by Tea Obreht
This novel, published in 2011, has won several awards, including the
Orange Prize. Tea Obreht was the youngest author to have ever received this
distinction. The novel takes place in an unidentified Balkan country, and moves
back and forth between the period after the Balkan wars and what was then
Yugoslavia during the Second World War. The narrator is a young doctor who
comes to an orphanage to inoculate children there. The orphanage is located
near a small village where her beloved grandfather , also a doctor, recently
died, and she goes to the village to collect his possessions. Neither the
orphanage nor the village are identified geographically. As Natalia, the
narrator, embarks on the search for her grandfather’s belongings, various
stories told to her by her grandfather when she was a child are woven into the
narrative, in particular the story of the “the deathless man” and the the story
of the tiger’s wife, a deaf-mute girl whom Natalia’s grandfather knew when he
was a child living in a tiny, snowbound village during the Second World War,
and who befriended a tiger who had escaped from the zoo during a bombing
raid.
There is actually very little plot in this novel, as it weaves a series
of quite surreal myths or stories into the brief period that covers Natalia’s
trip to the orphanage and her excursion to the village where her grandfather
died. In reading some commentary about “The Tiger’s Wife”, it seems that the
author’s gifts of storytelling were highly praised by the critics, especially
in one so young. However, the consensus in our group was that the stories of
the deathless man, the tiger’s wife, and other myths such as the man who turns
into a bear, did not really touch a chord with us. Most of us agreed that the
book was very well-written, but left us a little perplexed as to what the
author wanted to express. There was also a sense of frustration (at least on my
part) regarding the character of Natalia, about whom one would have liked to
know more, but perhaps she was just meant to relay the myths and stories that
were so much a part of her grandfather’s life, this magical element in the life
of a man of science.
By Christine
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ReplyDelete« The Tiger’s Wife » by Tea Obreht
This novel, published in 2011, has won several awards, including the Orange Prize. Tea Obreht was the youngest author to have ever received this distinction. The novel takes place in an unidentified Balkan country, and moves back and forth between the period after the Balkan wars and what was then Yugoslavia during the Second World War. The narrator is a young doctor who comes to an orphanage to inoculate children there. The orphanage is located near a small village where her beloved grandfather , also a doctor, recently died, and she goes to the village to collect his possessions. Neither the orphanage nor the village are identified geographically. As Natalia, the narrator, embarks on the search for her grandfather’s belongings, various stories told to her by her grandfather when she was a child are woven into the narrative, in particular the story of the “the deathless man” and the the story of the tiger’s wife, a deaf-mute girl whom Natalia’s grandfather knew when he was a child living in a tiny, snowbound village during the Second World War, and who befriended a tiger who had escaped from the zoo during a bombing raid.
There is actually very little plot in this novel, as it weaves a series of quite surreal myths or stories into the brief period that covers Natalia’s trip to the orphanage and her excursion to the village where her grandfather died. In reading some commentary about “The Tiger’s Wife”, it seems that the author’s gifts of storytelling were highly praised by the critics, especially in one so young. However, the consensus in our group was that the stories of the deathless man, the tiger’s wife, and other myths such as the man who turns into a bear, did not really touch a chord with us. Most of us agreed that the book was very well-written, but left us a little perplexed as to what the author wanted to express. There was also a sense of frustration (at least on my part) regarding the character of Natalia, about whom one would have liked to know more, but perhaps she was just meant to relay the myths and stories that were so much a part of her grandfather’s life, this magical element in the life of a man of science.
By Christine (Pasted by Blanka)
Attention, this is Cristine´s comment, I only pasted it !!! :-)
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