208 pages
English language
Published Feb. 3, 1987 by Grove Press.
SHORTLISTED FOR THE GOLDEN MAN BOOKER PRIZE
Claudia Hampton - beautiful, famous, independent, dying.
But she remains defiant to the last, telling her nurses that she will write a 'history of the world . . . and in the process, my own'. And it is her story from a childhood just after the First World War through the Second and beyond. But Claudia's life is entwined with others and she must allow those who knew her, loved her, the chance to speak, to put across their point of view. There is Gordon, brother and adversary; Jasper, her untrustworthy lover and father of Lisa, her cool conventional daughter; and then there is Tom, her one great love, found and lost in wartime Egypt.
Moon Tiger is a haunting story of loss and desire.
Wow, simply fantastic. It’ll be hard for another book to push it off the “Favorite of the Year” pedestal.
Some excellent passages and interesting forays into memory and perspective in this book, written as a fictional autobiographical exploration of a life well lived. Sometimes it felt underdeveloped, which was a pity as the book has great charm and the characters are well developed throughout. Enjoyable, not monumental.
I believe Michael Ondaatje stole the idea for The English Patient from this book. It is beautifully written and deals with the big themes: history, memory, love, and war, just as The English Patient does. Somehow, though, the author manages to do it in just over 200 pages and from a woman's point of view (although she does include the voices of other characters) which for me makes it a better book.
