In this fine age of paranormal thrillers and perfect gushy love stories, I am searching for something different. Something that conveys a feeling of dark, gritty uneasiness with a twist of audaciousness. Something powerful and reckless and that leaves a good taste in your mouth. Something that you can’t get from a book written for a group of giggly tween girls. So when I read the summary for the book The Tigers Wife, by Tea Obreht, I was interested. Finally, a story that doesn’t involve romances with a vampire or any other supernatural being. From that moment on, I decided I would read this book. I would read it for its mysterious angle and unconventional plot, to be entertained and left dazzled by its complex story line. But mostly I would read it to support and promote a book without vampires or any other generic, cliché teenage plots.
The Tigers Wife is the story of Natalia Stefanovic, a young doctor in an unnamed Balkan country. Natalia’s goal in life is to be a good doctor and help the people uprooted and left reeling at the conclusion of the war. But when Natalia’s grandfather passes away abruptly, Natalia is stricken. She knows why he died, but no one else does. As Natalia struggles with the truth behind her grandfather’s death, she remembers the stories he told her when she was young. The stories that changed his life and eventually changed hers. The stories of the tiger’s wife and of the deathless man.
Deep in the mountains a long time ago, existed the village of Galina. It was a small village, a village that you couldn’t even find on a map. In this village Natalia’s grandfather was born. He was born here and lived here and, until the tiger came, spent the whole first part of his life trying to escape from here.
When the tiger came to Galina he was called “the devil in the fiery pajamas”. No one could understand why he was there. It must not be for a good reason; no tiger would come to a tiny village just to be a pet. Therefore, he must be there for bad. “To commit the deeds of the devil and steal all of the livestock”. Everyone wanted her gone, except Natalia’s grandfather and the butchers wife.
They called her the tiger’s wife. Partly because of her bond with the tiger but also because no one really knew her name, not even her real husband, the butcher. If you would’ve asked anyone in the village they would’ve told you that no one had ever heard the tiger’s wife make a noise. She never talked and she never interacted with anyone. Because of this, she was a mystery to everyone in the village. And according to them, anything that was mysterious could not be good. Eventually their hatred for the tiger and his wife boiled over and demanded a solution. A solution that Natalia’s grandfather never forgot.
After reading The Tiger’s Wife, I was surprised. I read this book because I thought it would be different and unique, but it was more than that. Tea Obreht’s writing style in the league with a classic writer. Her long and intricate sentences move in a way that could be like they are telling the story through a song. This adds to the overall dreaminess and old timey-ness of each story told by Natalia’s grandfather. If I didn’t know better, I would have said this book was written back in the 1900s and not just a few years ago.
For a writer who wasn’t even born to witness the wars she writes about, Tea Obrehts retelling of the Balkan wars read like a firsthand account of a soldier who fought in them. And for a person who’s native language is one few of us have heard of, her take on English I think is better than mine at some times. She uses both of these strategies to compose the great story of the Tiger’s Wife.
