Valli A Novel

For my own reading

It's a fabulous debut novel. It sparkles with music right from page 1 to the last. Music of nature, forest being the real protagonist. We, humans, are the villains. Are we a mistake of the gods? Is our so-called development actually degradation of environment? Do read this moving novel.

Wonderful depiction of eco-feminism... Beautiful lyrical novel of love and hope... Enchanting Journey through the hills and forests of a village in Western Ghats... captivating language.

Well translated

Valli is a story of Wayanad (formerly known as Bayalnad) and its indigenous people and immigrants. The narrative begins with how one day, an estranged couple, Tommichan and Sara, sought refuge in the unknown land called Kalluvayal and lived on to become its prime protectors. How Peter, Lucy, Tommichan and Sara fought for the forest against their own people. How the enchanting woods have survived those orange-red flaming fires, the landslides, the floods and the rains. How the sumptuously spread-over lush helplessly watched her women being taken away and ravaged, how her people were enslaved and treated like a piece of stock. How kali and Kelumoopan, who sang for the forest and worked for their people, perished without a trace, leaving the village voiceless.If you haven't read Valli, how would you know the story of Unniyachi and her azhagan? How will you know that Toto- the monkey, the jackals, the crocodiles and the elephants were witnesses to some of the most beautiful romances that blossomed in the scary woods? How will you know the story of the four generations that fought to save their land only to be taken over by the tourist industry? How their hearts would bleed seeing those fertile lands be polluted and deforested. I would not have known either if not for this book.Valli is the untold tale of every local who was a fighter for their land. It's a story of Wayanad's women who had had enough and rebelled against every injustice in all possible ways. It's a story of those green climbers and trees that held its people together. It's a story of the paddy crops given as wages to people enslaved by those who considered themselves masters. It's an enchanting ecofiction of the earth herself.Let me warn you that this book will require your undivided attention and heed to minute details. The initial few chapters are complex, and there is a long list of characters to remember with names that might be difficult, but so are the people. You might also want to review chapters to clarify a few doubts. Yes, it is a dense read. But it will all be worth it in the end. The book will leave you pondering about it forever.It left me speechless just as any travelling experience would. I was teleported to those astounding woods through this amazing work of translation, which will stay with me forever. Based on its magnificent translation, I can only imagine how beautiful the original book would be. A huge thanks to translated texts for existing; otherwise, this masterly piece of literature would have been undiscovered by me.

Goodness gracious! There's so much to say and yet the most important thing I want to begin by saying is that pick this book up and read, no, rather, get immersed in it. It's been such a long time I have read the very typical Indian novel that's brings back memories of reading stories I have grown up hearing. Tomy's 'Valli', translated by Kalathil, is the story of a tribal village in Kerala, a forest that is in ruins with the so-called idea of progress and development. It begins with a set of letters exchanged between a mother and daughter who have left the village and are in cities pursuing careers. These are the very letters that slowly takes the reader in the histories of an ecology that had once bloomed and is now subject to developmental damnation. I know, from my review, as of now, it might seem as though the novel is about a place and not its people. But Tomy's novel is about a village, a community and not simply one or two characters and the protagonist of the novel is the place itself. It is in the place meanings of life, symbols of existence, cultures of sustenance have been bestowed by the people who inhabit these spaces. And Tomy's (re)construction of the village is so beautifully done that you cannot but imagine yourself in a forest bordered and pierced by bodies of water, animals in cahoots singing in your ears, trees and plants cascading from the back of your neck. It is here we find the many characters of the novel engaging with their environs- both the natural and the cultural. From the mother who has written the letters, her parents, the many relatives, to the village tyrants; all of them become a part of the story to give the village its meaning, its mere physicality a subjective outlook and that's how Tomy creates a world which would soon begin disrupting. But this doesn't mean all is in harmony earlier and Neo-liberal policies suddenly come and destroy it. There is Naxalite movement already on the rise, people are being jailed, harassed right and left. Amidst all of it, the forest is not ready to deal with so many changes and eventually it lashes back. So much of the book reminded me of 'Betty' and her family's story written by Tiffany McDaniel, of a community's will to survive and protect what's their's despite the gradual erosion of their culture in the face of technology and the urban west. Tomy's story brought back a million memories of reading 'The Hungry Tide' by Amitav Ghosh, the precarity of their geographical spaces, the dying modes of survival among communities that have inhabited the regions for centuries, and the anxiety and trauma of displacement. I could see it all visually take shape before my eyes and feel helpless with rage at all of it that happening in bright daylight with nobody to willing take responsibility. I hope this book becomes an essential reading for anyone wanting to understand India and its cultures because the village in this novel is not a specific case, it is the larger story of thousands of villages and their cultures that are on the brink of extinction with fewer or no ways to rehabilitate them. Thanks a ton to @harpercollinsindia for the review copy!