The Tiger's Wife [Paperback]

Téa Obreht's "The Tiger's Wife" comes with a fair degree of hype from the US, and largely it lives up to it, which is no small achievement. The main story is set in Yugoslavia and explores a young doctor, Natalia, seeking for the truth about her grandfather's death, while on a mission to deliver much needed medical aid to an orphanage in the war-ravaged Balkans. But what sets this book apart is the intricate weaving of reality with the myths and stories of the region. In particular there are two myths that represent a good chunk of the page count: the story of a tiger who has escaped from captivity after the World War two bombing of Belgrade and who has settled near a remote mountain village where Natalia's grandfather is growing up, and who develops a strange relationship with a deaf-mute girl who becomes known as "the tiger's wife"; and a mysterious story of the "Deathless Man" whom the grandfather encounters at various points in his life who appears to have the power to foresee others' death without being able to die himself.

Lovers of folk stories will love this combination, while those with a lack of tolerance for the more magical storytelling genre will inevitably find less appeal here. If you enjoyed Yann Martel's "Life of Pi", another tiger-featuring imaginative book, then this will be right up your street.

It's a surprisingly ambitious structure for such a young, first-time author and in most respects, she carries it off with aplomb, although I suspect that with a little more experience, some of the storytelling could have been tightened up slightly which would have enhanced the impact. At times the stories seem to drift on a bit. There were certainly times when it had me completely wrapped up in the stories but at others I found myself more admiring than loving it.

At the heart of the book are the stories and superstitions that people have, particularly about trying to make sense of death, but also of war and conflict. Both of the main folk tales involve dealing with fear and ignorance. In part these stories survive in spite of, and perhaps because of conflict, but no matter who owns the lands, the stories remain with the people. Evidence of the cultural mix is abundant in the myths themselves - one reason for the eponymous tiger's wife's ostracism from village life is that she is a Muslim in a Christian village. Yet part of the message seems to be that "you can take away our land, but you cannot take away our stories", while at the same time the conflicts themselves give rise to even more folk tales to make sense of things.

At times, Obreht writes with terrific beauty and always with a rich imagination and sense of love both to the Balkan region and in the relationship between Natalia and her grandfather, a good doctor himself who carries with him a tattered copy of "The Jungle Book". She also concentrates on the human story rather than getting dragged into the politics of the region, which is a good thing.

It's a magical and beautiful set of stories. She has the ability to describe rich lives in a few short pages, and it's here that the book positively soars. However, at times also the stories seem to take on a life of their own and would benefit from reigning in a little. I'd urge you to read this though and make up your own mind. There's no doubt though that Obreht is an exciting new talent.

If you are a devotee of folklore and magic realism, The Tiger's Wife might appeal to you, but it did nothing for me. I dutifully ploughed my way through, hoping things would pick up, but they never did. I don't doubt that Tea Obreht can write, but I found this dull and heavy handed, sinking under the weight of its own self consciousness. There was far too much back-story to the characters which had the effect of dragging things down instead of moving things forward. The histories of all the people who graced its pages; the butcher, the blacksmith, Darisa the Bear, his sister Magdalena, the tiger's wife's sister etc. etc. were over-long and overdrawn. Even as the book should have been drawing to a close we still had to endure interminable detail about people like the apothecary and blind Orlo. There was clunky symbolism; many, many unnecessary characters (what was the point of Zora?); too much clutter, and no clear line through. Although set in the former Yugoslavia there is a lack of specificity, factions are referred to as simply `the other side' so I was never really clear who was who, which didn't aid my understanding of this conflict. Of course that was deliberate but it didn't work.

Much has been written in the other reviews about the deathless man and the tiger's wife herself (of whom the author unwisely tries to conjure up a logical explanation at the end). I just felt it was all a load of hokum.

The reading group notes in the back of the book were crass. I can't imagine them stimulating any debate (Was it any good? would be my first discussion question). There was even a two page plot summary preceding them. Presumably for those who just turn up for the wine and the company and can't be bothered reading the actual book (in this case, a good plan).

Two stars might seem unfair, I've given three to much worse books but I felt entitled to some redress. After spending so many wasted evenings losing the will to live I was beginning to feel like the deathless woman. A lot of people will be rushing to buy this book since it won the Orange Prize. I would say don't bother. Go back to the short list. Read Aminatta Forna (my personal first choice), Emma Donoghue, Emma Henderson, Nicole Krauss ... all different in their own way and all more satisfying than this.

This novel is hugely frustrating. An ambitious and clever concept with some elements of superb storytelling, it is ultimately too baggy and disjointed to be properly engaging. The same is true of Tea Obreht's writing; some of it is hauntingly beautiful and evocative, but she is horribly prone to overblown descriptions and subclauses.

The Tiger's Wife is a natural choice for book groups, but I would urge them to avoid the suggestions for discussion at the back of my edition (a Phoenix paperback). If "Why, in Darisa's dream, were the tiger and his wife always eating heads?" is one of the most pertinent questions raised by the novel, then I really have missed something.