The Tiger's Wife, by Tea Obreht

Genre: Fiction/World Literature

Rating: ★★★★

Published: November 1, 2011

Publisher: Random House

Pages: 368

OK, so. This review has been kind of difficult for me to write, not because I didn't like the book or anything, but because I feel like it's kind of a hard book to summarize concisely. I got The Tiger's Wife for Christmas a few years ago from my grandma, and despite it looking absolutely fascinating - there was a tiger! And great cover art! - it sat on my shelf until I decided last week that enough was enough, and that I needed to finally read it. 

The Tiger's Wife takes place in an unnamed Balkan country picking itself up after war, where Natalia - a young doctor - finds herself compelled by the mysterious circumstances surrounding her grandfather's death. In searching for clues, she turns to the stories he has told her over the years of "the deathless man," as well as his well-worn copy of The Jungle Book. But perhaps the most revealing story is one he never told her - the story of the tiger's wife.

(Mmmmost of that description came from the back cover.)

Before reading The Tiger's Wife, I hadn't read any book set in the Balkans, and had little knowledge about it (the region). And I don't want to say that it's like, necessary, to know about the region before cracking open the book, but it certainly helped me a lot. This is a thick book, you guys. And I don't mean that it's super difficult to understand, it's just that there is a lot of history and information and myth layered on top of each other to create a very rich, very dense book. 

The Tiger's Wife is primarily about the use of myth and allegory in history, as well as the necessity of personal narratives during wartime. And when I say that, I mean taking a very complex issue that is not your own - a bombing, a war, whatever kind of event - and finding your personal story in it. Finding a way to make the events in your life - no matter how out-of-control they seem - your own. 

The use of myths and stories are used throughout The Tiger's Wife to discuss other complex issues, such as nationality, ethnicity, religion, belonging, and - ultimately - death. Because the novel takes place in the Balkans after "a war," and because Obreht is originally Yugoslavian (meaning, to me, that parts of her identity have now been reassigned to difference countries, different nationalities), The Tiger's Wife is very fluid in regards to geography, language, etc. And while a lot of books deal with war, and the realities of living in wartime, The Tiger's Wife gave me a new perspective on what it is like to life while a war is ending, when new identities are being created and old unions are being destroyed, and how families and cities can become easily estranged. 

A map for your viewing pleasure. Via.

Obreht deals with these questions of nationality as well as death by creating a narrative so intricate that, frankly, I was amazed that she was able to tie everything together in the end. She used flashbacks on flashbacks in creating a story-within-a-story-within-a-story narrative that was actually really satisfying and not as confusing as it sounds. It might have been a little slow to start, but once I got hooked, I was hooked  - I almost took the book with me to a job interview to read in the car after my meeting because I just had to know the end right then. 

I'd recommend this book to those who aren't adverse to flashbacks, or story-within-a-story structure. Because, seriously guys, there is a ton of it. I also might recommend reading the Wikipedia page on the Balkans? Or having a map or something? Because that area has been dominated forever (by the Ottomans, and then later there was the Habsburgs, and then WWI happened... you get the idea), and there is just so. much. damn. history. But don't let that stop you - The Tiger's Wife has been on countless lists as a "to-read" book. Go and find out the truth about the tiger's wife and the deathless man and see if you can maybe see the world a little differently when you're done.