Czym nakarmiliśmy mantykorę

by Talia Lakshmi Kolluri, Piotr Machajek (Translator)

Jakie historie opowiedziałyby nam zwierzęta, gdyby potrafiły mówić?

Czym nakarmiliśmy mantykorę to zbiór dziewięciu poruszających, inspirowanych prawdziwymi wydarzeniami, historii zwierząt. Talia Lakshmi Kolluri oddaje głos istotom, których problemy okazują się znacznie bliższe ludzkim, niż moglibyśmy się spodziewać.

Akcja opowiadań zabiera czytelnika między innymi w duszne okolice Zatoki Bengalskiej i mroźne okolice kręgu polarnego, pozwala doświadczyć mroków głębin oceanu i prażącego słońca Azji Środkowej. Snując opowieści o najróżniejszych stworzeniach – od gołębicy, poprzez osiołka, tygrysicę czy niedźwiedzia, aż po wieloryba – Talia Lakshmi Kolluri prezentuje ich radości i obawy, a tym samym skłania do refleksji nad tym, jak wielki wpływ na ich życie mają ludzie.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Fantasy, Animals, Literary Fiction, Nature, Contemporary

175 pages, Paperback

First published September 6, 2022

Reviews

[Hannah Greendale (Hello, Bookworm) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why did this book have to make me cry? 😭

👉 Check out my Best books of 2024 on BookTube. 👈



"The white bear thought of the fox's prints in the snow that same way that he thought about the stars."

What We Fed to the Manticore includes nine short stories, all told about animals. And often times, the narrator IS an animal. These animals include, a donkey, a tiger, a vulture, a fox and a polar bear, a rhinoceros, a dog, a whale, a wolf, and a pigeon.

While every story in the book held me fast, my favorites were "The Good Donkey" (about a man and his donkey), "The Dog Star is the Brightest Star in the Sky" (about a fox and a polar bear), ""My God Forever Bless the Rhino Keepers" (about a dog and a couple rhinos), and "A Level of Tolerance" (about a wolf who's searching for her brother).

These stories not only highlight how animal sentient beings, but many of the also center on climate change and moving through a world where humans can be either ruthless aggressors or loving companions.

If you are an animal lover, as I am, this is one of those books that’s going to tug all of your heartstrings. And if you love gorgeous prose, then you're in luck because this book is also beautifully written. Cannot recommend this book highly enough!

[Melki · Rating 4 out of 5]

When animals decide to tell their tales, you would be wise to listen. They have much to say about their friendships with other animals, their concerns over their disappearing habitats, and the terrible abuse they suffer at the hands of man.


Talia Lakshmi Kolluri presents a collection of stories that reveal a world most of us work hard not to see. Her work can be devastating, yet should be read. I won't forget many of these tales any time soon.

[Laura Rogers · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am always on the lookout for stories that teach something about the world and our place in it, stories that shift our perspective while also entertaining. The nine innovative, imaginative short stories in What We Fed the Manticore, each narrated by a different animal, accomplish this in spades. The stories explore the inner and outer lives of animals and feature different levels of communication and interaction between animals and humans and with different purposes. Some compassionate and kind, some indifferent, and others self serving.
As a whole, the stories serve as cautionary tales that explore the interconnectedness of people, animals, and the environment. The world would be a better place if we acknowledge our connected reality and act in the best interests of all. Talia Lakshmi Kolluri understands this and illuminates it beautifully. As with all story collections, the impact of individual selections will vary depending on the reader. I particularly enjoyed The Good Donkey, The Dog Star is the Brightest Star in the Sky. May God Forever Bless the Rhino Keepers, Let Your Body Meet the Ground, and also the Author's Notes at the end. I hope you will find your own favorites.

I received a drc from the publisher via Netgalley.

[Emily Coffee and Commentary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vivid, enchanting, and tragic, this collection of stories highlight the immense love and suffering, hopes and memories, dreams and dreads of the animals around us. From forest to sea to desert, we see the devastating costs of plundering the environment, of losing respect for nature and the gorgeously expressive creatures with whom we share the planet. We see the sacred bonds between family, the unwavering pains of longing and loss, the beats of love and reflection. We see the world in it’s harsh unrelenting beauty, it’s never ending cycles, it’s changing faces, it’s certainties and wonders. What We Fed to the Manticore is a marvel of a collection, filled with so much life and emotion, shining with both a warning and encouragement.

