Book Review - Moustache by S. Hareesh

Moustache by S. Hareesh
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A wacky, whimsical, hilarious – essentially Carrollian, yarn. Casually cruel and scatological, with malevolent sprites, akin to The Bone Clocks, sentient flora and other other-worldly entities populating the narrative. Suspend your belief and enjoy the fantasy world in the swampy regions of south Kerala, accurately brought across by the translator.
A pickled sardine in its salty grave feels guilty of leading its kin into the nets of a fisherman; the dead trunk of a coconut tree repays a kind deed done to it during its life; even a flame is imbued with life

A wind, eternal, since the time of the lake and even before… agitated the lamp. The flame tried to break free from the wick and slanted away, momentarily detaching itself, only to come scurrying back, panicked to stick to it.

Boats, getting the opportunity, yield to their procreative instinct

Boats, devoid of their owners, had freed themselves from their moorings and lay catching the sun in the middle of the lake, mating unconcerned, with other boats. Some came back, satiated after the adventure…

The hilarious bits are interspersed with hatred and the harsh savagery of man against women, animals and nature

Preacher Saheb…hated the people of the land, especially the women. He considered them wretched creatures with dirt under their fingernails, crusted nostrils, and matted hair hiding lice that sauntered on to their faces from time to time. They hid away their mud-darkened bodies during their menstrual periods, using dried banana leaves to soak up the blood. They emanated a stink like duck enclosures. Their breasts were dry, backsides narrow, heels caked with mud, and their bloodless faces had a stunned look. Their rheumy eyes were half-closed, ears leaked from infections, and toes oozed from ringworm

Yet this white man had no compunction in having sex with native women, yielding mongrels

Preacher Saheb imagined that the fragrance of frankincense was emanating from the room where Theyamma was imprisoned…

There is a face-off with Death, temporal travel, an encyclopaedic description of the fauna and plants of that marshy region and much more.

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