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Winner of the Man Booker Prize Penelope Lively won Britain's prestigious Booker Prize for this deeply moving, elegantly structured novel. Elderly, uncompromising Claudia Hampton lies in a London hospital bed with memories of life fluttering through her fading consciousness. An author of popular history, Claudia proclaims she's carrying out her last project: a history of the world. This history turns out to be a mosaic of her life, her own story tangled with those of her brother, her lover and father of her daughter, and the center of her life, Tom, her one great love found and lost in war-torn Egypt. Always the independent woman, often with contentious relationships, Claudia's personal history is complex and fascinating. As people visit Claudia, they shake and twist the mosaic, changing speed, movement, and voice, to reveal themselves and Claudia's impact on their world.… (more)
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Claudia is not an entirely sympathetic protagonist and that is part of Lively's point. Claudia herself names her own ambition and striving as key players in the disappointment of her life. But, on a larger level, the vicissitudes of fate or luck, the time into which one is born, the context of place in which one finds oneself -- all determines the path of one's life and there is only so much truth to the absurd notion that "destiny is what one makes of it."
"But no one likes the idea of chance, so they play games with language and talk about miracles instead." The power of language and the role it plays in defining truth, creating meaning: this is also a theme throughout this novel. And of course there is love. Love, a word that is "overstretched" and "cannot be made to do service for so many different things -- love of children , love of friends, love of God, carnal love and cupidity and saintliness."
My library copy of Moon Tiger is littered with post-it flags but there is no way to fully capture the scope of the novel's emotional field. I experienced brief moments of boredom but it's the joy that I will remember.
Claudia Hampton, 76-year-old English woman, historian, and war correspondent, is terminally ill. Fading
As Claudia’s life plays out against contemporary history, I found myself fascinated with her relationships. Her brother, Gordon, is, by turns, best friend, rival, and even lover. Tom, the English captain stationed in Cairo, her one true love – alas, great loves and war make tragic history. Later there is Jasper, a well connected young man and on-and-off lover, with whom Claudia has a turbulent relationship, and her only child. There’s Lazlo, too, the sensitive Hungarian college student, and something of a surrogate son. And Lisa, always a disappointment to her mother: Claudia looking for her own alter ego in her daughter, and Lisa looking for something else entirely. Of her relationship with her brother in their youth, Claudia recollects:
"Incest is closely related to narcissism. When Gordon and I were at our most self-conscious – afire with sexuality and egotism of late adolescence – we looked at one another and saw ourselves translated … We confronted each other like mirrors, flinging back reflections in endless recession. We spoke to each other in code. Other people became, for a while, for a couple of contemptuous years, a proletariat. We were an aristocracy of two." (Ch 11)
Lively is impressive in Moon Tiger. Not only does the narrative move back and forth in time, sometimes from sentence to sentence, but it is narrated from multiple points of view, all without missing a beat. I’m left pondering whether who we are dictates the course of history, or whether history determines who we are – it’s both I suspect, though I’m not sure in what measure. And Lively’s language is so beautiful. The novel is full of sentences which call on all of the senses to participate: "The smoke that Claudia exhales mingles with the yellow shafts of sunlight and hangs there, a soupy churning density in the clean air of the wood." (Ch 4)
Highly recommended.
Claudia initially seemed cold and aloof, and I was worried we were heading towards the "career woman as bitch" stereotype. Then Penelope Lively took me deep inside Claudia, revealing her inner core, and the private, unforgettable love that changed her life. Suddenly, the other events in Claudia's life were cast in a far different light. This was a woman in extreme emotional pain, made all the worse by her unwillingness to share her feelings with anyone else. She simply could not appear vulnerable, and so kept her young adult experiences to herself for her entire life.
Moon Tiger is a moving, rich character study which also has me considering how to live life in such a way as to have no regrets at the end.
She recounts her life from childhood, her experiences as a war reporter in Egypt, the many
This is a beautiful read and I loved the main character of Claudia. Winner of the Booker prize in 1987 .
Even if she had an interesting life (which Claudia did indeed), the premise is still bo-ring! But the catch is that one doesn’t read Moon Tiger for the story. Instead, one reads it
I didn’t fully embrace the book, however. About a third of the way through, Claudia shares her memories of her time in Egypt as a journalist during WWII. This is the pivotal point in her life, but after 30 pages of it, I put Moon Tiger aside and read three other books. When I picked it up, I went back to where Lively had lost me and started again. Part of it might be that I’ve read my fill of WWII stories, but even knowing this section was important, I didn’t enjoy the book again until she went back to life in Europe. I also found her WWII lover’s diary at the end pretty boring. I trust this is just my aversion to WWII stories, and won’t have anything to do with other reader’s tastes. Despite finding the book uneven, I still think it was worthy of the Booker Prize in 1987.
