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Book Review
Jan. 10th, 2018 09:26 pmThe Tiger's Wife
by Téa Obreht
This recent novel is set in an un-named Balkan country still reeling from the aftermath of the war. Natalia, a young doctor on a charity mission to an orphanage, is coping with the recent death of her grandfather and the strange circumstances surrounding it. She finds herself going back to the stories her grandfather told her about his encounters with "the deathless man", who claimed to be immortal, and to the story he didn't tell her about an escaped tiger that found its way to his village during WWII.
The Tiger's Wife was a very interesting novel that stopped just short of being absorbing. I very much liked the way Obreht wove together the folkloric elements in Natalia's and her grandfather's stories. I love Slavic legends and fairy tales, and their role in the novel really worked. I also liked the sensitive and realistic way Natalia's relationship with her grandfather evolved from her childhood to her adulthood. However, despite Obreht's very good writing, The Tiger's Wife is a little too detached, a little too emotionally distant such that I always felt like the story and characters were being held at arm's length from me. I could never feel quite as involved with the story or connected to the people as I wanted to be.
by Téa Obreht
This recent novel is set in an un-named Balkan country still reeling from the aftermath of the war. Natalia, a young doctor on a charity mission to an orphanage, is coping with the recent death of her grandfather and the strange circumstances surrounding it. She finds herself going back to the stories her grandfather told her about his encounters with "the deathless man", who claimed to be immortal, and to the story he didn't tell her about an escaped tiger that found its way to his village during WWII.
The Tiger's Wife was a very interesting novel that stopped just short of being absorbing. I very much liked the way Obreht wove together the folkloric elements in Natalia's and her grandfather's stories. I love Slavic legends and fairy tales, and their role in the novel really worked. I also liked the sensitive and realistic way Natalia's relationship with her grandfather evolved from her childhood to her adulthood. However, despite Obreht's very good writing, The Tiger's Wife is a little too detached, a little too emotionally distant such that I always felt like the story and characters were being held at arm's length from me. I could never feel quite as involved with the story or connected to the people as I wanted to be.
