Book Review: The Tiger's Wife

“Deftly walks the line between the realistic and the fantastical…In Obreht’s expert hands, the novel’s mythology, while rooted in a foreign world, comes to seem somehow familiar, like the dark fairy tales of our own youth, the kind that spooked us into reading them again and again…[Reveals] oddly comforting truths about death, belief in the impossible, and the art of letting go.” – O: The Oprah Magazine

In a Balkan country mending from years of conflict, Natalia, a young doctor, arrives on a mission of mercy at an orphanage by the sea. By the time she and her lifelong friend Zóra begin to inoculate the children there, she feels age-old superstitions and secrets gathering everywhere around her. Secrets her outwardly cheerful hosts have chosen not to tell her. Secrets involving the strange family digging for something in the surrounding vineyards. Secrets hidden in the landscape itself.

But Natalia is also confronting a private, hurtful mystery of her own: the inexplicable circumstances surrounding her beloved grandfather’s recent death. After telling her grandmother that he was on his way to meet Natalia, he instead set off for a ramshackle settlement none of their family had ever heard of and died there alone. A famed physician, her grandfather must have known that he was too ill to travel. Why he left home becomes a riddle Natalia is compelled to unravel. 

Grief struck and searching for clues to her grandfather’s final state of mind, she turns to the stories he told her when she was a child. On their weekly trips to the zoo he would read to her from a worn copy of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, which he carried with him everywhere; later, he told her stories of his own encounters over many years with “the deathless man,” a vagabond who claimed to be immortal and appeared never to age. But the most extraordinary story of all is the one her grandfather never told her, the one Natalia must discover for herself. One winter during the Second World War, his childhood village was snowbound, cut off even from the encroaching German invaders but haunted by another, fierce presence: a tiger who comes ever closer under cover of darkness. “These stories,” Natalia comes to understand, “run like secret rivers through all the other stories” of her grandfather’s life. And it is ultimately within these rich, luminous narratives that she will find the answer she is looking for. (From Tea Obreht)

 Ages: 17+

Rated: I don't even know how to rate this, it is most definately a book that will be enjoyed more by adults than anyone younger than a late teen. Themes and issues deal with life, death, war, grief, mythology and family.

I will start this review with a recognition, this will be the first clearly adult book that I have written a review for. That is not to say that I do not regularly read books that are not YA themed, I most assuredly do, but I usually have to sit and digest books like this for quite a while, let my thoughts and understandings percolate and sift through my head for at least a few weeks. It has taken me over two months to think about this book before I can I was able to talk about this book beyond merely stating how absolutely amazingly beautiful this book was to read.

I read the Tiger's Wife on the heels of finishing up Secret Daughter, and was feeling understandably moody and weird. Secret Daughter is a very good book, but it left me feeling off. I immediately picked up Tiger's Wife, by Tea Obrecht, and was transported into a beautifully exotic world that I had first discovered as a child reading Zlata's Diary, and more recently in The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova (which admittedly, I need to finish). A world that is more than a little broken by war, a little broken by cultural clashing, a little broken by history, but yet a world filled with love, hope, and mystery of a world not completely discovered.

Obreht does a beautiful job of intertwining three main stories together through the Tiger's Wife. The first is the story of Natalia, the young doctor looking for meaning relating to the death of her grandfather, told to us in the stories that he had passed down to her in her youth, and stories that she is trying to piece together into an almost autobiographical recounting of the amazing happenstances that her grandfather lived through, turning his life into a spectacular fable that leaves you breathless with awe and wonder. (Do you see what I mean? I keep on gushing.). The first story that Natalia recounts is the one of Gavran Gailé, the "deathless man" that her grandfather sometimes encountered, who collected the souls of the dead. The second story concerns a tiger that escaped from a zoo in World War II, making its careful way to a small village in the mountains that her Grandfather lived in as a small child. Prejudice, fear, and ignorance shape the dealings of the villagers with the tiger, and the young deaf-mute girl that it seemingly befriends.