[BookOfCinz · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of short stories, all told from the perspective of... animals! I have read a lot of short stories and this one really went there! If you love animals and a well written collection, this is for you.

[J. (Better Off Read) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poignant, provocative, and urgent, the short stories in this collection contain anthropomorphic animals telling stories of their experiences in a world dominated (and devastated) by humans. I found the approach of using all animal narrators and protagonists to personalize topics like climate change and noise pollution very impactful and endearing. Favorite stories for me were:

🦓🦁The Good Donkey
🪶💀 Someone Must Watch Over the Dead
🐻‍❄️🦊 The Dog Star is the Brightest Star
🦏🐶 May God Forever Bless the Rhino Keepers

It's a heavy, often heart-wrenching read, but what a page-turner and oh-so memorable. My advice to you, dear GR friends: Read this book. Also, give your pets a little kiss, pick up some litter or plant a tree, and go out of your way to be kinder to all animals from now on. 💗

[Amerie]

The Amerie's Book Club selection for the month of September is WHAT WE FED TO THE MANTICORE by Talia Lakshmi Kolluri!

Follow @AmeriesBookClub on IG, and join me and Talia Lakshmi Kolluri on my IGLIVE (@Amerie) September 28 at 1pm EST/10am PST. Bring your questions!

Talia Lakshmi Kolluri explores connection, the notion of tamer vs tamed, and the power and fragility of life in this empathetic collection of short stories. Each told from a different animal’s perspective, her renderings are quiet and profound, and contain so much beauty against the violence of life and circumstance. What We Fed to the Manticore is unforgettable.

#ReadWithAmerie #AmeriesBookClub @Amerie @AmeriesBookClub @TaliaKolluri #TaliaLakshmiKolluri @tin_house #WhatWeFedToTheManticore
📚
ABOUT TALIA LAKSHMI KOLLURI
Talia Lakshmi Kolluri is a mixed South Asian American writer from Northern California. Her debut collection of short stories, What We Fed to the Manticore, is forthcoming from Tin House in Fall of 2022. Her short fiction has been published in the minnesota review, Ecotone, Southern Humanities Review, and The Common.
A lifelong Californian, Talia lives in the Central Valley with her husband, a teacher and printmaker, and a very skittish cat named Fig.

[Queralt✨ · Rating 4 out of 5]

To be perfectly honest, I just read this because I’ve been obsessed with the cover (and the title) of this collection of short stories since the moment it popped up on my Goodreads’ Home page. I purchased the book and I kept putting it off - I don’t like short stories AND stories about talking animals? Really not my thing.

And, welp, I loved this. A few stories were just in the ‘okay’ range, but I fell in love with some: The Good Donkey, What We Fed to the Manticore, and The Dog Star is the Brightest Star in the Sky. As utterly gorgeous as they were, to a degree, harrowing/heartbreaking.

All the stories are quite different but some of the themes are hopes for the future, the interconnectedness of beings, concerns about how the world has become a ‘dog eats dog’ world with war and just stepping over one another, and climate change. So, all in all, it’s a wide range of topics, they are all cautionary tales to a degree and beautifully written.

So that’s that. I’ll just close off with some of my favorite quotes:

Let me tell you a thing about tragedy. At first, every one of the missiles is shocking. You don’t know if you will survive. If you can lose anyone else without losing yourself. And then it becomes ordinary. The sound is muffled. The news of the dead comes to you as if from a great distance and hovers around you like a swarm of flies.

Until, of course, it comes for you. And then everything changes. Everything changes. Everything, everything changes.

------------------------

“You will live alone,” said their mother.
“But why?” asked the white bear, then just a cub.
“Because there isn’t enough anymore,” she said.
“Of what?”
“Of anything. There isn’t enough ice. There isn’t enough food. There aren’t enough bears.”

[Joy D · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the best short story collections I have read. The author is telling these nine stories from the perspective of animals. It is extremely creative and makes extensive use of magical realism. The stories read like fables or myths, and contain elements of commentary on our society, the environment, the way people treat animals, and connections between humans and animals. My favorites are The Dog Star Is the Brightest Star in the Sky, The Open Ocean is an Endless Desert, and Let Your Body Meet the Ground. There is not a dud in the bunch. It is a wonderful group of stories and highly recommended.

