Yesterday I finished this novel, this year's Orange Prize Winner, The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht. Doing a google of Tiger's Wife to find a cover image, mostly the images were of a heartbroken wife of a disgraced golfer. I was pleasantly surprised by Obreht's writing- there are startling images and beautiful writing - the opening up of the magic in the every day. That the press go on about her blondeness and age is ridiculous, for her writing stands on its own. The novel reminded me a lot of Angela Carter's Bloody Chamber, a personal favourite. There is the Deathless Man and superstitious villagers, a crazed tiger and the woman that loves him, guslar players and bear killers - bringing a new eye on the folk traditions of Europe into the present day. My only gripe, was that I didn't think the present plot could withstand such flights of fancy, so that by the end, I wasn't really able to pull all the threads together, but still, this book is worth reading. What next Tea Obreht?
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