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In a Balkan country mending from war, Natalia, a young doctor, is compelled to unravel the mysterious circumstances surrounding her beloved grandfather’s recent death. Searching for clues, she turns to his worn copy of The Jungle Book and the stories he told her of his encounters over the years with “the deathless man.” But most extraordinary of all is the story her grandfather never told her—the legend of the tiger’s wife.
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The Tiger's Wife: A Novel
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Book Description
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Amazon.com Review
Author One-on-One: Jennifer Egan and Téa Obreht
--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Jennifer Egan is the recipient of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for her novel A Visit from the Goon Squad, which was also awarded the National Book Critics Circle Award. She is the author of The Keep, Look at Me, and the story collection Emerald City. Her stories have been published in The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, GQ, Zoetrope: All-Story, and Ploughshares, and her nonfiction appears frequently in The New York Times Magazine. She lives with her husband and sons in Brooklyn.
Jennifer Egan: One of the central powerful relationships in the book is between Natalia and her grandfather: it’s not the type of relationship we usually see as the primary relationship in a novel. Could you talk a little about that grandparent-grandchild relationship, your feelings about it in your own life and how it became central in this novel?
Téa Obreht: I grew up with my grandparents on my mother’s side, and they essentially raised me. As a kid, you resist the idea of your own parents having had lives and pasts of their own. Snuff me out if I’m wrong here, but I see that as something prevalent in your novel A Visit From the Goon Squad: a sense of the parent-child relationship being very tense and of children not wanting to live in their parents’ shadow. When you’re growing up, the lives of your parents aren’t that fascinating, but there is this fascination with grandparents. Because of that great amount of time that has passed between their youth and yours, and the fact that they lived entire lives before you even got there, you can’t really deny their identity as individuals prior to your existence they way perhaps you can with your parents. There’s also an awareness that the world was very different when they were living their lives.
Egan: Animals play such an enormous role in the novel: the tiger, the dog, Sonia the elephant, Darisa who seems to be part-human, part-bear. You write so movingly about animals that I found myself close to tears every time you wrote about the tiger from the tiger’s point of view. Do you have a strong connection to animals in your life? How is it that animals end up figuring so enormously in this story?
Obreht: I’m definitely, it turns out, the kind of person who’s a total National Geographic nerd. I’m there for all the TV specials. As I’ve gotten older I think my awareness of the natural world and animals’ relationship to people--both culturally and biologically--has grown. It was fun to write from the point of view of the tiger, and emotionally rewarding, but I think the animals also serve almost as markers around which the characters have to navigate. I don’t think that was something I did consciously, it just sort of happened. There is something jarring about seeing an animal out of place: there’s a universal feeling of awe when you see an animal, particularly an impressive animal, out of place.
Egan: There are really two worlds in the book which mingle and sometimes intersect: there’s the present day political, medical, scientific situation in which Natalia operates, and then there’s this more mystical, folkloric world of the grandfather’s past. How did these define themselves in your mind? Was it hard to move between them?
Obreht: Pretty early on in the writing I realized that mythmaking and storytelling are a way in which people deal with reality. They’re a coping mechanism. In Balkan culture, there’s almost a knowledge that reality will eventually become myth. In ten or twenty years you will be able to recount what happened today with more and more embellishments until you’ve completely altered that reality and funneled it into the world of myth.
A Letter from the Author
Téa Obreht was born in Belgrade in the former Yugoslavia in 1985 and has lived in the United States since the age of twelve. Her writing has been published in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper’s, and The Guardian, and has been anthologized in The Best American Short Stories and The Best American Nonrequired Reading. She has been named by The New Yorker as one of the twenty best American fiction writers under forty and included in the National Book Foundation’s list of 5 Under 35. Téa Obreht lives in New York.