All three stories are told in a disjointed manner, jumping from the present to the past as easily as we turn the page. Even the stories themselves, as recounted by Natalia, are not told in a consecutive manner. Sometimes she goes back and tells stories that take place before her grandfather's life fable. I say fable because it is so clearly and awesomely fantastical. Stories that Natalia couldn't possibly know, but that fit snugly into the holes that she is trying to fill in. Her grandfather as a child, enraptured by the Tiger come to life from the pages of the Jungle Book, her grand father as a doctor during yet another, earlier war, meeting a man who attracts calamity and death just as he he continues to fail at attracting his own death, her grandfather as an old man telling her his stories, her grandfather as a dead man who has left the final story unfinished.

The Tiger’s Wife never lets us forget that stories have the ability to transcend all manner of reality, whether it teeters on depression or reaches ecstatic heights. Like any good sorcerer, the spell Obreht casts is strong enough to circumvent flaws, and to invite the reader to hope she’ll continue honing her literary magic with even greater depth and care. (From The National Post).

I hope that is clear that this is a story that I am still thinking about. A story that I am still trying to understand. And ultimately, it is a story that I am talking about. The Tiger's Wife is a beautiful read. I hope it takes you on a beautiful journey.

Grade: A+

Book Review: Cinder

“Author Marissa Meyer rocks the fractured fairy tale genre with a sci-fi twist on Cinderella.”

Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, the ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth’s fate hinges on one girl. . . . 

Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai’s, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world’s future (From Goodreads).

Ages: Young Adult (Although reasonably, I would say any girl, and I do mean girl, would be able to read this  by 11-12 years of age. And get it. And like it).

Rated: PG with a teeny tiny touch  of 13, but so negligible to not even see it if you blink. 

Cinder is woefully, and most obviously, a retelling of a well known, much beloved, classic of a fairy-tale, Cinderella. I say woefully, because it seems to me that everyone is talking about how freaking awesome of a rebooted version it is. And honestly? Cinder is like, totally rocking brah. No really, Cinder is great. But it is great without focusing on the preexisting narrative of an orphaned girl being aided by mystical means to marry the prince of her dreams. Er, excuse the rhyme there. 

So what do I want to talk about here? I want to talk about Cinder. I want to talk about society. I want to talk about how refreshing it is to read a book by someone with the last name of 'Meyer' that does not make me want to gouge my eyes out with a rusty spoon. I want to talk about family. And mostly, I want to talk about how awesome Cinder is as a realistic individual reacting to extraordinary events. 

See? Girls can be mechanics too!
Although I seriously doubt ANY mechanic would
wear open toed shoes, let alone HEELS. 

So Cinder is a mechanic. A really fabulous mechanic, considering she is sixteen years old, has seemingly never had a formal education of any kind, but-- she is also a cyborg. In this slightly dystopic future, cyborgs have no legal rights as a human being, as they are not fully human. Regardless of being born 100% human, after an accident that would leave them mutilated and unable to work, the introduction of machinery into their bodies renders them less than human. Problematic? I'd say so. On a not so subtle level, Cinder is about humanity, and how we judge humanity, how we think about who qualifies as human, and how, despite all the information in front of us, we can dismiss individuals as less than human because they do not fit into our constructs of human. *cough cough* slavery *cough cough*. 

In the opening of the novel, we see Cinder sitting in her booth in the market place of New Beijing, fixing things, and trying to avoid attention to the fact that she is a cyborg. Everything is normal. Nothing looks like it  will ever change for better or for worse, until the day that Prince Kai, he of the dreamy dreams of dreaming teens, shows up with a mysteriously nonfunctional 'droid. Is it the classic boy meets girl, boy and girl like each other, but extreme obstacles block their path? You betcha! There is a plague ravaging the country, there is a threat of war from the Lunar Queen Levena, a weird subplot with mind control(?), and of course, the no small issue that Cinder is part cyborg. 38 % in fact. She is such a social reject. Ugh, gross. 

