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somethingsoon88's review against another edition
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
It took me a while to get into this book, it’s definitely more slow paced than my usual reads, but towards the middle it really founds its stride and I was fully engaged the rest of the way through. The author has really captured a specific feeling of mourning the loss of a loved one by cherishing every scrap of them that you have, worrying at the edges of your time with them. The grandfather is so well sketched and the author does a great job of grounding the relationship between Natalia and him in little moments of understanding. It really got to me at times.
The magical realism of the setting is interesting too, spanning essentially an entire lifetime and several major cultural shifts but seamlessly integrated throughout. The scene of the grandfather’s meal with the Deathless Man on the eve of the bombing has really stuck with me. There is such a strong nostalgia captured there tinged with both happiness and sadness. When there was a mention of the girl who played the gusle everything connected for me and it was amazing. I keep going back to it in my head.
The only downside was that I found the parts that leaned more into realism of Natalia’s life dragged on, and sometimes chapters felt longer than they needed to be.
However, it never fully felt like an issue because the author’s prose flows beautifully throughout. I was struck several times by the inventive metaphors and similes that were used.
Overall, I am glad I stuck with it! Not one I’d recommend to just anyone but definitely enjoyed it.
The magical realism of the setting is interesting too, spanning essentially an entire lifetime and several major cultural shifts but seamlessly integrated throughout.
The only downside was that I found the parts that leaned more into realism of Natalia’s life dragged on, and sometimes chapters felt longer than they needed to be.
However, it never fully felt like an issue because the author’s prose flows beautifully throughout. I was struck several times by the inventive metaphors and similes that were used.
Overall, I am glad I stuck with it! Not one I’d recommend to just anyone but definitely enjoyed it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death
Moderate: Ableism and War
Minor: Cancer and Rape
I couldn’t find any tags for it but there is use of a slur for Romani people throughout.annemaries_shelves's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
I've been wanting to read this book since it was published 10 years ago and I'm so glad I finally did.
Obreht is a talented writer at such a young age when she released this and she has a real gift for story-telling. As a dual timeline/narrative, it's often tricky to keep my attention for both timelines, and she held it. We're following our narrator, Natalia who has found out her beloved grandfather has died. Over the years they've grown apart, only to renew their bonds in the last year of his life, hiding his illness from the family. Both medical doctors, they've been shaped by the wars of their unnamed Balkan country, and what it means to practice medicine and hope and fear for their patients. Natalia is sharing two key stories that shaped her grandfather's life as a child and young man - that of the deathless man and the tiger's wife.
I've heard some ascribe magical realism as a genre/writing device to this novel - to me it's not quite accurate. The Tiger's Wife is much more steeped in mythology and folklore and how stories shape our lives and understandings of the world and our place in them. Whether or not the deathless man is the nephew of Death or the tiger's wife was in fact having a relationship with a tiger-human, is moot. What's more important is what those stories say about ourselves, our communities, our spirituality, and our cultures. The themes of death, war, hope, family, and others were really well explored. On the surface level, it's a historical novel without a specific history (the closest being a reference to the former Yugoslavia) and great writing. Below the surface, it has wonderful layers and open-ended stories and complex characters.
The first of two main critiques is I felt this book could've used another 25-50 pages to wrap up the ending. It's slightly too sudden for how deep and thoughtful this book became. The second is the handling of the tiger's wife. She's a deaf-mute teenage girl (and married since 13 because it was the 1940s rural Balkans) who's living with a man who, because of his life circumstances, became violent. On one hand, I understand that not having her point of view was a way to reinforce the 'mysticism' and mythology/folklore elements she gave to the novel (she very much functioned as a source of rumour, frustration, village myth). But on the other, it felt like she lacked agency and a voice of her own. We heard the grandfather's, the blacksmith's, the butcher's (aka her abuser) and other's perspectives in the 'past' sections, but I felt the novel was missing her perspective.
Overall, I really liked this novel - it's well written, thoughtful, and engaging. I'm excited to read whatever else Obreht puts out.
CW: disability and ableism, domestic violence, death, murder, war (including bombing), medical-related scenes/descriptions, animal death.
Obreht is a talented writer at such a young age when she released this and she has a real gift for story-telling. As a dual timeline/narrative, it's often tricky to keep my attention for both timelines, and she held it. We're following our narrator, Natalia who has found out her beloved grandfather has died. Over the years they've grown apart, only to renew their bonds in the last year of his life, hiding his illness from the family. Both medical doctors, they've been shaped by the wars of their unnamed Balkan country, and what it means to practice medicine and hope and fear for their patients. Natalia is sharing two key stories that shaped her grandfather's life as a child and young man - that of the deathless man and the tiger's wife.
I've heard some ascribe magical realism as a genre/writing device to this novel - to me it's not quite accurate. The Tiger's Wife is much more steeped in mythology and folklore and how stories shape our lives and understandings of the world and our place in them. Whether or not the deathless man is the nephew of Death or the tiger's wife was in fact having a relationship with a tiger-human, is moot. What's more important is what those stories say about ourselves, our communities, our spirituality, and our cultures. The themes of death, war, hope, family, and others were really well explored. On the surface level, it's a historical novel without a specific history (the closest being a reference to the former Yugoslavia) and great writing. Below the surface, it has wonderful layers and open-ended stories and complex characters.
The first of two main critiques is I felt this book could've used another 25-50 pages to wrap up the ending. It's slightly too sudden for how deep and thoughtful this book became. The second is the handling of the tiger's wife. She's a deaf-mute teenage girl (and married since 13 because it was the 1940s rural Balkans) who's living with a man who, because of his life circumstances, became violent. On one hand, I understand that not having her point of view was a way to reinforce the 'mysticism' and mythology/folklore elements she gave to the novel (she very much functioned as a source of rumour, frustration, village myth). But on the other, it felt like she lacked agency and a voice of her own. We heard the grandfather's, the blacksmith's, the butcher's (aka her abuser) and other's perspectives in the 'past' sections, but I felt the novel was missing her perspective.
Overall, I really liked this novel - it's well written, thoughtful, and engaging. I'm excited to read whatever else Obreht puts out.
CW: disability and ableism, domestic violence, death, murder, war (including bombing), medical-related scenes/descriptions, animal death.
Content Warnings
Graphic: War, Animal death, Domestic abuse, and Violence
Moderate: Ableism, Medical content, and Medical trauma
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