After completing my first novel, The Tiger’s Wife, I’ve found myself indulging in a sentimental mood. I pretend that this is due to my need to retrace my steps, to see how it all came together, and, by remembering what I did before, somehow speed my next project along; in fact, I am probably just procrastinating or being insufferable, mulling over memories that, due to the late hours, were doomed to an impregnable haze a long time ago. I dig through my “notes”: folded scraps of paper, the backs of torn-open envelopes where I doodled plot points and lines of dialogue, index cards with cryptic inscriptions—“BUT WHAT HAPPENED TO THE WATERMELON?!?!?”—punctuated as though I’d had some kind of civilization-saving breakthrough. For whatever reason, as I go through my notes, I spend much of my time revisiting the evolution of my characters. Who’s been there the longest? Who was thrown out at the last minute? Who was the life and soul of the first draft, and then ended up with one dialogue in the third? Who’s been renamed, transformed completely into somebody else? >In some ways, the answers to these questions are both pointless and intensely personal, like telling a long-distance friend about how you’ve fallen in love with a person they have never met: they can listen politely while you rattle off a list of traits or events, but a whole world of experience separates the storyteller from the listener. But I do believe that thinking about these things gets back to the vital question of artistic control, and the surprising ways in which your work takes on a life of its own. In The Tiger’s Wife, I found, of course, that core of the cast members— a tiger, his “wife,” a little boy—were all together at the outset, in the spring of 2007, peopling a lackluster short story about a deaf-mute girl who arrives in a snowbound village in pursuit of the escaped tiger with whom she performed in a traveling circus. But, to my surprise, I also found a then-minor character called Dariša the Bear. Originally, he was a mean drunk, a ruthless and uncomplicated villain, hardened by religious fanaticism, and I wanted the reader’s revulsion with him to be simple and complete. When the story began to expand, and the village of Galina and the characters who live there expanded with it, there was no room for Dariša; his kind of villainy had been eclipsed by a far more sinister character, and he was extracted and put away. He wouldn’t find his way into the book again until one afternoon, almost a year later, when I found myself at the Moscow flea market of Ismailova—a townie-shunned tourist trap against which the few Russians I knew had cautioned me—and among the predictable lacquered matrioshkas, bootleg DVDs, prints of Soviet propaganda and fake Fabergé baubles, I met the bear-man. I can’t picture his face anymore, but I do remember that he had pitched his booth at the top of a wide, stone staircase, and that, draping down from the top like water, were the pelts of maybe two dozen brown bears of all shapes and shades, mouths agape. We must have talked—I can’t imagine not asking him where he was from, or whether he had done the killing himself—but I don’t remember the conversation. What I do remember is going home that afternoon and dredging up a man reincarnated as Dariša the Bear, a hunter and taxidermist whose obsession with death, drawn from great personal loss, is rooted in his desire to understand and preserve the majesty of things once living. I would never have thought, at the outset of all of this, that of all the characters in The Tiger’s Wife, I would end up feeling closest to Dariša. Perhaps it is because in a roundabout way I have ultimately spent so much time with him; perhaps it is because, in the end, he becomes a man who seeks to capture life in the absence of it. After all, isn’t that what storytellers really do?--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. The sometimes crushing power of myth, story, and memory is explored in the brilliant debut of Obreht, the youngest of the New Yorker's 20-under-40. Natalia Stefanovi, a doctor living (and, in between suspensions, practicing) in an unnamed country that's a ringer for Obreht's native Croatia, crosses the border in search of answers about the death of her beloved grandfather, who raised her on tales from the village he grew up in, and where, following German bombardment in 1941, a tiger escaped from the zoo in a nearby city and befriended a mysterious deaf-mute woman. The evolving story of the tiger's wife, as the deaf-mute becomes known, forms one of three strands that sustain the novel, the other two being Natalia's efforts to care for orphans and a wayward family who, to lift a curse, are searching for the bones of a long-dead relative; and several of her grandfather's stories about Gavran Gailé, the deathless man, whose appearances coincide with catastrophe and who may hold the key to all the stories that ensnare Natalia. Obreht is an expert at depicting history through aftermath, people through the love they inspire, and place through the stories that endure; the reflected world she creates is both immediately recognizable and a legend in its own right. Obreht is talented far beyond her years, and her unsentimental faith in language, dream, and memory is a pleasure. (Mar.)