Recommended for: fiction writers, who need to study her point of view techniques, literature lovers and people who want to read the Booker Prize winners, and readers who like non-linear, subtle novels. I look forward to reading more from Penelope Lively.
Claudia is the story. She narrates it, mostly, and is telling it from her rest home bed. Alongside her telling her history of the
She also has a personal story to tell, one of the usual trials and tribulations of life and love. And also some very surprising and moving events which end up shaping her as a person, more than even she would like to admit. Through being a war correspondent in Cairo, her close relationship with her brother, her casual marriage and her disdain for the uninteresting we learn enough about Claudia to figure out that she is eventually thoroughly likeable. And all written so cleverly.
Lively has a distinctive writing style here, in that other characters throw in their perspective in a scene where the voice is all Claudia. A snippet here and there from someone elses voice shows so neatly how it is in life- when what happens is in the eye of the beholder.
I am so glad I put in the time early on to read large-ish sections at a time. It really kept things moving and set me up for the page-turning second half.
The characters in Moon Tiger were not well developed and I found them difficult to like , or even have much of a sense of them. Claudia, the main character, around whom everyone seems to rotate, struck me as a narcissist . Claudia says about herself at about 80 % into my kindle, " The life of an attractive woman is different from a plain one....when I was eight years old I realized I was pretty - from that moment onwards a course was set. Intelligence made me one kind of being; intelligence allied with good looks made me another. " She seems to judge everyone that she meets on that basis, and none measures up to Claudia, save perhaps her lover, Thomas and her brother Gordon. Claudia resents her brother's wife , Sylvia, essentially on the basis that she is plain and plump and also not deemed intelligent by Claudia. I suppose it is possible Claudia might have resented any wife of her brothers, due to Claudia's relationship with her brother. Jasper, her on and off lover, comes and goes as Claudia wishes or needs him. Their daughter, Lisa, is mainly an inconvenience to Claudia, and Lisa is quickly shipped away to live with her grandmothers. Thomas, her one "true love", well, suffice it to say that love and war often lead to tragedy. I have such a negative opinion of Claudia that I have trouble thinking that any relationship that she had could last for any amount of time.
I felt that Lively could have fleshed out the the characters so that a reader could feel some sort of connection or sympathy to a character, but Lively failed to do that. I wished I could have know Claudia better, so as to understand her , as well as the rest of the characters, but it was not to be.
Lively did a wonderful job with shifting time, narrators, and her use of language is beautiful. But for me, I was left with a feeling of shallow impressions of both the characters and the places that Claudia interacted with. On the plus side, I am keen to read Lively's memoir, Dancing Fish and Ammonites: A Memoir. Perhaps that will give me more insight into [Moon Tiger] . I hope so!
3.5 stars
Claudia is not necessarily a likable woman. I wondered
"Shall it or shall it not be linear history? I've always thought a kaleidoscope view might be an interesting heresy. Shake the tube and see what comes out. Chronology irritates me. There is no chronology inside my head. I am composed of a myriad Claudias who spin and mix and part like sparks of sunlight on water." (page 2--Yup, smitten already, I was!)
"If feminism had been around then I'd have taken it up, I suppose; it would have needed me." (page 14--Did I mention she was arrogant?)
We will win the war, says her true love. "Not because the Lord's intervention or because justice will prevail but because in the last resort we have greater resources. Wars have little to do with justice. Or valor or sacrifice or the other things traditionally associated with them...War has been much misrepresented, believe me. It's had disgracefully good press." (page 102)
And one from Gordon for good measure: " 'Mad opportunists,' says Gordon. 'Tito. Napoleon. That's not real history. History is the grey stuff. Products. Systems of government. Climates of opinion. It moves slowly. That's why you get impatient with it. You look for spectacle.' " (page 186)
Definitely recommended! Four stars.
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.
Claudia's ambitions drive her to recount a history of the world and in doing so she will also share with us the story of her life. It is a story of the events that have shaped her into the
This Man Booker Prize winner is undoubtably a beautiful piece of writing. It is neither rushed nor frivolous. It is methodical, contemplative, intentional, and Lively demonstrates her gift of poetic expression with a deft hand. My only struggle? For all the beautiful writing and my awe of her talent, I just couldn't connect with Claudia, or any of the characters for that matter. I always felt like they were just outside my reach, a bit standoffish, and ultimately unconnected. Ambivalence towards the character in a story is death to a reader. I will most likely seek out other Lively books because she is a talented writer and hopefully this was just a one time issue and not a theme I will come across with all her books. Recommended for the sheer force of her writing.
Claudia Hampton
Although I struggled to get along with Claudia at first, upon reflection I get the feeling that Lively has quite deliberately created a woman who the reader isn't necessarily going to warm to right away. Why, after all, should we always been indulged like children and feel comfortable with every character we encounter? As a professional (albeit controversial) historian and war correspondent, she is a strong, opinionated, compelling character whose ramblings betray some intriguing points of view. On the other hand, I found her to be obnoxious, arrogant, self-centered, cold and superior, meaning that I spent the first few chapters wondering exactly why I should care about her life at all!
