The Summer of the Bear/The Tiger's Wife - Book Reviews (yep, I mostly choose books with animals in the title)

Books are strange things. They can utterly move you, can expand your mind and knowledge, show you worlds and places you'd never be able to physically explore. Beginning a new book is like throwing a ball high into the air; it will come down, but where, when, and what will be the repercussions? The ball may be wafted out of reach by a stray gust of wind, may come down fast and out of control, may have gone up as a ball but come down as an orange, a knife, a chicken. The first page of a book gives you a window into a world of infinite possibilities, is the start of a journey that can take you halfway around the world, or away into space, while sitting on the sofa or lying in bed. There is little that a book can't do, if you let it.

I have had the pleasure of reading many of those forget-the-world, stay-up-all-night, don't-move-from-the-spot-until-it's-finished books; had tears stream down my face that I've had to blink away in order to carry on reading; and been taken to an adventure in the Cornwall sun while snowflakes have settled on my icy window in January.
My most recent book that fell into this category was the magical The Summer of the Bear by Bella Pollen. I read it on the train to work, walking across the station to change trains, at work and just sitting on my sofa in the silence of my front room. It took me away from wherever I was, and into the lives of the characters. Told from the perspective of each member of a family learning to live with the loss of the government agent father, it manages to be touching and intriguing, ranging from adult anger and fear of betrayal from the mother to the childish innocence of their youngest son, who barely understands what is going on, but helps the family come to acceptance through his imaginary (or is it?) conversations with an escaped circus bear. Set on the harsh terrain of a Scottish highland island, which mirrors the barrenness of family connections since the father's death, I could practically taste the salty spray of the ocean as it whipped out of the book and onto my face. I have only vague memories of the previous Bella Pollen book I've read - Hunting Unicorns - and mainly remember being slightly disappointed, the subject matter not being what I'd expected. Whereas The Summer of the Bear has just the right amount of bear - I don't recall ANY unicorns in Hunting Unicorns. That's what I call disappointing. But now I feel I should try her again, and have had various recommendations from friends (though I can't actually remember which books were suggested). Watch this space.

However.

I have read a book recently that did not have the same effect, and I'm not sure why. The Tiger's Wife is an ambitious and, in many ways, lovely book. But somehow by the time I'd finished reading it, it had become a chore. It is basically a series of stories that illustrate the main thread of the story by explaining the lives and backgrounds of various minor characters - in order to illuminate the life of the main character, the recently late grandfather of the narrator. With so many references to Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book, I'm assuming it borrows heavily from that style of short stories, but this felt less than cohesive, and became, for me, a little tiresome. There was so much stuff happening around the main story, colouring but not especially effecting it, that the main plot felt a bit lost, felt secondary in the whirl of other stories. I began to forget to care about the lead characters as I was trying to understand the minor ones and how they influenced the main story.
The oddest thing about the book though, was the place. I felt that there wasn't a strong enough sense of place - I may be merely showing my ignorance, but at no point was I certain (and I'm still not) where it was set. Names of small towns, and talk of war and going across the border, did not pinpoint for me how to imagine the world of the book. At first, due to the talk of tigers, I assumed we were in India or a nearby country. After a little while I realised that the idea of there being a tiger there was unusual - so it was set in a place where tigers do not live. The place has cold, snowy winters, and warm summers. There is always the possibility of bears or wolves, but the escaped tiger is an anomoly. I eventually had to look up the author's bio for a clue - she (Tea Obreht) was from Yugoslavia, so it seems logical that it must be set there. I just thought it was a little strange to be halfway through a book and not know where I was imagining.
Unfortunately, these are the main feelings the book left me with. I kind of liked it, the story was nice and it was mostly well written. But the overbearing sense for me was one of mild confusion, both about the story(ies) and the setting. I may well read it again one day, to give it another chance. The one thing that didn't disappoint was the amount of tiger involved - there was lots. I do like books that do what they say on the cover.

The Summer of the Bear I wanted to read again straight away. I probably will soon. The Tiger's Wife I shall leave for a while.