Book Review | Book Chatter

The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival
By John Vaillant
(Vintage, Paperback, 9780307389046, May 2011, 352pp.)

The Short of It:

A true account of a tiger with a grudge.

The Rest of It:

In December of 1997, Yuri Trush, the head of a tiger preservation team is called to the Boreal Forest to find…and kill a tiger. The tiger in question killed famed hunter Vladimir Markov and the remains left behind, indicate one of the most brutal killings ever documented. As his team hunts the killer, it becomes obvious that the tiger had a motive for killing Markov and that it wasn’t the typical “caught by surprise” killing that he first suspected.

This is a fascinating account of a tiger with a motive. To think that a tiger could remember a slight from days before and then seek out and kill the person who slighted him is both impressive and scary. Cats in general can hold a grudge and apparently big cats are no different. Vaillant, a journalist by trade does a marvelous job of creating suspense where there is little to work with. The pacing is very much like Moby Dick in that the “hunt” is supremely fascinating but the facts that fill the spaces in between? Not so much. This meant that I alternated between wonder and boredom more times than I could count and after 300 pages of it, I grew a bit tired of the pattern.

However, Vaillant does an excellent job of getting into the tiger’s head and the irony of a tiger preservationist hunting a tiger was enough to hold my interest. Although it dragged a bit on paper, the audio version was more exciting and if the movie ever moves out of the development stage, I think it will make a riveting film. Rumor has it that Brad Pitt is attached to the movie so that might entice moviegoers to see it.

Overall, non-fiction lovers will eat this one up and although the slow parts stood out for me, I couldn’t wait to get back to the tiger and that’s saying something.

Source: Borrowed
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

The Elephant Vanishes (stories)
By Haruki Murakami
(Vintage, Paperback, 9780679750536, June 1994, 336pp.)

The Short of It:

Endlessly amusing.

The Rest of It:

I think this is the third short story collection that I’ve read by Murakami and it might be one of his tamest. These stories are a bit longer than the ones I’ve read in the past. Some of them almost had a novella feel to them, but what they all share is that these are normal folks doing or experiencing very strange things.

In one story, a women goes about her life without sleeping and she is perfectly fine with it. In another, TV People come and go delivering large TV screens to a man’s home and office, without anyone noticing them except him. My favorite one had to do with a man who has decided to mow his last lawn. I should also mention that one of the stories in this collection was the basis for The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, one of his more popular novels.

This is a great collection to read if you want to escape from the day-to-day. I read it very slowly, right before bed over the course of several months and it never failed to lull me into a deep sense of relaxation. Something about Murakami’s writing leaves me utterly calm and at peace with the world. He has a way of taking “normal” and twisting it just enough to make it interesting. Some of his stuff can be overly sexual in nature but this collection was not. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Source: Borrowed
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

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