Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, August 13, 1995 TAG: 9508120005
SECTION: BOOK PAGE: F4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: REVIEWED BY MARIAN COURTNEY
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
\ People don't normally think of themselves as someone's dinner. Yet to tigers living in Sundarbans, the tidal delta between India and Bangladesh along the Bay of Bengal, humans are precisely that.
In her third book, Sy Montgomery explores the relationship between the tigers and the two-legged creatures who also live there. The region's human inhabitants worship the tiger, believing it possesses mystical powers. They tell stories of tigers flying through the air, leaping soundlessly on boats and biting people on the back of their necks, killing them instantly. Before anyone else on board even knows what happened, the tigers carry away their prey, a job made easier because the victim immediately shrinks to half his or her original size.
Paradoxically, this threat to humans helps save the largest mangrove forest in the world. At the turn of the century India's land consisted of 40 percent forest. Today that has shrunk to slightly over one-third. Since people fear Sundarbans tiger attacks, they encroach on their habitat less and cut far fewer trees. In effect, the tigers have saved their habitat by keeping people at bay, and the people respect rather than hate the powerful animals.
Montgomery points out, though, that tigers remain in danger of extinction from human encroachment. Of the original eight subspecies of tigers only five survive today, and they are now confined to a much smaller range.
In India, some progress has been made towards reversing this process. Due to protective laws and Project Tiger, which established 21 tiger reserves, India's Royal Bengal tigers now number about 3,000, an increase of 1,000 animals since 1972.
While exploring the human/tiger relationship, Montgomery provides readers a fascinating glimpse of a lifestyle very different from our own. She introduces us to the locals she meets. We share her frustration at the language barrier. We cheer her spunk when she wields a machete to convince a boat captain to honor her original rendezvous schedule with another vessel.
The author took three separate trips to India to research this book. References to her first traveling companion, Dianne, are confusing at first, as the reader has no idea who this individual is or why she is there. Montgomery's second companion had a clearer purpose: she was a photographer. Still, the book would flow more smoothly without mention of these individuals.
The book would be also more enjoyable to read without exclusive language. In Sundarbans, as in most of India, only men work in the forest. Perhaps since men are therefore much more likely tiger attack victims than women, the author frequently refers to tigers as "man-eaters." It would be more accurate to use terms like "carnivorous" when referring to the animal since women and children have been killed by them, albeit less often.
"Spell of the Tiger" invites readers into a way of life that is more in tune with, and at the mercy of, nature than most of ours. Montgomery writes using poetic descriptions of the country she studies, making it real for the reader. The book serves not only as a study of a magnificent and endangered animal, but a glimpse of another culture as well.
Marian Courtney lives in Charlottesville.
by CNB