From the Goddess Ganga to a Teacup: On Amitav Ghosh’s Novel The Hungry Tide

Abstract

Theories of scale tend to assume that air, not water, is the “normative” medium for zooming between scales of relation. In our imaginations or in mapping technologies like Google Earth, we move smoothly and without friction from satellite heights to ocean surfaces. By tracing the trope of “falling water” in Amitav Ghosh’s novel The Hungry Tide, Jue argues for a form of scale theory that accounts for friction between scalar shifts. The Hungry Tide suggests a theory of scale that fundamentally concerns the problems of navigation and orientation, accommodating the way different bodies sense and move through the world.