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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More About the Author
Téa Obreht was born in Belgrade in the former Yugoslavia in 1985 and has lived in the United States since the age of twelve. Her writing has been published in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper's, and The Guardian, and has been anthologized in The Best American Short Stories and The Best American Nonrequired Reading. She has been named by The New Yorker as one of the twenty best American fiction writers under forty and included in the National Book Foundation's list of 5 Under 35. Téa Obreht lives in New York.
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
884 of 929 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review
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By the time she is thirteen, Natalia has taken so many trips with her grandfather to visit the caged tigers that she feels like a prisoner of ritual. Then a war hundreds of miles distant breaks the ritual: the zoo closes, curfews are implemented, students are disappearing, and spending time with her grandfather seems less important than committing small acts of defiance: staying out late, kissing a boyfriend behind a broken vending machine, and listening to black market recordings of Paul Simon and Johnny Cash. When her grandfather is suspended from his medical practice because he is suspected of harboring "loyalist feelings toward the unified state," Natalia adopts new rituals that keep her at his side when he isn't paying clandestine visits to his old patients. In return, he takes her to see an astonishing sight that offers the hope for an eventual restoration of the rituals that made up their pre-war lives. Natalia's grandfather tells her that this is their moment: not a moment of war to be shared by everyone else, but a moment that is uniquely theirs.
The Tiger's Wife is filled with wondrous moments, small scenes that assemble into a novel of power and wisdom and beauty. As an adult doctor delivering medicine across new and uncertain borders, Natalia grieves for her deceased grandfather while recalling the lessons he taught and the stories he told -- stories that more often than not center on death: how it is faced, feared, and embraced. Death is everywhere in this novel: death caused by war, by disease, by animal and man and child. And there is death's counterpoint, a character who cannot die (or so the grandfather's story goes). Death is virtually a character in the novel, as is the devil -- although the devil's identity is somewhat obscure, appearing as someone's uncle in one of the grandfather's stories, suspected of wearing the guise of a tiger by others. The tiger, of course, is a force of death -- feared by many, but not by the tiger's wife, who shows us that fear is unnecessary. Ultimately, coming to terms with death is, I think, the novel's subject matter.
Téa Obreht writes with clarity and compassion. She tells the interwoven stories that comprise The Tiger's Wife without judgment or sentiment. Her characters are authentic; with only one or two exceptions, she doesn't go out of her way to make them likable or sympathetic. Nor does she ask readers to hate characters who commit evil acts, although she wants us to understand them. She does not insist that we either condemn or condone the actions of a wife-abusing butcher. Instead, she gives us a chance to comprehend human complexity, to know that there is more to the characters than their offensive or violent actions. The village gossips, knowing nothing of the truth, judge both the abuser and the abused. Obreht shows us how foolish it is to judge others without knowing them ... and how unlikely it is that we will know enough to judge.
Obreht writes with the maturity and confidence of an accomplished novelist. Her style is graceful. It is difficult to believe that this is her first novel. If she continues to produce work as sound as The Tiger's Wife, readers should wish her a long career.
The Tiger's Wife is filled with wondrous moments, small scenes that assemble into a novel of power and wisdom and beauty. As an adult doctor delivering medicine across new and uncertain borders, Natalia grieves for her deceased grandfather while recalling the lessons he taught and the stories he told -- stories that more often than not center on death: how it is faced, feared, and embraced. Death is everywhere in this novel: death caused by war, by disease, by animal and man and child. And there is death's counterpoint, a character who cannot die (or so the grandfather's story goes). Death is virtually a character in the novel, as is the devil -- although the devil's identity is somewhat obscure, appearing as someone's uncle in one of the grandfather's stories, suspected of wearing the guise of a tiger by others. The tiger, of course, is a force of death -- feared by many, but not by the tiger's wife, who shows us that fear is unnecessary. Ultimately, coming to terms with death is, I think, the novel's subject matter.