[Krysia o książkach · Rating 4 out of 5]

Zbiór bardzo interesujących opowiadań przedstawionych z perspektywy zwierząt, dotykające najróżniejszych tematów związanych między innymi z relacjami międzygatunkowymi, wpływie człowieka na dzikie środowisko, sensie istnienia, zahaczające o religię, filozofię, mitologię, czasem bywa baśniowo, pojawia się realizm magiczny.

Nie wszystkie opowiadania mi się podobały, niektóre przeszły zupełnie bez echa, jednak opowiadania o osiołku, nosorożcu i sępie były naprawdę wspaniałe, przeszyte smutkiem, bolesne, ogromnie poruszające.

Jeśli chodzi o zarzuty to zabrakło mi wyraźniejszego nakreślenia różnic pomiędzy poszczególnymi bohaterami oraz pomiędzy miejscami akcji. W teorii każde opowiadanie to inne zwierzę, jednak ich cechy czy monolog wewnętrzny są do siebie bardzo podobne, brakuje głębszego zróżnicowania chociażby jeśli chodzi o cechy związane z przynależnością do różnych gatunków. Zwierzęta wydają się być momentami zbyt mocno zantropomorfizowane. Analogiczna sytuacja jeśli chodzi o miejsca akcji, w teorii mamy być w różnych zakątkach globu i różnych środowiskach, w praktyce wszystko zlewa się w jedną całość.

[Areeb Ahmad (Bankrupt_Bookworm) · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The white bear thought of the fox's prints in the snow that same way he thought about stars. When he watched the night sky, he felt that they rotated around a point and that he sat at the center. And he was at the center of the fox's dancing paw prints at they made their way across the snow, across the ice, and into the sea, where her prints vanished as if into a darkened dawn."

In the Author's Note, Kolluri asserts: "Every time I have learned about a different animal, I have wondered what they think about the world they live in." Since their inner lives aren't accessible, making her knowledge of the world incomplete, she is "writing to fill that empty space." When I first heard about the collection, I was worried it would be the stereotypical anthropomorphism — twee, reductive, hackneyed "Disneyfication". I'm really glad to be proven wrong and it is one of my absolute fave reads of the year. Poignant and sensitive, it is often heartbreaking and sad.

Kolluri is breathtaking in her approach to all her narrators, from a tiger to a polar bear to a blue whale to a wolf and the rest. These stories and their protagonists have been modelled on real-life events and animals, mentioned as sources at the end. Through them, Kolluri comments on climate change, environmentalism, ecosystem collapse, and conservation. These stories take place all across the globe. The interactions of animals and humans occur in various degrees. It's a rich, and richly written, work of wonderful imagination, one stressing on our connections.



(I received a finished copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.)

[Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would usually steer clear of books featuring talking animals but the description of this one got my interest, and fortunate for me that it did so as I really enjoyed it. The stories skillfully blend myth, magical realism, and naturalism, and they balance their whimsy with darkness and their darkness with whimsy. Like the best stories they take the reader inside an empathic view out from another’s consciousness, it’s just that here we’re experiencing awareness and concerns that are outside the human sphere, which is a nice bit of something different.

A few notes and passages from my favorites from the collection.

The Hunted, the Haunted, the Hungry, the Tame

A surrealistic story of a sled dog in the Arctic region whose visions of a whale swimming beneath him in the bedrock talking to and tempting him to break from the strict hierarchical chain of command seem to serve as a stand in for the subconscious - its intuitive powers and, destructively, its hidden longing for death.

But Bendiks stood unmoved. The others piled up behind him; there was a snarl in the back. The clamp of a jaw. Bendiks looked back and saw a blur of fur and something spotting the snow. He smelled blood. And still he did not move.

"Move." Enok stepped close to Bendiks and bared his teeth. Drops of his saliva hit Bendiks's face and froze.

"Stay still," said the whale, swimming underfoot. And Bendiks was still. Snow and fog and their own breath obscured everyone's vision. Bendiks couldn't see more than a few feet ahead. And he felt suddenly as though he was surrounded by apparitions. All the other dogs that came before. All the other men. The other whales.

"Bendiks!" Malthe called out. "Go ahead. Bendiks, move forward."

