Book Review – Songs at the River’s Edge: Stories from a Bangladeshi Village by Katy Gardner

Earlier this week I finished reading “Songs at the River’s Edge: Stories from a Bangladeshi Village” by Katy Gardner, a thought-provoking anthropological memoir of the author’s stay in a rural village in Bangladesh in the late 1980s.

What makes this book such an incredible read is the fact that she has been able to stay as neutral as possible in an environment that is not only very different from a Western point of view, but which also poses certain restrictions on a woman from Western Europe that – at times – appear quite alien and mystifying to the author.

A thing that, on the other hand, struck this reader as quite mystifying was the author’s tendency – while reflecting on the lives and status of the women she encountered in the village – to insist on telling the women that men and women are equal in her society back home when it’s a sad fact of life that women and men are not treated 100% equally in Europe, either, although one might argue that the opportunities and attitudes toward women are closer to the elusive concept of equality than in many other parts of the world.

But, as the saying goes – it’s all in the eye of the beholder – and the author also makes a point of mentioning that many women in the village have a far greater status than would appear at first sight, and contrary to her own preconceptions not all of them are interested in changing their status for a more progressive westernized way when it comes to societal gender roles and expectations toward men and women.

While staying in the village the author is even surprised at herself for having so quickly adopted the women’s attitude toward, among other things, clothing and proper way of behaving in public situations.

Another thing, which very much surprised this reader, was the villagers’ own attitude toward skin and hair color where the author’s fair hair was considered a negative thing – she mentions that dietary problems often tend to affect a person’s hair color and thus the color in a way becomes a status symbol in itself – whereas her fair skin color was looked at in a more positive light.

Also, the author’s ability to escape heat rash from the sun which afflicted many of the people she met was just one of the many surprising elements in this highly recommendable read on a traditional rural way of life in a small Bangladeshi village in the late 1980s.

Although one has to take into account the point in time in which it is written, this travelogue/memoir still remains an awesome read on a way of life that was already changing at the time when the author wrote an introduction to the new edition of the book in question almost a decade later.

Happy Reading!

Here’s further information on the book from Amazon.co.uk:

Songs at the River’s Edge: Stories from a Bangladeshi Village by Katy Gardner

Tags: Bangladesh, books, cultural studies, debate, gender roles, Katy Gardner, rural way of life, Songs at the River's Edge, South Asia, Stories from a Bangladeshi Village, travel writing, women's studies