There are always multiple ways to look at any situation—this novel gives us three: the elephant’s point of view, the poacher’s, and the Western film maker’s. There is truth in all three. I was a volunteer natural history teacher for 17 years—you can take the woman out of the classroom, but you can’t take the teacher out of her. I immediately began recommending this book to the folks I know who are still manning the ramparts and educating the public. Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2021-07-07 13:01:07 Boxid IA40170219 Camera USB PTP Class Camera Collection_set printdisabled External-identifier The poachers are part of a network that takes tusks from male elephants and sells the ivory. The poachers are small-time hunters who are used by the larger network. One of them ends up in jail for four years. His brother tries to stay out of the poaching business but his mother asks him to keep an eye on his brother and he ends up instilled in the hunt. How does James seem to characterize the relationship between man and nature in the novel? For example, would the relationship as presented in the book best be described as reverential, complementary, threatening, or something else? Do you agree with the vision of the relationship between man and nature offered in the novel? Why or why not?

Despite all this, you feel sold short. You come off unsatisfied because the third angle, of the filmmakers from the US, just does not fit in. It feels like something external, inorganic that has been plugged in, and almost always affects the flow that the other two narratives establish. Do any of the characters experience regret or feelings of guilt as a result of their actions? Why or why not? Do the characters learn from their mistakes or repeat them? What might this indicate about human nature? Orphaned by poachers as a calf and sold into a life of labor and exhibition, the Gravedigger breaks free of his chains and begins terrorizing the countryside, earning his name from the humans he kills and then buries. Manu, the studious younger son of a rice farmer, loses his cousin to the Gravedigger’s violence and is drawn, with his wayward brother Jayan, into the sordid, alluring world of poaching. Emma is a young American working on a documentary with her college best friend, who witnesses the porous boundary between conservation and corruption and finds herself in her own moral gray area: a risky affair with the veterinarian who is the film’s subject. As the novel hurtles toward its tragic climax, these three storylines fuse into a wrenching meditation on love and betrayal, duty and loyalty, and the vexed relationship between man and nature.Manu, the studious son of a rice farmer, loses his cousin to the Gravedigger and is drawn into the alluring world of ivory hunting. One of the most unusual and affecting books I’ve read in a long time. . . . A compulsively readable, devastating novel. —Jonathan Safran Foer, author of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close A] narrative that’s heart-racingly paced, with each perspective taking a chapter in turn—three interwoven stories that converge with a devastating, compelling fatality…This is a story that moves between the humid intensity of southern India’s jungles, the cool assurance of the American’s editing studio, and the elephant’s primordial internal landscape with grace and humour, as light-footed as a poacher.”

Once upon a time, so an old Indian story goes, every bull elephant had wings. They circled in the air like giant dragonflies until a kerfuffle with a grumpy sage cursed them to a life without flight. After much negotiation, the sage condescended to give them, in lieu of their wings, great, hulking tusks of ivory. And it is the pursuit of these precious tusks by poachers, and the attempts to protect them by forest guards in a Kerala wildlife park, that lie at the heart of Tania James’s impressive novel. James succeeds admirably in the chapters told through Gravedigger's point of view. I was sobbing like a baby over some of these sections, which are gruesome and heartbreaking. She brilliantly captures how a sentient being would react and be traumatized by seeing their mother killed, and then being captured and trained by the same kind of beings who did the act. She also evokes the sensory world of an animal and the resulting confusion his capture would cause. These are the strongest chapters in the book. Intense and unusual…swaying ponderously between realms of lore, romance, and reality to create a heavily symbolic and achingly tragic work of fiction.”

This book has many underlying themes but the one theme that stands out to me is memory as perspective. There are three major narrators with various different perspectives in this book: a poacher, a filmmaker, and, most interestingly, an elephant. Both the filmmaker and poacher's point of views are told in the first person, but the author decided to tell the elephant's story in third person. I am not sure why James made this choice, but the story, in my opinion, could have been much stronger and gone into so much more depth had she taken this route. Moreover, while definitely, an interesting perspective, I could have done without the 23 year overprivileged filmmaker. But maybe that was James's whole point, maybe she threw in that perspective because the story needed to be told from an outsider who was more interested in capturing a story for instant fame and wealth. Maybe James wanted to prove the point that much of what we see, read, and hear, even history books is told from an outsider perspective. Just as the filmmakers wanted to manipulate the story of the elephants much of history is manipulated and missing so many perspectives--ultimately, ignoring memory. Much of history is told from perspective of outsiders. TUSK…will leave you breathless as you follow three narrators across the wild plains of India. A poacher, a documentary filmmaker, and an elephant called the Gravedigger all illuminate the complexities of the country and culture, and you’ll be stunned by the author’s portrayal of the magnificent, tusked animals central to the characters’ lives.” There he was, his trunk wrapped in hers. Whatever hurt or sorrow befell him was not really happening to him. He was on the other bank with his mother. He was not here' This is a novel that takes place in present day India. Told from three perspectives - that of a film crew, poachers, and an elephant known as The Gravedigger - the reader is privy to the problems and issues facing the survival of elephants.