And still he wouldn't move.

A Level of Tolerance

A wolf mother is caught in a version of Groundhog Day that always begins with her waking up, rousing her pups, looking for her missing brother, and ends with being killed by a hunter. The motif seems to suggest the wiping out, and then the reintroduction, of wolves into ecosystems by humans.

But I am mistaken.

The breath, it was mine.

The whining, it was mine.

The trough is empty.

There is no brother here.

It is too late when I realize the Hunter has turned around and seen me. He opens a transparent door at the back of the Machine's den and a narrow, long object emerges. There is the noise. And the echo. Then the pain and the spreading warmth and the whole world that I know turning and slipping away from me, while I lie alone in the empty trough far from my pack and my den.

Imagine that time is a spool of thread that the Unidentified Hunter clutches close to himself. Imagine that he unravels and rewinds it over and over again, undoing things that have been redone. Wolves. Then no wolves. Then wolves again.

The day begins.

Someone Must Watch Over the Dead

A vulture remembers the important role the ancestors played in cleansing the corpses of the human dead exposed in the round towers of India (the Zoroastrian dakhmas). One very old vulture, the Lonely One, is known to have visions of the life lived by the flesh she eats. On a plain a herd of antelope (saiga antelope, a critically endangered species, which locates this story in the Kazakhstan region) have all perished. As the vultures gather, their role in Zoroastrianism expanded to encompass a sort of duty of care over all dead things, our vulture narrator has his own vision.

When I pulled away her skin, I saw nothing but the sun glinting off the exposed flesh underneath. I focused then on drawing it cleanly off her body. On the cloudy membrane that was revealed around her muscle. As though she were emerging from an egg. That my consumption of her body was for her, perhaps, a moment of birth again. I thought of the ritual of this. Of what it always meant for me to do this. But when the hook of my beak pierced the meat of her shoulder, I saw the steppe transform before my open eyes. The open sky became streaked with the wisps of thinly spread clouds, luminous at their edges, where they met the blue expanse.

I felt consumed by a dream, submerged in a distorted world as I pulled away strips of flesh and ate them and watched the saiga returned to an earlier time. No longer scattered along the expanse of grassland, they rose like ghosts. A translucent herd, thousands of them gathered as they once did with their calves. I saw this mother, upon whom I fed, bend her aquiline profile to her calf and nuzzle his face, as he stood unsteady on reedy legs. As I plunged my face into the cavity of her body, feeling the slow seep of her blood dress the skin of my neck, I saw the herd become restless. I felt the heat, the untimely heat, consume the steppe. I felt the saiga fight to give air passage in their lungs.

The Dog Star Is the Brightest Star in the Sky

A polar bear, facing starvation, hunts a seal with an arctic fox as his companion.

In one swift motion, the white bear rose from the water onto the edge of the floe, two great paws pushing him until the whole of his body was on the ice. The floe rocked and he dove toward the seal. The fox followed. But it was too late. The seal turned and tumbled into the water.

"Follow it!" The fox cried and leapt into the sea. The white bear dove in after her. But the seal, ungainly on the ice, transformed into something elegant underwater. It slipped away from the white bear in curving spirals. And the bear's coat, saturated by the sea, pulled the speed of his limbs to a crawl. He remembered a dream he had once of running. He couldn't remember whether he was running toward or away from something, but the air in his dream felt like the sea did now. Thick and cumbersome, reining his legs in so that he couldn't move fast enough. He was unable to catch anything. Unable to escape anything. The seal whirled away into the blue, and the white bear was left to return to the floe. He surfaced again with the fox by his side. He lifted one wet paw onto the edge, then another, and then heaved himself onto the surface.

The light above the surface felt as though it would shatter him. So different from the quiet diffusion underwater.

The white bear stood on his hind legs and stretched his body as tall as it would go. He wondered if the first bear had stood like this before he carved out the valleys and wept to fill the sea. The bear's shadow betrayed his hunger. His heavy limbs looked out of place against the concave curves and jutting bones of his torso. Spread out before him was the world the first bear made. Cold, and desolate, and beautiful.

The Open Ocean Is an Endless Desert

A young baleen whale tries to migrate to warmer waters without his mother’s guidance for the first time. He has found a mate, and they discuss the mythical story of a group of whales that left the sea, stood up on two legs, and now roam the land instead of the water. The noise of a ship engine will interfere with the guiding sounds he depends on.

