On the threshold of Tomb of Sand I was met by an invigorating sense of freedom, and I relished the thought that I could roam its corridors of streaming sentences without constraints, discovering doorways within the walls of language that made the narration seem like a meandering breeze. I swayed along with it, a leaf untethered from its branch, but it soon turned into a whirling storm. Many times I felt like I was floundering, the words were making me feel dizzy, annoyed and confused. So many tangents, so many platitudes that had me lose my interest completely. That is until I came across such phrases as ‘better that the days lurch and sway’ or ‘a border is meant to illuminate both sides’ and I felt grounded once again, enriched by such vibrant language. And I do appreciate a novel that strays from the conventional rules of telling. So maybe I haven’t fallen in love with this book, and maybe there were many moments that fueled my frustration, yet my respect for what it wanted to achieve lingers still.
The story mainly revolves around an old woman, a woman so small she could slip through anywhere, who falls, recovers, starts walking with a magical cane, jumps borders, and seeks to grab ahold of her past, all the while supported or inhibited by her family (whichever way you want to look at it). But it’s also about India, the Partition, talking crows, Pakistan, a boy who has forgotten how to laugh, a Buddha statue, patriarchy, gender fluidity, climate change, widowhood…it is indeed massive both in size and scope.