There is of course, a ball. Cinder is, of course, not allowed to go. Because, her step-mother is such a witch (Although as a side note, I felt no small amount of sympathy for Adri, because I felt like her reasons for disliking Cinder were never fully explained, and were probably based around the why's and how's of how Cinder became a cyborg). There is of course an orange chariot, that is magically transformed into a cool ride by, of course, a fairy god mo- No. Cinder is indeed, disallowed attendance at the ball. But there is no 'fairy godmother'. Cinder is remarkably self sufficient, and kick ass. She likes a Prince, and he likes her, but she has all the believable characteristics of a teenage girl in serious like with a someone she considers to be so far out of her league that he's practically in orbit. And of course, she is hung up on her looks in a normal teenage way, only instead of obsessing over how small her boobs looks, she's concerned about her robotic appendages, and anyone noticing them. 

From "Glitches"- a short prequel to Cinder. You can check

it out here.

Moving on.

One of my favorite characters in the book was, perhaps not unsurprisingly, not a human to any degree of imagination. And 'her' name is Iko. Iko is Cinder's android partner and only, who helps her run her mechanic business, and does whatever tasks and chores Linh Adri decrees. She is fun, ridiculous, and quirky. Kind of like the sassy best friend you see in all those tween Disney shows, funny, friendly, but one dimensional. Due to a malfunctioning personality chip, Iko really does embody the characteristics of a human servant, with little self mutterings against her employer/owner, enjoyment of trying on the pretty things that belong to the 'Mistress', and a delightful lusting after the ever handsome Prince Kai. 

I do not want to talk much about the plot. I would totally ruin it for you. But the villains, human, alien, and microscopic, are believable. The hero is fighting to keep his kingdom safe from two of the three. The heroine is fighting all three. Ever the two shall meet? I won't say. I will say that this book is a great read. It was fast paced, the characters where all interesting and multifaceted. It ticked off all my boxes for 'Strong Female Lead'. And best of all, it left me waiting in extreme anticipation for the next book. 

Grade: A- Because I am grumpy. 

 

Manifested Worth of the Book in Transitive Form: Or more simply, wtf eBooks!

I remember as a small child sitting on a couch that practically swallowed me whole, with a book on my lap thinking to myself, as soon as I can figure out how to read letters, I am going to read this book and NOT ask Mummy.  

Yes folks. Mummy. Not 'Mom' or its more horrifying counterpoint 'Mommy,' but simply Mummy. 

But I digress. What I wanted more than anything, more than I wanted to watch Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or My Little Pony (I had an eclectic taste even then), I wanted to know how to read. I felt, at such a tender age, that the ability to read granted a worlds worth of wisdom. And I was partially right. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the first book I 'read' on my own was "Where the Wild Things Are". I had all the answers, I knew everything! Books were magic. 

In the last decade, how I read has drastically changed, and this is in no small part due to the rise of the Web 2.0 world, full of electronic gadgets, e-readers, tablets, iPad's. I was dismissive when Amazon first released the Kindle, reasoning that no one would ever want to read something as sacred as a book through an electronic interface. Oh... so my father downloaded the Bible to read on his laptop even though he has a... real one? He's just weird! Online newspapers? Screens are totally not conducive to seeing page content in an effective and attractive manner. And eBook will never catch on. 

Except then I got a kobo. For those of you who are not Canadian, a kobo is the Canadian version of the Kindle, and it is actually legit a better device than its counterpart. It's smaller, has more memory, better battery life, and is more compatible with different types of eBook files or documents. It is a Copyright Pirates wet dream come true. 

I love my kobo. It is small. It fits into my itty bitty ever so fashionable purse. I have the entire Harry Potter series, all the Game of Thrones books, my trashy romance novels a la Kim Harrison, and at least forty Classics. 

Actually, this is my thing. The Classic's.  Books that have been out of copyright and the publishing industry has been making an absolute fortune on because people want a bloody physical copy of Charles Dickens, or Ovid, or Old English Gent who writes boring prose (Not Shakespeare, I lurve him), and people have really had no recourse but to pay for titles that have been marked up 200% because these titles are cash cows. And now, they are all available for free download through store websites, as well as alternative depositories such as the Project Gutenberg site. 