“I am never leaving the sea." She says this every time she hears this story. I don't know whether I can say the same. I know almost nothing of life outside the water. Here with the dim light, and the increasing pressure, and the world all rendered in sound.

But we are together for now. During the day we search for food, and we find it gathered in the water column. I remember the words from the song net telling us to skip the place that is three surface heartbeats from the back of the fin-shaped trench because it is empty now. We visit a few of the other places where we have eaten before. Some of them are empty, and some are not. When I find someplace new, I hum a low krill song into the current before I curve through clouds of it. "Swim two surface heartbeats past where the floating squid was last year, then dive down three deep heartbeats before coming up under the cloud.” I listen to my song join the lattice around us and I feel proud. As I swim up under the cloud, the surface light appears to shimmer in an imperfect circle, as if it is trying to resolve itself into a full moon. The sea around me is a deep and dim blue, and as I rise toward the krill I think of a verse for my moon song. "Hmmm, hmmm, four heartbeats to the moon. Hmmm, hmmm." I take great gulps of the cloud and feel the crimson mist vibrating as it streams through my baleen. At night, after I have eaten, I drift near the surface, slipping in and out of sleep, the song net humming under me, whole and perfect and full of our lives.

[Lata · Rating 5 out of 5]

I always have mixed feelings about short story collections. I love the skill it takes to write a short, but find it hard to read one after the other. That was not the case here, as I absolutely LOVED this collection. Talia Lakshmi Kolluri's stories affected me deeply and in some cases had me in tears.

I loved how each animal protagonist saw their world, and how brilliantly the author showed their concerns and beliefs, and how fraught, mostly dangerous and fatal every interaction between wild creatures and humans can be for these wild creatures because of humans' actions, both large and small.

The Good Donkey: A donkey experiences the loss and horror or war.
4.5 stars.

What We Fed to the Manticore: A voracious being consumes everything and everyone
Pretty terrifying. 4 stars.

Someone Must Watch Over the Dead: Melancholic but clear-eyed musings of a vulture.
4.5 stars.

The Dog Star is the Brightest Star in the Sky: A fox meets a white bear, who is starving to death.
Utterly tragic. 5 stars.

May God Forever Bless the Rhino Keepers: A dog cares about her charges, rhinos, and loves one, in particular.
This one wrung me out and left me in tears. 5 stars.

The Hunted, the Haunted, the Hungry, the Tame: A sled dog hears the voice of a whale in his head, urging him to question and to take actions contrary to his team leader.
Weird, and good. 4 stars.

The Open Ocean is an Endless Desert: A whale is trying to navigate the oceans with pieces of his mother's song missing.
Achingly sad and tense. 5 stars.


A Level of Tolerance: A mother wolf must hunt to feed her pups, and encounters hunters, leading to disastrous results.
I loved the wolf's curious perspective, and the looping storyline. 5 stars.

Let Your Body Meet the Ground: A pigeon's wing is severely damaged by a glass-adorned kite string. A toymaker sustains her emotional recovery after her terrible experience.
The pigeon's joy and curiosity were infectious. 5 stars.

[Deb✨ · Rating 3 out of 5]

This audible book was short stories, each written from a different animal's perspective. I would have enjoyed it more if most of the stories weren't so tragically sad. I was glad to see it ended with a last story that ended with a happy ending. I loved the toy man. He was amazing! That glorious pigeon made me smile so big!

[Monica | readingbythebay · Rating 3 out of 5]

⭐️⭐️⭐️⚡️3.5/5. What a lyrical and unique collection of nine short stories, all voiced brilliantly by animals.

Heartfelt thanks to @tin_house for the gifted advance review copy as well as the gorgeous packaging and goodies. All thoughts are my own.

MANTICORE. A mythical Persian animal with the head or face of a man, the body of a lion, and the tail of a scorpion. A ruthless man eater who devours its prey whole, leaving no trace of the body….