Téa Obreht writes with clarity and compassion. She tells the interwoven stories that comprise The Tiger's Wife without judgment or sentiment. Her characters are authentic; with only one or two exceptions, she doesn't go out of her way to make them likable or sympathetic. Nor does she ask readers to hate characters who commit evil acts, although she wants us to understand them. She does not insist that we either condemn or condone the actions of a wife-abusing butcher. Instead, she gives us a chance to comprehend human complexity, to know that there is more to the characters than their offensive or violent actions. The village gossips, knowing nothing of the truth, judge both the abuser and the abused. Obreht shows us how foolish it is to judge others without knowing them ... and how unlikely it is that we will know enough to judge.
Obreht writes with the maturity and confidence of an accomplished novelist. Her style is graceful. It is difficult to believe that this is her first novel. If she continues to produce work as sound as The Tiger's Wife, readers should wish her a long career.
155 of 168 people found the following review helpful
By zewology
Format:Hardcover
From the moment I first read a review of this book, I really wanted to like it. I thought the premise sounded interesting, and the author was praised for her highly superior writing skills.
Well, I will agree that Tea Obreht can write a beautiful sentence; a beautiful paragraph ... her writing flows very well. I tend to read with a very smooth, lyrical inner voice. In many novels, this trips me up at times because the author very suddenly changes sentence structure and interrupts the flow of the writing and the words themselves. This novel was a refreshing change in that regard, and at first I quite enjoyed it simply for this quality.
However, there is another flow a book must have, and that is a flow of story. Now, I'm not saying an author can't jump around in the telling, between points of view or side stories or time lines. I have certainly enjoyed novels that do this (an author that comes to mind is Kingsolver, who tends to change perspectives every chapter). But overall, there has to be a purpose to the jumping around. In this novel, I kept waiting for some indication of this, but I never got one, even at the end. The story didn't feel finished to me; it almost didn't feel like a story at all.
Another way in which I judge a novel is whether or not I *really* want to read it. It's not the sole indication of great writing, but for me to consider a book "good" I have to want to keep reading. Unfortunately, it was the exact opposite for this novel. I was constantly putting it down after, say, ten pages, and having to force myself to pick it back up. It's taken me a few weeks to read (with other things in between); this is an eternity for me. While there are a few compelling themes -- ones you must really search for -- their relevence to the novel was not frequent enough.
((Beware of spoilers at this point ...))
Which brings me to my next point. As other people have said, this book has WAY too much description of scenery. Now, I know it's literary fiction, and by definition there's more description and less action. But this book was bordering on ridiculous. I didn't need a three page description of Natalia walking to the crossroads, nor another five pages of her simply following the "mora" up the side of a hill and through the woods. As I just wanted to be done with the book, that part was especially excruciating for me. Description can be a wonderful thing when it advances the story. However, many of the descriptions in this novel not only lent nothing to the plot, but actually went on so long that they managed to isolate my attention from the point the author was trying to make, so that when I returned to the telling of the story, I felt disoriented by the characters.
I honestly think that this book could have been really excellent. The stories were interesting, and I enjoyed many of the characters, though I do agree with others that there was an emotional disconnect. Of course, this was probably done intentionally, to showcase the very impersonal nature of death, and so I won't argue with that. Even discounting that, though, I couldn't really feel the point of the story.
I'm having a little bit of trouble putting my finger on exactly what bugged me about this book, but here it is: one of the major themes, I think Natalia even says it in narrative at one point, is how these experiences from her grandfather's past, the stories he told her about the deathless man and the tiger's wife, colored his entire life experience. Yet I didn't feel like there was any connection between the boy who befriended the tiger's wife, the man who dealt with the deathless man, and the husband/father/granfather described in his interactions with Natalia. At the very least, no emotional connection, which is practically the only type that matters in a novel like this. After all, if the emotional disconnect from the characters was done on purpose because of the themes of death, wouldn't this contradict the point of the story as defined by Natalia, which, as I said above, is the way the two stories contributed to her grandfather's life and death?
