On a cool evening in Kolkata, India, beneath a full moon, as the whirling rhythms of traveling musicians fill the night, college professor Alok encounters a mysterious stranger with a bizarre confession and an extraordinary story. Tantalized by the man’s unfinished tale, Alok will do anything to hear its completion. So Alok agrees, at the stranger’s behest, to transcribe a collection of battered notebooks, weathered parchments, and once-living skins.
From these documents spills the chronicle of a race of people at once more than human yet kin to beasts, ruled by instincts and desires blood-deep and ages-old. The tale features a rough wanderer in seventeenth-century Mughal India who finds himself irrevocably drawn to a defiant woman—and destined to be torn asunder by two clashing worlds. With every passing chapter of beauty and brutality, Alok’s interest in the stranger grows and evolves into something darker and more urgent.
The Review
I recently watched a video about a lioness who preyed upon a newly born wildebeest. Once captured though, she didn't immediately go in for the kill as one would expect. Surprisingly, the wildebeest imprinted on the lioness and against further odds, the lioness ultimately spared the calf from what should have been an inevitable death. If you think the tale is over, you would be wrong; defying nature even further, she successfully reunites the calf to its mother. My question to you is: was this an act of mercy or was there something else going on? Perhaps the lioness felt sympathetic or maybe she was suffering from an unseen illness. I leave it up to you to come to your own conclusion. I bring this up because The Devourers is very much dependent on the philosophy of what differentiates Man from Beast. This is a book that is incredibly difficult for me to review and to do it without spoiling. In advance, if I sound vague and abstract I apologize, it isn't my intention to be unclear. There are five main characters that and each is intrinsically fascinating. In essence, this is a story about shape-shifters and they're existence. A history professor is approached by a man who introduces himself as being half-werewolf and asks the professor, named Alok, if he would transcribe two scrolls that tell two different stories. I'm going to call Alok's shifter, The Stranger because that is what he is known as for the majority of the book. The scrolls are ancient journals kept by a shifter called Fenrir and a human woman named Cyrah. Fenrir is a shifter who feels differently about humans than the rest of his kind; he loves human beings, or fancies himself to. I'm afraid that both of those instances seem to fit, as paradoxical as it may seem. This interest and obsession culminates to his raping Cyrah, which he claims to be the result of love. I think Fenrir's issues come from suppressing the beast inside of him while he desperately wants to feel human. He hunts and eats people to live vicariously through them. It is different from his two companions who seem to enjoy the hunt and their superiority over humans. One interesting fact about Fenrir is when he calls himself “Mangy Dog.” I'm going to dissect my philosophy of this for you: A dog is a companion animal to humans and yet, when neglected can turn vicious, much like the wild dogs we see in the first chapter of The Devourers. Perhaps in his twisted mind, he believes that Cyrah's rejection of his love is the event that turns him into something worse than a wild beast, but similar to a dog who has been without human contact for so long he became feral. He sees himself as having known the love and pain that comes from loving a human and begins to kill for the sport of it, not eating the people he preys upon, seeming to punish everyone but Cyrah for her not being able to submit and find the good in Fenrir that he believes he possesses. It is as if he is not capable of understanding that he never was a “dog,” he has always been and always will be a wolf, a wild animal that shouldn't care for the feelings of his prey. He believes that it is the creation of offspring that separates animals from humans. Shifters cannot conceive children of their own by mating like most other species; he seems to think that by impregnating Cyrah he is accomplishing an evolution of sorts and becoming more than what he is, becoming godlike and eternal. Cyrah is my favorite character of the entire cast. She is an impoverished woman who uses prostitution as a means to stay alive. After Fenrir rapes her, her fury drives her into asking one of his companions, Gevaudan to aid her in tracking him down. While they journey together, a bond of sorts grew; somehow, trust developed. Gevaudan is proud of his beast aspect, even calling it sacred enough that Cyrah cannot see him in his second form. I think that it is his acceptance of what he is that makes him LESS of a monster than Fenrir. Unlike a dog, a wolf who bites an outstretched hand, doesn't apologize. You should have known better than to attempt to make a wolf into a tamed dog. Cyrah understands this and in so doing, Fear and respect are not the same and Gevaudan, beast that he is, knew that Cyrah felt only awe. I'm not going to really touch upon the gender and sexuality issues of the book because it would give too much away if I provide examples. I will say however, that it is an excellent portrayal of what I imagine to be the struggles of one's physical body not being who they are in their soul. To wrap this up, The Devourers is a magical but dark tale full of philosophical questions, folklore and adventure. Also, new drinking game: each time the word “piss” is used, drink up! 4.5 out of 5 stars is my final rating.