Kolluri’s brilliant decision to center animals sets this collection apart. Now, when I tell you that these stories are all narrated by critters, I know that you will have one of two reactions. To the second group – the wary ones – please know that this is not schmaltzy, and it’s not a reimagining of Charlotte’s Web. Our narrators come from far and wide – a donkey living in war-torn Gaza, a polar bear and a snow fox traversing melting ice, a whale struggling to echo locate in the deep sea, and so on. I felt like I was trekking across the globe via the pages of National Geographic and I loved every minute of it.

This would be a great resource for younger readers, who are likely to be sympathetic to issues like poachers and climate change and will relate to the simple and straightforward way that these animals think about and interact with their world. Also that COVER. Perhaps the most beautiful cover I have seen all year.

The tone of this book is very serious and you have to be in the right mindset to read it. It encourages reflection and an honest reckoning with humans’ role in the animal world. We help and protect animals, absolutely, but we also cause a lot of suffering (the author’s note at the end provides excellent insight into Kolluri’s thought process here). If you are ready to do this reflective work, and I hope you are, please pick this up.

[Icy_Space_Cobwebs · Rating 5 out of 5]

Audio: 9/01
An unusual title captions this nonagon of animal-oriented tales, captured from animal viewpoints, exploring our planet's past, present, future; ethics and survival; myth and practicality, in a collection suffused with deep thought, insight, and intuition, all bathed and basted in magical realism.


All the audio version's narrators are chosen well; my favorite is the initial narrator who delineates the ethics of survival in the gentility of her narration.
Note: I initially gave to the Audio version 4 stars; but on reflection, raised the rating to 5.


Text: I believe author Tallia Kolluri must have subsumed herself in the consciousnesses of these various animals. This collection is a must-read for any reader who admires animals, is concerned about climate change, or is an aficionado of fabulous and fabled storytelling. Ranging from heartwrenching to heartwarming-often simultaneously-and instantly suspending disbelief, the stories in this set, all told from an animal's point of view, are sheer delight. Read consecutively, or one a day over a period of time, one's eyes will be opened and imagination ignited.

[Kim Lockhart · Rating 5 out of 5]

These stories all carry something of the sacred within them, each from a perspective we, as humans, have never known. These are stories told by the animals. There are universal themes of loyalty, greed, duty, sacrifice, and triumph. The writing is deeply reflective and beautifully poetic.

Through the animal's voices, the author presents the essence of nature's family, the delicate tapestry woven by us all, and the dangers we face both together and apart.

This collection will whisper to your soul.

[Justine · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very touching collection of short stories from the points of view of different animals. If you consider yourself an animal lover, you’ll enjoy this and I think those who don’t will think differently about animals going forward.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to Tin House Books for sending me an early proof of this book, in exchange for my honest opinion.

HAPPY PUB DAY TO THIS BOOK! You can go purchase this book anywhere you buy books!

all words are my own and rooted in opinion. review of this book may not be republished, redistributed, quoted, or cited without permission.

This book was really great. Truly was hard-hitting and well written. I have not read or heard of Talia Lakshmi Kolluri prior to reading this book but thought this was a stellar debut.

This book falls along with my goal of reading more short story collections. And this one is a good one.

Usually, when one reads a short story collection, they enjoy maybe two to three stories that are good. However, out of the nine stories in this collection, I felt that maybe two or three weren't as good as the rest. The middle stories were great, and the beginning and ending stories fell sort of flat.

Each story follows a different animal, told from a different perspective. Sometimes it is told from the animal's point of view itself, and sometimes it is told through an exterior narrator who is telling you the story 0f the animal. I personally enjoyed more of the ones where it is told through the animal's point of view in the first person because it was interesting to see how Kolluri interprets the animals' mannerisms and behaviors. But even the ones told in the third person were still well written.

This book was well-researched and personified animals in a way that felt refreshing. Kolluri's writing was simple and detailed in a way that didn't feel boring. I personally am not profoundly educated on animals and their doings, but enjoyed this nonetheless.

all in all: really good, wouldn't say it's for everyone but still enjoyed it.

(The rest of the review is going to be me talking about the publisher Tin House, so you can skip or read it if you would like.)
What We Fed to the Manticore doesn't feel like a shock to be published by Tin House. And I do not mean this in a bad way at all. A common pattern I've noticed in Tin House's published works is that they are having more and more books being published about animals.

Earlier this year I read Lesser Known Monsters of the Twenty First Century which had a very prevalent theme of the discussion of animals. In February, I read Litte Foxes Took Up Matches which also had some discussions of animals.