All in all, I was just disappointed. Maybe it deserves more than two stars. Maybe I am being too hard on it because I had such high expectations and because I saw such promise that was never realized. But at the same time, I think that one of the hallmarks of great fiction is what it makes you feel, and I didn't feel anything at all while reading this novel.
Well, I will agree that Tea Obreht can write a beautiful sentence; a beautiful paragraph ... her writing flows very well. I tend to read with a very smooth, lyrical inner voice. In many novels, this trips me up at times because the author very suddenly changes sentence structure and interrupts the flow of the writing and the words themselves. This novel was a refreshing change in that regard, and at first I quite enjoyed it simply for this quality.
However, there is another flow a book must have, and that is a flow of story. Now, I'm not saying an author can't jump around in the telling, between points of view or side stories or time lines. I have certainly enjoyed novels that do this (an author that comes to mind is Kingsolver, who tends to change perspectives every chapter). But overall, there has to be a purpose to the jumping around. In this novel, I kept waiting for some indication of this, but I never got one, even at the end. The story didn't feel finished to me; it almost didn't feel like a story at all.
Another way in which I judge a novel is whether or not I *really* want to read it. It's not the sole indication of great writing, but for me to consider a book "good" I have to want to keep reading. Unfortunately, it was the exact opposite for this novel. I was constantly putting it down after, say, ten pages, and having to force myself to pick it back up. It's taken me a few weeks to read (with other things in between); this is an eternity for me. While there are a few compelling themes -- ones you must really search for -- their relevence to the novel was not frequent enough.
((Beware of spoilers at this point ...))
Which brings me to my next point. As other people have said, this book has WAY too much description of scenery. Now, I know it's literary fiction, and by definition there's more description and less action. But this book was bordering on ridiculous. I didn't need a three page description of Natalia walking to the crossroads, nor another five pages of her simply following the "mora" up the side of a hill and through the woods. As I just wanted to be done with the book, that part was especially excruciating for me. Description can be a wonderful thing when it advances the story. However, many of the descriptions in this novel not only lent nothing to the plot, but actually went on so long that they managed to isolate my attention from the point the author was trying to make, so that when I returned to the telling of the story, I felt disoriented by the characters.
I honestly think that this book could have been really excellent. The stories were interesting, and I enjoyed many of the characters, though I do agree with others that there was an emotional disconnect. Of course, this was probably done intentionally, to showcase the very impersonal nature of death, and so I won't argue with that. Even discounting that, though, I couldn't really feel the point of the story.
I'm having a little bit of trouble putting my finger on exactly what bugged me about this book, but here it is: one of the major themes, I think Natalia even says it in narrative at one point, is how these experiences from her grandfather's past, the stories he told her about the deathless man and the tiger's wife, colored his entire life experience. Yet I didn't feel like there was any connection between the boy who befriended the tiger's wife, the man who dealt with the deathless man, and the husband/father/granfather described in his interactions with Natalia. At the very least, no emotional connection, which is practically the only type that matters in a novel like this. After all, if the emotional disconnect from the characters was done on purpose because of the themes of death, wouldn't this contradict the point of the story as defined by Natalia, which, as I said above, is the way the two stories contributed to her grandfather's life and death?
All in all, I was just disappointed. Maybe it deserves more than two stars. Maybe I am being too hard on it because I had such high expectations and because I saw such promise that was never realized. But at the same time, I think that one of the hallmarks of great fiction is what it makes you feel, and I didn't feel anything at all while reading this novel.
