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2edwinbcn
Moon tiger
Finished reading: 30 August 2015
Moon tiger is a brilliant novel by the award-winning author Penelope Lively. In 1987, she was awarded the Booker Prize for her novel Moon tiger. Penelope Lively was born in Cairo, Egypt and spent her early youth, including the years of the Second World War there, from 1933 to 1945. She recorded her early memories of life in Cairo and Alexandria in her memoir, Oleander, Jacaranda. A childhood perceived (1994). Moon tiger is also describes that period in Egypt, but by a protagonist who is at least 20 years older.
In Moon tiger, Claudia Hampton, a historian, passing in and out of consciousness remembers her life and times. The narrative is interspersed with fragments of a book about the history of the world, which Hampton had been working on. Thus, the Second World War is fought against the setting of ancient history. This perception is stronger in the mind. As E.M. Forster in Aspects of the novel described the authors congregating, imagining: the English novelists as seated together in a room, a circular room, a sort of British Museum reading-room – all writing their novels simultaneously. Likewise, Claudia Hampton's perception of history is circular, rather than linear: she cannot "write chronologically of Egypt" (p. 80) In Claudia's mind everything is there, simultaneously.
This motive is worked out throughout the novel, along the lines of Claudia's life. Her love for Tom, their still-born child, her marriage marriage with Jasper and her daughter Lisa. As she passes back and forth into consciousness, she passes back and forth into episodes of history, world history as well as her life history, which coincide in Egypt, as later, personal and world history intersect in the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. The idea of the circularity of history is reflected in the circular shape of the "moon tiger", the slowly burning coil.
Moon tiger is a beautifully conceived novel, written in a fine style, close to the prose style of Iris Murdoch. The main idea of the circular, or instantaneous nature of history is exquisite, and in making the main character in the novel a historian, the novel offers ample material for the reader to ponder the relation and differences between time and history.
Other books I have read by Penelope Lively:
Oleander, Jacaranda. A childhood perceived
Going back
Next to nature, art
Finished reading: 30 August 2015
Moon tiger is a brilliant novel by the award-winning author Penelope Lively. In 1987, she was awarded the Booker Prize for her novel Moon tiger. Penelope Lively was born in Cairo, Egypt and spent her early youth, including the years of the Second World War there, from 1933 to 1945. She recorded her early memories of life in Cairo and Alexandria in her memoir, Oleander, Jacaranda. A childhood perceived (1994). Moon tiger is also describes that period in Egypt, but by a protagonist who is at least 20 years older.
In Moon tiger, Claudia Hampton, a historian, passing in and out of consciousness remembers her life and times. The narrative is interspersed with fragments of a book about the history of the world, which Hampton had been working on. Thus, the Second World War is fought against the setting of ancient history. This perception is stronger in the mind. As E.M. Forster in Aspects of the novel described the authors congregating, imagining: the English novelists as seated together in a room, a circular room, a sort of British Museum reading-room – all writing their novels simultaneously. Likewise, Claudia Hampton's perception of history is circular, rather than linear: she cannot "write chronologically of Egypt" (p. 80) In Claudia's mind everything is there, simultaneously.
This motive is worked out throughout the novel, along the lines of Claudia's life. Her love for Tom, their still-born child, her marriage marriage with Jasper and her daughter Lisa. As she passes back and forth into consciousness, she passes back and forth into episodes of history, world history as well as her life history, which coincide in Egypt, as later, personal and world history intersect in the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. The idea of the circularity of history is reflected in the circular shape of the "moon tiger", the slowly burning coil.
Moon tiger is a beautifully conceived novel, written in a fine style, close to the prose style of Iris Murdoch. The main idea of the circular, or instantaneous nature of history is exquisite, and in making the main character in the novel a historian, the novel offers ample material for the reader to ponder the relation and differences between time and history.
Other books I have read by Penelope Lively:
Oleander, Jacaranda. A childhood perceived
Going back
Next to nature, art
3lauralkeet
Moon Tiger was my introduction to Penelope Lively, and I loved it too. More recently I read How it All Began and The Photograph, which were both quite good and earned Lively a spot on my Favorite Authors list.
