Barbara Greene Mann Greene Mann itibaren Gremyachevo, Kaluzhskaya oblast', රුසියාව, 249121 itibaren Gremyachevo, Kaluzhskaya oblast', රුසියාව, 249121

I think this book was an interesting read only because of the historical aspect of the book and the details the author put in to give life to the Mughal era. I'm always intrigued about what life was like in the past. I do think that a lot of her descriptions were wordy and didn't add any interest to the story. Her writing style was a little frustrating, not so poetic and intricate as a Mughal story should be...so that was a little frustrating. I also wasn't completely sold on how the author projected our modern (at times feminist) sensibilities onto the main character. I don't think that's a very fair thing to do to characters of the past who's psyche is a lot different than ours.

The parents in this book made me very angry, and I was bothered because the author seemed to condone her father's behavior more than her mother's. I did see it as a story about how people can achieve success despite the obstacles they have in their lives.

I stumbled upon this book in the rustic and charming Henry Miller library at Big Sur, California. If you have not been there, I highly recommend a visit. Elizabeth Marshall Thomas’s book is not a simple recitation of the behaviors of the deer on her New Hampshire land. The book is significantly more. It is a lesson on “expanded seeing” and a meditation on humans in a shared territory with the “wild other”. She takes us on a journey through her own experience and teaches us how to witness and learn from direct observation and the perspective of a “shared intent” to propagate and survive. Although I felt I came to the book with an already heightened empathy, after completing the book, I have an even more profound respect for the other-than-human and their highly tuned, innate environmental intelligence.