72 of 76 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
liked: the dense, luxurious writing
didn't like: that the story threads never came together to form a satisfying whole
liked: the "promise" that this was going to be a story about Natalia, her grandfather and their relationship
didn't like: that that was actually the frame for the village stories and folklore
liked: hearing about Natalia's growing up and becoming a doctor
didn't like: lengthy meandering into back-stories of (mostly) unlikeable village characters
liked: the mysterious "deathless" man
didn't like: that no matter how many times the "deathless" man explained himself, I never really "got it".
liked: that Natalia and Zora were trying to help the diggers and their children
didn't like: the diggers
liked: the portrayal of the tiger's wife
didn't like: the abrupt ending to her story
liked: the slower pace of the novel
didn't like: when the excessive details began weighing the narrative down instead of propelling it forward
liked: the premise of "The Jungle Book" as a sacred object
didn't like: that that wasn't more developed and ultimately, turned out to be less magical than I anticipated
liked: the novel I thought I was going to read (based on the way it began)
didn't like: the novel I actually read
No quarrel with craft here, but because of the above, this was a three-star
experience for me
didn't like: that the story threads never came together to form a satisfying whole
liked: the "promise" that this was going to be a story about Natalia, her grandfather and their relationship
didn't like: that that was actually the frame for the village stories and folklore
liked: hearing about Natalia's growing up and becoming a doctor
didn't like: lengthy meandering into back-stories of (mostly) unlikeable village characters
liked: the mysterious "deathless" man
didn't like: that no matter how many times the "deathless" man explained himself, I never really "got it".
liked: that Natalia and Zora were trying to help the diggers and their children
didn't like: the diggers
liked: the portrayal of the tiger's wife
didn't like: the abrupt ending to her story
liked: the slower pace of the novel
didn't like: when the excessive details began weighing the narrative down instead of propelling it forward
liked: the premise of "The Jungle Book" as a sacred object
didn't like: that that wasn't more developed and ultimately, turned out to be less magical than I anticipated
liked: the novel I thought I was going to read (based on the way it began)
didn't like: the novel I actually read
No quarrel with craft here, but because of the above, this was a three-star
experience for me
Most Recent Customer Reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
Slow read.
Obreht, T. (2011). The tiger's wife. New York, NY: Random House.
*I received this book for free as a first reads winner on goodreads. Read more
*I received this book for free as a first reads winner on goodreads. Read more
Published 2 days ago by Randie
3.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting but not compelling
The story was hard to follow and changed direction often. If you put it down for very long, it would be hard to remember what had transpired before. Read more
Published 3 days ago by dana
5.0 out of 5 stars
outstanding
One of the best I've read in a long time, one that I will read again and again. Thank you tea obreht for a compelling story
Published 6 days ago by suellen
3.0 out of 5 stars
what am i reading here?
i had to pipe up on this one. Was so excited to get it at costco for $9 and it was a NYT Bestseller.
Other than that, by page 75 I had to put the book down. Read more
Other than that, by page 75 I had to put the book down. Read more
Published 12 days ago by avidbuyer
5.0 out of 5 stars
Painting with Words
This book is engaging from the start. Set in an unspecified country with Slavic place names and surnames, encompassing both Christian and Muslim populations, it is likely the... Read more
Published 12 days ago by Alan Lattanner
1.0 out of 5 stars
A Huge Disappointment
She got a prize for this? You've got to be kidding!!!! If you want to read good literature by contemporary authors from the Balkans, try Bosnia's Aleksandar Hemon, Croatia's... Read more
Published 13 days ago by James Lyon
3.0 out of 5 stars
wasn't my favorite
The story felt disjointed. Nothing tied together, and it felt like the author got tired of writing so she just ended it. Read more
Published 13 days ago by Craig Niebauer
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fabulous read
I was recommended this book by my sister, so I knew it would be good. The story telling was vivid and flowing and the characters made me want to keep reading. Read more
Published 17 days ago by J. Acheson
4.0 out of 5 stars
Up there with the realy strange reads
Good book very compelling but you have to leave reality behind with this one. I spent a good deal of time trying to work out exactly where in Yugoslavia it all happened and in... Read more
Published 19 days ago by Victor Clough
5.0 out of 5 stars
understated and memorable
This is a lovely book about many intertwined more-or-less vanished worlds, and how each evolved into and impacts the next. Read more
Published 20 days ago by Christopher A. Meli
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