The Tiger's Wife

The Tiger's Wife has 3 major narratives and a 4th that is more of a side story. The encompassing story is the first person one told by Natalia, and the other stories are woven (very well, I must add) into the main narrative. The reader learns very early in the book that Natalia's grandfather has died from a terminal cancer. When she learns about this, she is on her way to Brejevina to provide vaccinations for children in a monastery turned orphanage. This is the book's primary narrative, but the author writes a few other stories that need to be told.Another story is that of the deathless man. He's a man that doesn't/can't die. Natalia's grandfather meets him before he's married to her grandmother, and he tells Natalia the story. The third major story is that of the Tiger and the Tiger's Wife. The Tiger escapes the zoo when Natalia's grandfather is nine years old, and he travels eventually to the town in which grandfather lived his childhood.This book has a lot of different themes for readers to explore, and fortunately, [a:Tea Obreht 5391851 Tea Obreht http://www.goodreads.com/images/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66.jpg]'s narrative style is beautifully mesmerizing. In the tales of the deathless man and the Tiger, the author tells stories of several characters from grandfather's childhood in a wonderful folk-telling way. We learn about the butcher, the past of the deathless man, and the apothecary. Each of these stories is a folk tale that could easily hold its own as a short story. This really pulled me into the novel because I never knew what to expect each time I picked it up for more reading, and I really liked that!Some of the themes to discover include the obvious one of war. The novel takes place in an unnamed Balkan country. Although names are given for the various towns in the book, I couldn't find that any of them are real, so I suppose they are based on real towns the author is familiar with. This part of the world has been ravaged by war. Just war, not a few wars here and there, but constant war. As grandfather puts it in a conversation with the deathless man: “This war never ends...It was there when I was a child and it will be here for my children's children. I came to Sarabor because I want to see it again before it dies...” I think the author's choice to leave out the exact location of the stories is a good one, and as a reader, I came to realize that the stories could take place in several Balkan countries.Some other themes include the question of our desire to find out when we're going to die: would you want to know? This question is explored throughout the book. A lot of animal symbolism and folkloric practices are presented, too.I really enjoyed this book. I must admit, however, that I was the only one in my book club who finished it. Everyone else did not, and the reasoning was simply that they weren't intrigued by the stories, didn't have anything invested in the characters. To me, this is not a book about the individual characters of Natalia, her friend Zora, or her grandfather. It's more a story about events that shaped their lives, and the author really leaves it up to the reader to figure out the effect those events really had.The only thing that disappointed me about this book was that I can say I didn't really get it until I read the interview at the end between [a:Jennifer Egan 49625 Jennifer Egan http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1231143470p2/49625.jpg] and [a:Tea Obreht 5391851 Tea Obreht http://www.goodreads.com/images/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66.jpg]. Those 10 pages were very Ah-Ha moments for me. I'm more disappointed in myself than the author for my inability to really understand the book without the author's nudging, and I'm so glad it's a part of my Kindle edition.