zober 's review for:

Man Tiger by Eka Kurniawan

4.0

challenging dark emotional medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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Aaah this was fascinating. It's a murder mystery, except the mystery isn't who killed the victim, but why. I tend to like that sort of story (hello Keigo Higashino). The small town setting in Indonesia is really well-depicted, village, nature, and villagers alike. I liked the writing style, even in translation.

I read a lot of reviews saying this wasn't really magical realism - but I disagree completely. Maybe they need to read more fantasy; I found it easy to believe in the magical realism elements of this story. I can definitely see how you could assume it's just a metaphor, and that's exactly what makes it magical realism rather than fantasy. 

At first, my reaction was that this was very clearly written by a man. Main characters are all men, women are sexual objects and/or victims (definitely check content warnings). The only way most women have any agency in this book is through choosing (if they can) who they sleep with. But thinking about it more, I think that's the point. The village life depicted is not positive; as a whole, this is a bleak, tragic book. Ultimately I interpreted the book as Kurniawan is excoriating the culture that leads to that type of interpersonal dynamics

SA, physical abuse, violence, etc

. And the tiger that lives inside generations of Margio's family is a tigress - so in a sense, this can also be read as a cautionary tale about gender roles. And the impact of generational trauma, and colonialism, etc. This is more literary than I normally read, and I liked it.