Upcoming in December, Tin House is publishing How to Turn Into a Bird which I will for sure be requesting to read because the description sounds stellar.

I'm just saying, Tin House I'm watching.

Also, shout out to Tin House because all they publish is bangers and I love it.


ps. i just realized I am the first to review this on GoodReads which is a flex by the way.

[Sandra || Tabibito no hon · Rating 4 out of 5]

8.5/10, cudowne to było.

Bardzo do mnie trafiło i to zwłaszcza teraz, gdy żyję śledzeniem losów sokolicy Wrotki z Lublina.

[Joseph Powers · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was very much a let down. An idea I've recently spent a lot of time thinking about is this: you can summarize the themes of a story in a sentence or two, a paragraph at most. But it is in actually seeing the themes fleshed out in writing that a reader comes to understand their real impact. In this collection the themes of the stories were either blatantly obvious, or I sat after finishing a story, trying to figure out if there was any purpose to it at all. I found the writing of the various animal protagonists' perspectives to be so similar that all of the stories blended together as if it was one long, convoluted tale. The first story, "The Good Donkey," and "A Level of Tolerance," were the only stories I found any value in, and the only stories I would recommend others read.

Also this may be a nitpick, but I feel as if Kolluri doesn't actually know all that much about animals, or didn't do enough research on her subjects. Just as an example, at one point in the story "The Open Ocean is an Endless Desert," the protagonist, a whale, is talking to a giant squid, who mentions that she doesn't eat baleen whales, only toothed whales. However, giant squids don't eat toothed whales, or whales of any kind for that matter. I know it's a collection of stories about talking animals, but if you're going to write a books worth of stories about animals, you should know basic facts about those animals.

[Maddie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although I went into this book with serious hesitation (talking animals is typically a big no for me), this collection of stories brought each animal and setting to life for me. I cared for these animals, cried with them and for them, feared for them and felt such outrage on their behalf. I will always think about the whale song lines the traverse our globe—and the way our human ships are interrupting their paths and livelihoods. I will look a little more kindly at the vultures on the side of the road, as they shepherd other animals through death. And I will want to hug every rhinoceros I ever see (though they will likely always be in zoos). I’m grateful for conversations with some of my bookish pals about each of these stories, and highly recommend reading collections like this in groups to foster discussion.

[shubiektywnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

4,5

Niesamowite, jak autorce udało się oddać sposób myślenia zwierząt. Ich refleksje nie są skomplikowane, ale mają w sobie naturalną filozofię płynącą z tego, jak blisko z przyrodą są.

Bardzo zaskoczył mnie styl „… Mantykory” - od prostych historii, przez symboliczne opowiadania, aż po teksty niemalże przypominające legendy i mity. W tłumaczeniu zostało to uchwycone!

Ale najważniejsze w tym zbiorze są relacje zwierząt z człowiekiem i zwierząt z innymi zwierzętami. Autorka przeprowadza nas przez wiele kontynentów i kultur, z ogromnym wyczuciem opowiadając o wyzwaniach, jakie przed naturą stawia współczesny świat.

Naprawdę piękny, oryginalny tekst. Wzruszyłam się nieraz, popłakałam na jednym z opowiadań o psie i mam wrażenie, że dzięki „… Mantykorze” stałam się trochę wrażliwsza.

[Jacqie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Build Your Library 2022: a book with an animal as the protagonist
Popsugar 2022: A book with a tiger on the cover or "tiger" in the title
Spells and Spaceships 2022: Uncovered Diamond (less than 100 ratings at time of review)

All of the short stories in this book are written from an animal's point of view. The stories roam from the Arctic to Delhi, from the deep ocean to the Gaza Strip. All of the stories are ultimately about how animals are affected by humans and the tragedies and tenderness that can come from these interactions.

Although the language is not complicated, these are not children's stories. The animals in these stories suffer from things that they do not understand and feel pain and loss. They go deep. After reading many of them I felt melancholy.

This is the nature of the world, though. Human actions affect how whales can navigate in the deep ocean. They affect how polar bears hunt. Wolves are often misunderstood and feared by people, as are tigers.

The author has thought about how animals perceive the world and has worked to get that across in her stories. We don't know exactly how whales communicate, but she puts forward a way that allows us to imagine it. She explains how pigeons might see their navigation maps as strings of color in a way that I found beautiful.

