The Loopiness of Life by Tanima Das | A Review
A Tanima Das Fiction Where Life Circles Back
Ever wondered, what if your senses were not just feelings, but living forces guiding your destiny? What if life was not a straight path, but a circle—returning to you time and again to make your choices?
Tanima Das's The Loopiness of Life is one such book that would make you relive the past while the present coexists and the search for self unfolds through lifetimes.
Caution: This is not a philosophical treatise, but a work of imagination—rich, layered, and reflective.
This is a sequel to the book ‘The Sorcery Of The Senses,’ so you can read its prequel; however, if you don't want to, it would still work. You can go through—the Prologue.
Themes -
Destiny, Reincarnation, Blend of Magic and Reality, and Love.
Plot -
(In the prequel) Dhruv, recently divorced by his wife Juthika, has opened a way to different realm where Senses come alive. He has already met Dristi—the personification of the sense of vision, and Sparsh—the touch. They both followed through his past lives where he was Ghriz, a tribal girl with special eye powers and Mong, a blind girl with power of touch.
In this part, he goes along with Meher, his colleague, and other characters to find his own true self. His journey with new senses is explored with him re-calculating his equations with people around him and uncovering their real faces. It explores his dilemma of good and evil surfacing throughout the journey of lifetimes and dimensions.
His mission is to unify the magic stones he lost throughout his previous lives. How he lost them is definitely worth reading.
Ratings- 4.1⭐/ 5⭐
My Review-
This book broadly contains three stories:
1. The present life of Dhruv
2. The story of Bisut
3. The story of Wrig
I’ll illuminate these separately.
The story of Dhruv
This portion introduces some fascinating scientific ideas such as magnetism and natural elements, which bring the story alive in the present timeline and make it easier for the reader’s mind to shift from one life to another—especially when we are deeply immersed in those past lives, where his worlds were completely different from today’s. The senses taking human forms of people around him was intriguing, as we kept guessing what form they would take along with Dhruv.
Meher’s arc felt less explored in the present timeline, while her connection in the past was stronger and carried greater depth. I felt she could have been developed more in the present to completely distinguish a feeling for her—she felt loosely written.
The family time was warm and comforting. The plot rarely felt slow and his emotions were evident through his actions. Plus, his character development felt paced and organic, not at all forced.
However, his interactions with the senses felt weak. They mainly served as a guide to take him through past lives where they gifted him with their powers, but no real emotional connection was felt with either the characters or the senses themselves.
The story of Bisut-
The plot flows through a kingdom, led by a queen, Karnimaduk, who is fierce and a true dominating monarch. Bisut is a young kid who likes to play near the coast and doesn't like to eat fish as they are his friends. His mother a seam stress at the palace, who keeps on waiting for his father's return from the sea. The narration follows an ancestral prophecy, the wrath of power, and destiny.
Honestly, his story as Bisut could easily become a full-length novel; it was that amazing. Every character was written with a certain required depth. The morality of characters were challenged, the build up for the story was pretty strong. The narration felt cinematic, having love, drama, mystical powers, the glorification of nature and, of course, the female leads—every detail was bang-on.
One could definitely read just this story and feel satiated.
The story of Wrig-
In this life, Dhruv is Wrig, a man who met a few people or a tribe, whose head—the kind Chief—listens to a story narrated by him, about a boy with dual senses of touch and smell. He encounters different people who led him towards his destiny.
It was a good story, but after reading Bisut's story, I expected something more towards the end. I wished the author had been bolder and explored the same ending but in a slightly different way, probably because I felt wrig deserved it, but I totally get the author's choice.
The natural elements connecting past and present are beautifully used to create a link across lifetimes.
Overall
- The Loopiness of life, is enjoyable and certainly worth revisiting, especially the past-life stories.
- The book is short, well paced and gives ample focus to the past-life characters.
What i didn't like-
1) The concept of senses coming alive is strong, but in a few a pages , they seem just a symbolic pattern to the next realm without any value of their own.
2) As I mentioned above, the character of Meher, which is very central to the story, was left unexplored in her present life, her character had no depth, it seemed she was some mechanical being doing what was told to her because she is in the storyline, so she had to unlike her portrayal in her past lives.
AUTHOR'S DECONSTRUCT-
Tanima Das is a blooming author, with strong potential which is well explored in this book. Her storytelling is commendable and readers would love to see more from her. She is meticulous in crafting environments that help in progression of the narration.
The author has definitely made me do some research on the meaning of Dhruv's wife's name—Juthika. I was totally unaware of this name, so I had to ask my Bengali friend since Dhruv was from Bengal. It means the flower of Jui—Jasmine.
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I thank the Blogchatter team and the author, who provided me with the book.
This review is powered by Blogchatter Book Review Program. It contains my honest and critical opinions solely on the book.
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