I said yesterday that I had three books to discuss, but over the course of today I decided to split them into different posts. That way, each one gets a bit more space to be discussed!
So the first book to talk about is The Tiger’s Wife, by Téa Obreht. I am going to be totally honest and say I was first drawn to it by the name, and once I saw the cover I was hooked.
This book is a mixture of fact, fantasy, and folktale; from a writing point of view I was interested in how the elements were fused. This book had a richness to it, a sense of the world being deeper and wider than imagined. I particularly liked the ‘Deathless Man’ stories, which were like something from Grimm’s Fairy Tales.
The downside of richness is that you can have too much of something. By the end of the book I did feel that there were so many stories, so many characters, so many details that I didn’t hold on to them all. That isn’t always a negative but in this case, it’s difficult to write about the content of the book because I can’t remember it all.
So I will focus on the key elements that remain with me. Firstly, the names of places are made up, but there is a clear sense that the tales take place in the former Yugoslavia – not only because of Obreht’s personal history, but because of the nature of the conflicts within the story.
Secondly, the tale of the Tiger’s Wife herself is of a woman finding freedom and finding her own path, and that being destroyed by people who are scared of the power that gives her. In effect, it is the personalisation of the story of war.
Thirdly, this is the story of tragedy. It feels as though whatever happens, violence recurs. It is not a book that leaves you feeling uplifted but it does make you think about how terrible things can happen, and the ramifications of them.
It wasn’t really holiday reading, and it was a bit too heavy going for a sun lounger, but it was an interesting book.
Going
back to the writing perspective, I have to be honest and say that the fusion of different folk tales didn’t always work form me, but I loved the Deathless Man idea, and how it twined in and out of reality. I often lost track of where I was in time – Obreht did shift forward and backward in time on a number of occasions and it wasn’t alway immediately clear. As someone who has used the time shift tool themselves I think it’s better to signpost the shift but it’s a narrative choice to make it blurry.
Overall this book was unusual, and poignant, and focussed on loss in a way I hadn’t anticipated. It was not what I expected to be reading. As a writer, I think that’s a brave strategy but as a reader I wasn’t prepared for the content!
I am not sure I will re-read this book but I am not willing to pass it on yet either – mind you, that might just be because I love the cover drawing…
This is one I just can’t quite make up my mind about. Which I see as a writing positive, because at least I am thinking about it!
Happy reading,
EJ
🙂
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