Features
- Reading level: Ages 4-8
- Cover Type: Hard Cover with 219 pages
- Published by: EMC/Paradigm Publishing January 2002
- Written in: English
- ISBN 10 Number: 0821924109
- ISBN 13 Number: 978-0821924105
-
Book Dimensions:
8.9 x 6.2 x 0.7 inches
- Weighs: 15.2 ounces
From 500 Great Books by Women; review by Holly Smith
Rukmani, a peasant from a village in India, lives a life of constant struggle, yet she is a source of strength for many. At age twelve she marries a man she has never met and moves with him to his rented farmland. Over the years their marriage fills with love, mutual respect, and children: one daughter and many sons. A tannery built near their village forever alters Rukmani's life, for the tannery takes away farmland and silence, and while it provides jobs, they come with great costs. The changes in village life from an agricultural to an industrial community frighten Rukmani; her life becomes one of "Hope and fear. Twin forces that tugged at us first in one direction and then in anotherFear, constant companion of the peasant. Hunger, ever present to jog his elbow should he relax. Despair, ready to engulf him should he falter." Kenny, a white doctor in Rukmani's village, watches with a palpable foreboding his patients' daily struggle to survive. He leaves the village suddenly and often, and just as suddenly reappears, as if life there is too much for him yet he can't stay away. Rukmani and Kenny's conversations make apparent their individual and shared suffering, and while their experiences of the world are completely different, their friendship is based on respect and mutual reliance.
Nectar In A Sieve is a powerful, depressing, but ultimately hopeful novel of a life lived with love, faith, and inner strength.
-- For great reviews of books for girls, check out Let's Hear It for the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
Named Notable Book of 1955 by the American Library Association, this is the very moving story of a peasant lady in a primitive village in India whose whole life was a gallant and persistent battle to care for those she loved.
"Comparable in many ways to
Cry, the Beloved Countryif anythingbetter." (
Saturday Evening Post)
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
Reader Reviews
This review is from: Nectar in a Sieve (Signet Classics) (Paperback)
Set in some village in India, Kamala Markandaya's Nectar in a Sieve is a gripping story of one indefatigable woman's survival of a checkered life, one that had no margin for misfortune. Neither does the book have surprises nor twist, but readers will find a determined, unrelinquished fighter in a woman who bears an unfailing faith and rams through impregnable clamor that invades her life. Rukmani married Nathan, a tenant farmer whom she had never met, as a child bride. Even though Rukmani was ignorant of the simplest of tasks, Nathan never uttered a single cross word and gave an impatient look. He looked at her as if nobody had discovered her beauty. He never asserted his rights to forbid her reading and writing, a talent that placed Rukmani above her illiterate husband. Misfortune seemed to have a tight foothold in Rukmani and Nathan. The monsoon inundated the rice paddies where Rukmani worked side by side with Nathan to wrest a living for a household of eight. No sooner had the monsoon tapered off than a drought ravaged the harvest. Hope and fear acted like twin forces that tugged at them in one direction and another. Poverty-stricken Rukmani saw her daughter Ira become a prostitute, her 4-year-old son Kuti died from hunger, her teenage son Raja caught stealing and beaten to death, her oldest sons Thambi and Arjun set off to Ceylon to work in a tea plantation. The opening of a tannery, of which Rukmani was only skeptical, had spread like weeds and strangled whatever life grew in its way, changed the village beyond recognition. And yet, Rukmani survived. The interminable poverty and impregnable fate of Rukmani and Nathan must evoke in readers' pity and sympathy. But at the same time, Rukmani, whom Nathan always appeased, might seem somewhat self-piteous, cynical, and complaisant (like Dr. Kennington said, she needed to cry out for help). Ira, who exchanged her body for Kuti's milk and food, had lost her reason and given up her sanity rather than faced the truth. A recurring theme of the book is the significance of land that fostered life, spirits, happiness and family. Rukmani often found solace in the land on which her husband built a home for her with his own hands in the time he was waiting for her. She often reminisced the very home to which Nathan had brought her with pride. The land became her life: "I looked about me at the land and it was life to my starving spirit. I felt the earth beneath my feet and wept for happiness." (188) So much was the book about Rukmani. The one character that stood out to me was Selvam, one of her younger son who flinched and quailed at the firecracker and used the money intended for firecracker to buy a confection cane. As wealth lured all his elder brothers away, he stayed behind and took care of his family, shouldered the household responsibilities while assisting in the village hospital. Nectar in a Sieve is a book that will make you lump in the throat. The writing is painfully eloquent, taut, and cut-to-the-root. The living conditions, life struggles, poverty, fragility and abasement of life depicted are beyond imaginations to those who live in the first world and have never stretch a single meal portion to three meals. Everyday was a life-and-death situation. 4.2 stars.
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