Even better, the majority of libraries these days offer an assortment of ebook titles that they have purchased from their book vendors. There are problems attached to this form of book lending though, with vendors trying to limit the amount of times a digital book can be lent out before the library is forced to renew their purchase on the title. I have issues that libraries are, or will be, forced to repeatedly buy an eBook from a publisher because they have limited the amount of times it can be 'borrowed,' because part of the appeal of digital books is that they do not face the same wear and tear as physical books. In the Children's Department, we often bought the same title 5-8 times a year because it had been stolen, destroyed by a child, or was falling apart because it had circulated so heavily that the glue holding the pages in was exhausted and just gave up. Ebooks have the potential to remain in circulation forever. And in that sense... I understand the publishers wanting to build in required need to renew a contract on title use. But, when you buy a book, a physical book, that book is yours barring destruction of the copy, or you need to make room on your shelf for newer acquirements. 

Which brings me to my next pet peeve about digital books. The cost of them. 

Ebooks require virtually no labour to create copies for purchase and download after it has been translated into digital format. I understand that the publishing industry is for profit, and that books regularly cost a good hunk of change. I do not understand why ebooks are sold at the same, or comparable cost, to their physical counterparts. I do no get it. It drives me mental. A few short years ago, ebooks were sold for 99 cents. Now, if they cost 10% less than a 'real' book, it is considered a good deal. This is, in part, due to having created a demand, the companies are now able to charge more. However, this is driving the dark underside of the digital world, the world of pirating. 

You can find almost every title online for no cost, or, an incredibly cheap subscription price to a website that hosts various titles. It sounds ridiculous to complain about the cost of an ebook, considering that most ebook devices cost at least $100, similar to an ipod or multimedia player. And once bought, you own that digital title at least until you delete it off your device (and sometimes longer because the company you bought it from has it on file that you own it now), so how do they make money off of you?

So now I am torn. I understand that in this digital world, content is money. Information is money. Access is money. And yet, I find myself uttering the trope of the internet is meant to be free! But equally, publishing is a business, a big business, and authors deserve to be rewarded for their creations more-so even than the music industry ever did (they don't actually create anything new, or have original thought, even if they do make music that I rock out to all day long. Chair dancing anyone? Anyone?). 

Now to address my original premise, that reading holds magic. It does, regardless if it is through an electronic device or bound in paper and cardboard. But perhaps what has been lost is the feeling that a book has a manifested monetary worth. Books are straddling two words, and I am not scared that they will cease to be, more that I am interested to see what their next transformative experience will create. 

X-Ring... c'est what?

It's been a very long time folks, and for this, I apologize. New job, new house mates, new activities. Not yet the new year, but I've already resolved to remedy my lack of recent content updates. First things first, I am no longer a Children's Librarian. What?! I know. Big changes in Risque land.

So, while this post is not about books and or literature, it is of a matter rather near and dear to my heart, as well as my right hand.

My X-Ring.

For those of you not in the know, and I realize that this could potentially be a large number of yiz, an X-Ring is a ring that is received by fourth year undergraduate students at the venerable Saint Francis Xavier University. It is, as you would say, kind of a big deal. I'm not going to say that the X-Ring has achieved an iconic status and is possibly (probably) worshipped by the few and proud students who attend STFX, but the reality is, is that to receive the X-Ring is a really big deal. Student's receive it every year on December 3rd, and people start counting down days to X-Ring as early as Frosh week in their first year. It marks a particular level of achievement, success, and participation within a community that really makes your experience at STFX feel like you have a large, slightly obnoxious at times, family. It is also a majorly needed boost for many fourth years to just go and study for those derned exams already so you can turn that ring AROUND. But... that's another thing altogether.

Anywho, why am I even talking about some ring that the majority of this world's population couldn't give two cents about?

Todd Pettigrew wrote a rather, let us call it, dismissive blog post in his MacLeans blog, the Hour Hand, titled simply, "Time for this year's edition of X-idol".

He starts is with the dubious endorsement of,

There’s a lot I like about St. Francis Xavier University. Its pleasant campus, the small town charm of Antigonish, its rich history. But the ridiculous obsession that the university and its alumni have with their university ring…

Whoah. Ridiculous obsession? I will admit that we are possibly slightly obsessed with our rings. But ridiculous? Bah I say!

Pettigrew goes on to note, in a totally geeky way I might add, student's 'tude to counting down the days until they proudly slide that ring onto their finger.

Graduates await the ceremony like kids awaiting Christmas, and like so many Gollums out of Tolkein, they count the days til they can get their hands on the precious, the precious. 

