/stories set in Kerala or other books by this author? Share your thoughts with me in the comments!

Author Bio: http://anitanair.net/about/