There is a myth-like inevitability about “The Tusk That Did The Damage,” which starts with Tania James’ timeless first line: He was speechless so long I thought he hadn’t heard me. “I know the elephant,” he said finally. “Everyone does.” Original and multi-layered. . . . James captures the majestic beauty of elephants, the despair of impoverished villagers, and their bloody attempts at self-reliance.”— Washington City Paper

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Ocr tesseract 5.0.0-alpha-20201231-10-g1236 Ocr_detected_lang en Ocr_detected_lang_conf 1.0000 Ocr_detected_script Latin Ocr_detected_script_conf 0.9241 Ocr_module_version 0.0.13 Ocr_parameters -l eng Old_pallet IA-NS-2000313 Openlibrary_edition It is a clash of cultures, of people and species who have forgotten how to live in harmony and are having to live with the consequences of their behaviours. A:I don’t know that the novel arrives at a message, although, with the juxtaposition of these three particular perspectives, a few questions arise: who is to blame for the violence between human and elephant? How does a “rogue” elephant arrive at this level of bloodshed? And are those of us who are farthest from the violence, in some strange way, also the beneficiaries of it? Most people know, for example, the role that China is playing in the ivory trade, and how terrorist groups like Boko Haram are using smuggled ivory to fund their activities. What is less known—or less publicized—is that the United States is currently the second-biggest retailer for ivory in the world. So, no hand is clean. One of the most unusual and affecting books... a compulsively readable, devastating novel' Jonathan Safran Foer In the silence he looks from one doorway to the other. He can open his lungs and caw and set the other pallis cawing, but what if it was only the snap of the fire? He hears me scoffing in his ears: A broken branch in the middle of a field?

There are parts which try to portray romance, friendship, mental health, assault, alcoholism, deaths and grief. I would say the writing is decent at these parts. Ambitious…original…moving…James tells three intersecting stories involving a murderous elephant on the loose in an Indian jungle. Part of the novel follows an elephant, the Gravedigger, and does a stunning job evoking an animal’s sensory world…These sections also heartbreakingly capture the elephant’s terror and confusion in the face of human cruelty…This narrative is a tour de force.” And what heroic feats had the cow doctor performed to deserve Raghu’s worship? Pulled an elephant calf from a tea ditch, where the wee thing had tripped and fallen much to its mother’s distress. Ravi leaned against the door. “An elephant killed someone,” he said. In Sitamala, near to my mother’s place.” And yet, for a novel following characters on the front lines of the sprawling ivory trade, which kills tens of thousands of vulnerable or endangered elephants annually to satisfy demand for jewelry and other trinkets, “Tusk” is intimate and oddly sweet.

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Some say my brother stepped into the very snare he laid for the elephant. I say opinions are cheap from far. I will take you to the Gravedigger myself and let you meet its honey-colored eye. I will show you the day it first laid its foot on our scrawny lives. Then you tell me who was hunter and who was hunted. Loss is a constant in the novel. Discuss the various examples of loss featured in the book. How do the characters react to loss? What overall message do you think the book offers on the subjects of grieving, coping, and loss? The characters in the novel are faced with complex ethical choices. Does the novel provide us with a clear sense of who is “right” and who is “wrong” in the story—or who is “good” and who is “bad”? What seems to influence the characters’ decision-making process? For example, how does the economic status of each character affect his or her decision making? Do you agree with the decisions made by Ravi and Emma at the end of the book? By Jayan and Manu? The stereotypes to describe a veterinary doctor in our country is well accurately given in the story. The story of a tribe of elephants in South India, those who want to care for and protect them, those who are willing to exploit them and outsiders looking for a story.