The Story of a Goat
3.5/5
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About this ebook
LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR TRANSLATED LITERATURE
From one of India’s best-known writers and the author of the National Book Award-longlisted One Part Woman comes a charming and surprising tale of an orphaned goat and the family that decides to take care of her, despite the potential cost to them.
As he did in the award-winning One Part Woman, in his newest novel, The Story of a Goat, Perumal Murugan explores a side of India that is rarely considered in the West: the rural lives of the country’s farming community. He paints a bucolic yet sometimes menacing portrait, showing movingly how danger and deception can threaten the lives of the weakest through the story of a helpless young animal lost in a world it naively misunderstands.
As the novel opens, a farmer in Tamil Nadu is watching the sunset over his village one quiet evening when a mysterious stranger, a giant man who seems more than human, appears on the horizon. He offers the farmer a black goat kid who is the runt of the litter, surely too frail to survive. The farmer and his wife take care of the young she-goat, whom they name Poonachi, and soon the little goat is bounding with joy and growing at a rate they think miraculous for such a small animal. Intoxicating passages from the goat’s perspective offer a bawdy and earthy view of what it means to be an animal and a refreshing portrayal of the natural world. But Poonachi’s life is not destined to be a rural idyll—dangers can lurk around every corner, and may sometimes come from surprising places, including a government that is supposed to protect the weak and needy. Is this little goat too humble a creature to survive such a hostile world?
With allegorical resonance for contemporary society and examining hierarchies of caste and color, The Story of the Goat is a provocative but heartwarming fable from a world-class storyteller who is finally achieving recognition outside his home country.
Perumal Murugan
Perumal Murugan is the star of contemporary Tamil literature. He has written six novels and four collections each of short stories and poetry. His best-known novel One Part Woman won the prestigious ILF Samanvay Bhasha Samman for writing in Indian languages and, for this translation, the Translation Prize from India’s National Academy of Letters.
Read more from Perumal Murugan
The Story of a Goat: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Pyre Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5One Part Woman: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Black Coffee in a Coconut Shell: Caste as Lived Experience Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
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Reviews for The Story of a Goat
33 ratings3 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Reading this book is a journey. The beginning seems ordinary. Gradually the thoughts and speech of the main character Poonachi weave into the narrative. The title of the book didn't click into focus until I realized the story of a goat is just that, the story of a goat. It is much more too. Humans are portrayed very well. The ecological crisis that we have created brings about a sad end to a beautiful tale.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5I have no idea why I requested this book from the library; apparently I read some glowing review. It is just that: the story of a very small black female goat given in a poor man by a giant. The goat is named Poonachi and is cared for by the man's wife. She is always small, grows some, gets in heat, has seven kids, falls in love, has more kids, dies. I guess it's some fable for life but truly totally escaped me.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I originally gave this a lower rating because it left me with a strong sense of futility. I decided that was killing the messenger. An impoverished couple is given a doe goat, the runt of a litter of seven, whom they name Poonachi, and with great effort keep alive. The area where they live is in the midst of a multi-year drought, and conditions deteriorate from year to year. Poonachi the goat is one of the point-of-view characters. There were times when I felt I had learned more than enough about goats. Poonachi is a black goat, which have been rather rare -- the government is suspected of exterminating them. I assume that this is an allusion to the pressures that indigenous and minority population are under. The author himself has been attacked, physically and verbally, by right-way castes and Hindu nationalists.The villagers, and sometimes Poonachi are harassed by petty, arrogant and touchy, government officials. some of the villagers console themselves by arguing that the government must have some good reason for treating them so badly -- that one day this endurance will come in handy. Poonachi dislikes the sheep, who are docile and walk with their faces down, whereas goats hold their heads up and struggle to be free of their tetherings.On the couple's trips to their daughter's house, Poonachi has a taste of freedom, which she both fears and rejoices in, and falls in love. Alas, the ram belongs to the daughter, and they are separated.One analysis I saw blamed the couple for Poonachi's sufferings, which in most cases is unfair, except that some decisions are made because the people consider the goats to be more expendable than themselves. I leave the reader to decide how they feel about that; the couple is too poor to keep pets. At the same time, couple go to great efforts to feed the infant goat and are fond of her. Their own poverty forces them to make decisions they don't want to -- when Poonachi, like her mother, produces seven kids at once, and what might seem like a blessing of fertility is instead a problem. She cannot feed all the kids, and neither can the couple, especially in the deteriorating climate conditions. They are sold when a stranger offers to buy them all. He also wants Poonachi, and perhaps it would have been kinder to sell her to him, but the couple are unwilling to part with her They sell fewer of her next litter, but as things get worse, it becomes harder and harder to manage.No, there is not a miraculous happy ending.