A tiger is loose from the zoo, causing havoc in the villages whose residents have no idea what a tiger looks like. It is a recount of the granddaughter of her grandfather’s memory concerning the encounter with the tiger. The grandfather has just recently passed, keeping the cancer that killed him a secret from his wife to the end.
The Tiger’s Wife is a surprising read, and best to be read knowing nothing about it. Go into it blind. Although Obreht’s family is of Serbian origin, the country where the story takes place is never specified. The book is rich in Balkan flavour — how superstition engulfs people’s lives, the interactions between family member, the xenophobia of anyone from across the borders. Somehow, I am grateful that the story remains in the region. Lately, writers of immigrant origins must include the experiences in their adopted country and while this is reflective of the personal journeys, I find that it has become a sort of gimmick. Keeping the story in the region makes the stories all the more authentic.
Coming from a family of doctors, Natalia was in a mission to deliver medical services to a remote orphanage. While en route she learned of her grandfather’s death. Her mission becomes distracted as she was also in a mission to retrieve her grandfather’s belongings from the nearby town of his death. There is not much else to say in terms of plot, as the most interesting parts of the story is from the point of view of her grandfather as a child, and his meeting with the deathless man. And the cast of characters surrounding the tiger.
In the story, the presence of the deathless man is interweaved in different stages of the grandfather’s life. These encounters are the highlights of the book as the conversation between the two are absolutely chilling — for this man who is practically immortal, who is able to tell people the moments of their deaths, and a doctor whose duty is to save lives, fighting inevitable deaths. The presence and contemplations of death are heavy in the deathless man, but I cant convey how poignant these conversations are, especially in the last encounter in a deserted hotel.
The book is full of tragic characters whose stories merit their own books. Another character that stood out to me was Luka the butcher who brought his family shame after failing the test of his manhood, that is, killing a hog in a locked shed. Instead, he opts to become a songwriter whose songs become popular in the city. He was tricked into marrying a deaf and dumb girl, the sister of his muse and in the end took up the occupation from which he was humiliated in his childhood, and after realising that his wife wasn’t able to listen to music, became a spouse batterer. The narrator puts this aptly:
It would be easy for me to simplify the situation. It might even be justifiable to say, “Luka was a batterer, and so he deserved what was coming to him” -but because I am trying to understand now what my grandfather did not know then, it’s a lot more important to be able to say, “Luka was a batterer, and here is why.”
I think the statement above is powerful in a work of fiction because the intention of the author is to analyse motives of characters, to decrypt the hidden context which affect these characters — the culture, the upbringing, the events happening around them — this is the struggle and the essence of the novel. And all of these character, even minor ones, are given this proper respect. There are more characters with their own back stories and they all contribute to the book’s synergies. And Obreht writes beautifully, so that these characters’ stories are given the proper justice and adds to the beauty of the book.
