INCLUDES SPECIALLY COMMISSIONED LINE DRAWINGS Little Tiger is not like other tigers. Not content to spend her days alone, roaming the snow forests of Siberia hunting prey, she prefers instead to ponder the ways of the world. One day, eager to discover her own place within it, she sets out on a remarkable journey to discover the secret of life, and to meet the creatures she has heard most about: … most about: humans.
A moving tale of bravery and spirit, The Tiger and the Acrobat is a celebration of the power of friendship, and a testament to the courage it takes to be true to ourselves.
‘This book is a beaut.’ Cecelia Ahern, author of P.S. I Love You
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If you like the Alchemist, you might like this book. An ethereal fable about a female tiger growing up and the journey of life, it has some moments that are truly poignant while others kind of miss the mark for me. At its high points, this book is very touching and at least connected in regards to the day to day struggles, the doubts, and missing my mother and how that feels. When it misses the mark, it is either the lack of development (namely the relationship with the boy acrobat, who plays a tertiary role, if that) and the ending which didn’t surprise me as much as other parts of the book, which left me truly feeling deeply for the Tiger and her journey.
I think different people will gravitate towards different things. Some people will connect fully and others will roll their eyes. It’s a light read and I think some of the lessons are truly universal and beautifully worded but do think it loses steam towards the end. Regardless, a beautiful read with some truly inspiring moments and for me, very worthy of a re-read.
I mentioned that one of my reading goals for this year was to read more translated fiction. It has been so easy for me to stay on the reading highway of contemporary American Genre and Literary Fiction that’s hard to exit it for fiction outside of your borders.
The Tiger and Acrobat by Italian novelist Susanna Tamaro will make the third translated novel I read this year following The 6.41 to Paris by Jean-Philippe Blondel and The Girl on Paper by Guillame Musso. (Also, I read The Resurrection of Fredric DeBreu by England’s Alex Marsh. It was not translated but a lot of the novel took place in France.) I believe The Tiger and the Acrobat is my favorite translated fiction of the year by a hair over The 6.41 to Paris.
It is the story of Little Tiger, a female tiger that has an unusual ability to communicate like human beings. The novel covers her journey from cub to adult tiger and how she could never fit in with both the tiger and human communities. The story is written a parabolic style than a regular novel. However, Little Tiger’s journey captivated me especially how she interacted with human beings from an elderly man on the taiga that could speak in her language to the little acrobat she met after being caught for the circus and to the another man dressed in tattered clothes she met after escaping the circus.
Little Tiger learns about man’s nature after those interactions and this quote from early in the novel reveals the theme of the book:
“For us humans it is much more complicated to try to be profoundly human.”
I would write for Little Tiger it became more complicated to be profoundly tiger. I read The Tiger and the Acrobat in two sittings and glad to have come across such a wise and insightful book. I will admit that I thought about The Life of Pi by Yann Martel as I read this novel. However, I like Tamaro’s novel a lot more.