One Ring to Rule them all. 

Why yes, yes we do. Students will put up a daily countdown in their windows proudly displaying that they have Six Hundred and Twelve days until X-Ring, Ninety-Five days till X-Ring, FOUR freaking days until X-Ring man! You get cards in your mailbox from your neighbours congratulating you on your approaching X-Ring date once you hit the single digits.

Todd goes on to further belittle a ring, that might I add, he does not have, as he is a proud faculty member of UNB and did not attend STFX as a student. Ever.

Don’t get me wrong. I like the school, and I’m sure lots of fine people go there, have gone there, and are there right now. But the whole ring thing is,in my view, downright unseemly.

Let’s leave aside the fact that the ring itself, stamped simply with a big black X like a branded steer or a carton of dirty magazines, is just plain ugly (though I freely admit that my own university’s ring is uglier). And let’s also overlook the aura of self-congratulatory creepiness by which the university promotes the ring ceremony like it’s the initiation rite of a secret cult: the ring, they say, is “the unmistakable emblem that links you to fellow Xaverians around the world for the rest of your life.”
Actually, it does. I have met an incredibly random segment of the population in terms of race, gender and age with whom I would probably never strike up a conversation with in normal circumstances because they have this ring on their hands. Many STFX graduates are able to make job connections through strong alumni ties, which is fostered in part by the shared recognition of their rings.

Let me give you an example which occurred during my brief time as a Children's Librarian. A family wandered into the library and asked to use the computers. While we were setting them up, I noticed that all four adults had a certain ring on their hands. No sillies, it was not the wedding bands that caught my eye, it was the X-Ring! This family had driven all they way down from Nova Scotia to visit family, and after all admiring our pretty pretty rings, we talked shop and I sent them on their merry way confident that they would have a great time visiting some local attractions. They will be getting a Christmas card from me this year. This is one of many such sighting, and is no less significant than the bar tender who went to Dal, or the hopelessly turned around businessman who could not find the financial district. All served as a reminder of community.

To be frank, I am uncertain how the community that comes together over a symbolic form of togetherness is any different from the communities fostered at any other university through the sales of university gear, sports events, and Home Coming. I have a sister that is rabid about the University of South Carolina's football team. She has all the gear, clothing that is red and black, and can doubtlessly perform several Gamecock cheers at a moments notice.

Perhaps my confusion over this article is based on the simple fact that I am no stranger to the significance of school solidarity which American's are much better at generating than Canadians. Every kid in my high school, or at least it seemed to me at the time, got very expensive class rings complete with diamonds, little logo's commemorating their involvement in teams and groups, alongside letter jackets, hoodies, and keychains. I didn't understand why it was so important to teenagers to commemorate where they attended the "best years of their lives," however after attending University during my formative years, I understand now retroactively.

Saint Francis Xavier was and is a fabulous university that gave me so many wonderful experiences, fabulous friendships, and provides me with ongoing alumni involvement. I have since completed a Masters at another wonderful institution, which I also feel a connection too. But every time I look down, and see that glint of gold, and the bold black shininess of the onyx X, I am reminded of a wonderful four years, and a community that I will always be a part of.

So Todd, I ask you this: how can you belittle an experience that is so wonderful for so many people? You don't have to understand why or how us X-graduates feel this way, but you should celebrate our successes, just as we do.

PS: Congrad's all you X-ers that received your ring this past weekend! We're all so proud of you.

Libraries Lead to Plague Victims

From InspiredbyLit

Twilight vs. Hunger Games

I love the Ginger Haze  art blog by Noelle. I also adore the Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins because it is smart, sexy, and Katniss kicks everyone's ass. I have a weakness/problem for strong female characters.

As Noelle points out, the entire concept for the Hunger Games is thus:

"How can I be the exact opposite of Stephanie Meyers?”

Anywho, just read the Hunger Games, and check out Noelle's art.

Stranger Than Fiction

As far as I'm concerned, this is completely true. Love is not fiction, but sometimes it can be found in the fiction section. Is this the appropriate place to mention that librarians do it in the stacks? So I've heard at least. Erm... going now.