I was sent Loot for review, picked The Tiger’s Wife – a reread for me – as our February book club book, and then couldn’t resist making it a trio with Tiger as it was also a good excuse to pick up a book that had sat on my shelves unread for several years. In all three, the tiger is an emblem of wildness and mystery – and often of danger, too (“you must rid us of this devil in his fiery pajamas,” the village priest begs the hunter in The Tiger’s Wife).

Tiger by Polly Clark (2019)

I was fully engaged with the 150 or so pages of Part I, which is narrated by Dr Frieda Bloom, a zookeeper knowledgeable about and fascinated by bonobos. She’s also a morphine addict who continues to justify using at work (not to mention stealing from the veterinary supplies) until she is caught and fired. It’s all in response to a random act of violence: a man attacked her outside a Tube station late one night and she was lucky to have survived the head injury. In ignominy, she moves from a prestigious research institute to a rundown local zoo where the star new acquisition is an injured tiger named Luna. She develops an amazing rapport with Luna, even spending time in the enclosure with her. Meanwhile, the macho behaviour of her colleague Gabriel makes it seem like Frieda could be a victim again at any time.

But then we jump back in time and to the Russian taiga to meet, through third-person segments, a conservationist who hears about a mighty Siberian tigress, and a mother and daughter who encounter her for themselves. This turns out to be “the Countess,” Luna’s mother, and Frieda, a few years on now, travels to Russia herself to bring back one of Luna’s cubs. The focus, as the title signals, is on the tiger herself, but my interest was only ever in Frieda, and it was a little confusing how quickly she switches allegiance from primates to tigers. More first-person narration might have kept me engaged, or maybe a different order to the sections? Anything to keep me latching onto Frieda and missing her for most of the book. (Instagram giveaway win)

Loot by Tania James (2023)

A halfhearted skim. It’s a shame that when I was offered this for review I didn’t remember I’d read something by Tania James before. The Tusk that Did the Damage, from 2016, is a composite picture of the state of wildlife conservation in India told from three perspectives: an elephant named The Gravedigger, a poacher, and a documentary filmmaker. That was a book I had to force myself through because of the lacklustre storytelling and character development, and I found the same here. Historical fiction can be tedious when it assumes that an unusual setting and intriguing incident are enough to maintain reader interest. Abbas, a woodcarver, is only 17 when he is taken to the sultan’s palace to be apprenticed to a French clockmaker. Together, they create the real-life automaton known as Tippoo’s Tiger and held at the V&A Museum. When the automaton is plundered, Abbas sets out on a quest to rescue it. I never warmed to any of the characters here, even though du Leze’s adopted daughter Jehanne is a promising one. If it’s automata that intrigue you, read The Weather Woman instead.

[Now on the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction longlist]

With thanks to Harvill Secker for the free copy for review.

The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht (2011)

What I remembered: a wartime Eastern European (Bosnian?) story that incorporated legends.

What I rediscovered:

Natalia, a medical worker in a war-ravaged country, learns of her grandfather’s death away from home. The only one who knew the secret of his cancer, she sneaks away from an orphanage vaccination program to reclaim his personal effects, hoping they’ll reveal something about why he went on this final trip. Something is missing from his belongings: his beloved copy of The Jungle Book, which sparked a lifelong fascination with tigers. When war broke out mid-century and a tiger escaped from the zoo, he was nine years old. He and the butcher’s wife, a pregnant, deaf-mute Muslim woman with whom he communicated by scratching images in the dirt, were thrilled by the tiger’s nocturnal skulking rather than frightened like the rest of the villagers. Her outcast status led people to ignore the fact that she was a victim of domestic violence and to spin tales about her unnatural connection with the tiger, spreading rumours about the child she was carrying (“The Tiger’s Wife”).

In the years to come, during Natalia’s grandfather’s career as a doctor, he had several encounters with Gavran Gailé, “The Deathless Man,” a troubadour who seemed, vampire- or zombie-like, to survive every attempt on his life. In service to his uncle, Gavran Gailé read people’s coffee grounds to inform them of their impending death, but his own cup was bare and unbreakable. Natalia’s grandfather, a man of science, didn’t believe Gavran Gailé’s claims and agreed to a wager. Gavran Gailé would walk into a lake, tied up in chains attached to cement blocks, and pull on a rope when he started drowning. His pledge was his cup; the doctor’s was The Jungle Book, his most treasured possession. But as promised, Gavran Gailé spent an hour underwater and emerged from the lake none the worse the wear.

Natalia knows her grandfather’s final journey must have been to meet The Deathless Man, who collected on his pledge. She’ll have her own encounter with him before the end.

This is a demanding read, in that there are not a lot of orienting details and the several storylines surge in and out through flashbacks and oral storytelling. It takes effort and commitment to keep reading in the hope that everything will come together. This was a flop for my book club in that only three people had read it so we decided it wasn’t worth meeting. One who did finish it commented that it felt like three separate stories, and I see what she means. Obreht could certainly have made the links and chronology more obvious. Instead, each chapter is such a honed and self-contained narrative, often focused on a different peripheral character, that the book almost reads like a set of linked short stories. On this reread I was absolutely entranced, especially by the sections about The Deathless Man. I had forgotten the medical element, which of course I loved.

It can be depressing looking back at amateur reviews I wrote in my pre-freelancing days because I have not notably advanced since then. This response I wrote when I read the brand-new book in 2011 is allusive, opinionated, and admirably absent of dull plot summary. Could I do any better now if I tried? (Though I think I maybe misunderstood the ending back then.)

Had I reread this sooner, it would have been tough to choose between it and Larry’s Party, my ultimate selection, for the Women’s Prize Winners 25th anniversary reader vote. Were I to vote again today, I’d join Laura in choosing The Tiger’s Wife instead. (Public library)

My original rating (2011):

My rating now:

Eleanor recently reviewed it, too.

There was a clear winner here: The Tiger’s Wife!

See also Laura’s fab series on tiger novels from her old blog. This is the first post and there are more listed in the right-hand sidebar.

I searched my Goodreads library for others I’ve read and the only books she didn’t cover were Nick Harkaway’s Tigerman, a disappointment after Angelmaker; and (nonfiction) Margaux Fragoso’s Tiger, Tiger (title from a William Blake line), a memoir of childhood sexual abuse, and Ruth Padel’s Tigers in Red Weather, a travelogue – it happens to share a title with Liza Klausmann’s novel, which is likewise named after a line in the Wallace Stevens poem “Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock.”