The Tiger's Wife: Chapter 7

Téa Obreht is truly a storyteller. The novel is touching and enticing, but I still don't think that I've gotten to the heart of it yet. I've thoroughly enjoyed all of the tangents that Obreht is taking her novel on, but I think that she could have improved the choppier integration of the tales into the main plot. My favorite of the tapestry of stories remains the grandfather's recounts of the Deathless Man. I really enjoyed piecing together the strange story of the grandfather's encounters with Gavran Gailé, and his stories of Death's curse on him. Gailé is such an intriguing, teasing character. Although he is cheerful whenever he meets the doctor, he longs for the love that he lost, and surrounds himself with death in hopes to someday die himself.

I love the way that Téa Obreht writes!  It isn't often that characters are created without an author showing any evidence of judgement or sentiment, so this novel is refreshing to read. Obreht's descriptions of each situation are authentic. She has a way of bringing words to life and making everything sound beautiful. Even a tiger, one of the most vicious animals, is brought to life with narrative about its "big, hot, red heart" and "muscles like springs." I wish I could come up with descriptions that compared to Obreht's, but all I know is that the richness of her narrative is compelling.

In an interview Obreht actually said that she wrote the parts that interested her first, and then tried to develop the ones she felt less emotionally connected to. Surprisingly enough, I hadn't noticed it before, but after I found this interview I couldn't help but feel that this lack of investment in certain pages of the novel. I can That said, I still stand by what I said in my last post, and see The Tiger's Wife as a gripping novel. I'm actually surprised about how many negative reviews its gotten, but it is interesting to see how many different opinions one piece of work can create.