And there is also love in these stories. A dog and its keeper work together to protect rhinos. A man sees that a pigeon has fallen into despair and acts to help the bird. These are stories that allowed me to consider how differently creatures can experience the world and showed great empathy for all the animals that share our planet with us. Although I said the book felt melancholy, it also helped my sense of connection to nature and I do highly recommend it! It's a short book but one to savor.

[Tracey Thompson · Rating 5 out of 5]

What We Fed to the Manticore is a heartbreaking, transcendent collection by Talia Lakshmi Kolluri, featuring nine beautiful tales told from the perspective of animals.

I knew this would be a very special collection right from the opening story, The Good Donkey, where a zookeeper in Gaza paints his donkey to look like a zebra to entertain his diminishing clientele. But don’t be fooled by this initially comical concept; this story will rip your heart out and stomp on it.

I don’t want to spoil all the animals in this collection, because I derived so much joy in trying to figure out each of the narrators. But you will encounter a variety of herbivores, mammals, birds, unlikely alliances, and destruction.

The relationships between the animals and humans, or other animals, are the beating heart of all these stories. As Kolluri mentions in her author notes, establishing an authentic level of communication is key to these stories. Sometimes this is verbal, sometimes not, but Kolluri constantly creates a real, hypnotic world.

And if that wasn’t enough, Kolluri shares all her research, so you can take a deeper dive into the beautiful world she has captured. And her aforementioned author notes just make these stories so much richer. Kolluri is truly a special writer.

Highly recommended for absolutely everyone. I would not hesitate to read these stories to my five-year-old daughter, and I know she’d be as enraptured as I am.

[Ann (Inky Labyrinth) · Rating 4 out of 5]

'We are not trees,' he always replied. 'We do not have roots. We are only from where we are.'

A donkey painted like a zebra to bring joy to the children of Gaza City, a sled-dog from Greenland who thinks he can speak to a whale, and a vulture who can receive messages from the dead are some of the delightful protagonists of this fascinating and sometimes soul-crushing collection.

Spanning almost all corners of the globe, these stories are hopeful yet foreboding, transcendent yet devastating. They are snapshots of our natural world and the diverse creatures that inhabit it. One of the most delightful parts of reading this collection was beginning a new story and trying to place which animal's eyes we're seeing the world through.

There are so many themes and ideas explored here, including the interconnectedness of various species and the planet we all live on, how animals perceive humans and their actions, and the innate violence of the natural world. It forces us to ask big questions--like who is tame and who is wild? Why do we as humans force ourselves to forget our part in nature?

There are also endless bits of wisdom that come easily to the animals but are things human have long forgotten. 'It doesn't matter if you remember it. You know it. That's what matters,' says the bear to the fox of the Beginning.

Other truths, like the effect humans have on the living creatures around us, are much harsher. The way a whale describes an ocean-liner (the sound fills every drop of water around me, the lush world I have just come to disappears.), the way a wolf describes a road (a hideous black gash that rips open my valley)--are brutal reminders of how destructive our species really is.

But the ending of the final story: hope with feathers, naturally.

My personal favorites were Someone Must Watch Over the Dead, The Dog is the Brightest Star in the Sky, and The Open Ocean is and Endless Desert. An incredible collection--I can't wait to see what Kolluri does next.



Thank you so much to local publisher Tin House of Portland for sending me an advanced copy!

[Meera · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like a lot of short story collections, not all of the stories were stellar. However, most were good and I felt for the animal characters in them. My favorite is probably the first one. I also liked the challenge of trying to figure where a story is set since they are all in different places.

[Peacegal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Touching, memorable, and vivid, this short story collection is told from the perspective of a variety of animals--from a polar bear to a pigeon--and charts their run-ins with the human world--which range from compassion to hostility to indifference. Readers are plunged into otherworldly narratives as they look at the world through entirely new eyes and experiences.

[Jasmin Barré · Rating 4 out of 5]

enriching and easy read! i haven’t read something from the perspective of an animal since i was a child, so i’m glad this did not feel juvenile or arbitrary, i could actually easily empathise with each voice in the stories.

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.25 rounded down. Hard to rate as some stories I really enjoyed, several were forgettable.