That aside, Lively did a fairly good job at crawling back some of my compassion, although her (almost) mother-like relationship with Lazlo didn't quite do it, her passionate relationship with Tom, an officer fighting out in the desert in Egypt during WWII, certainly did. In this short portion of the book we could almost be reading the internal thoughts of a completely different woman; soft, loving and refreshingly vulnerable.
It is very difficult to really adore a book when you can't completely sympathise with characters or situations (e.g. I found her relationship with her brother Gordan to be a little disturbing, you'll have to read the book to learn more!) but I do relish a challenge and I do admire strong female characters. Do persevere with this book. It is very well-written, quite compelling and does create a bit of conflict in your mind. And if you persevere for just one thing, stick it out for the end. The final chapter contains some of the most beautiful and poignant passages I have read over the past couple of years. Claudia's honest approach to both her situation and the legacy she will leave behind is both admirable and thought-provoking.
The majority of the novel recounts Claudia's experiences as a journalist in Egypt during World War II, where she engages in a fondly-remembered romance with a soldier named Tom. With the exception of the unusually close bond she shares with her brother Gorden, most of the other events and interactions in Claudia's life--however exciting and life-altering--pale in comparison to her love for Tom. Her relationship with her daughter, Lisa, is strained, probably because two of Claudia's most admirable traits--professional ambition and wanderlust--result in frequent absences from the child's life. Although her relationship with Jasper, Lisa's father, is amicable and provides one of the few constants in Claudia's life, it lacks the intensity she feels with Tom. As her life draws to an end, Claudia considers the separateness of the past and present, while not discounting the former's everlasting influence.
While the temporal and narrative shifts are initially confusing, they work well within the greater concept of the novel, and it is interesting to watch Claudia's life unfold from the "kaleidoscopic" view. Occasionally, a scene narrated by Claudia will then be told in the third person, with slightly different details, adhering to the notion that history is never free of fiction. Lively's narrator is witty and amusing, albeit distant and abrasive to those around her. She's seldom apologetic or regretful which, strangely, seems to make her more likable. Claudia does not try to drive people away for the sake of being icy or vindictive, it is simply part of her nature to give precedence to her own pursuits. (As I was reading, Katharine Hepburn came to mind. Claudia would have been right at home in Hepburn's repertoire of unconventional, fiercely independent wartime heroines.)
Claudia would appear to be a difficult character on the surface, with the ability to be cruel and unthinking, but she is delightful. She tells the two love stories of her life with sparse language, but this does not stop the emotion coming through.
Other reviews contain much that I would agree with, so I just wanted to write that this book contains one of my favourite quotes. A key character's thoughts on their impending demise: "One resents being axed from the narrative, apart from anything else. I'd have liked to know the outcome." I feel a similar frustration at knowing that I won't be around to see what happens next.
I enjoyed this novel very much, although Claudia was hard to sympathize with (except in the heart-breaking Tom sections). Interesting about the war in Egypt and the difference between history as it is experienced and as it is recorded.
Soaring, searing, essential.
According to her website, Penelope was born in Cairo, Egypt. She came to England at the age of twelve and went to boarding school in Sussex. She subsequently read Modern History at St. Anne's College, Oxford. Lively now has six grandchildren and lives in London. She has written 20 novels along with several works of non-fiction and a whole shelf of children’s books.
Moon Tiger is the story of Claudia Hampton, who lies in a bed and passes in and out of consciousness. She has written historical works and decides she will write a history of the world. The novel alternates between lucid moments, plans for the history, and remembering her visits to those places. When doctors, nurses, her daughter, Lisa, or her sister-in-law, Sylvia, stop by for visits, she chats a bit but then falls asleep. She delineates the chapters of her book, but she always slides toward recalling visits to those places while a correspondent during World War II. Interestingly enough, these “out-of-consciousness” moments shift between first and third person accounts. The “History of the World” slowly devolves into a “History of Claudia.”
I found these changes in point of view a bit disconcerting at first, but once I became accustomed to them, the novel carried me along to Egypt. From that point on, I could hardly put it down.
Claudia has some disdain for Sylvia. Lively writes, “She has given little trouble. She has devoted herself to children and houses. A nice, old-fashioned girl, Mother called her, at their third meeting, seeing quite correctly through the superficial disguise of pink fingernails, swirling New Look skirts and a cloud of Mitsouko cologne spray. There was a proper wedding, which Mother loved, with arum lilies, little bridesmaids and a marquee on the lawn of Sylvia’s parents’ home at Farnham. I declined to be matron of honour and Gordon got rather drunk at the reception. They spent their honeymoon in Spain and Sylvia settled down to live, as she thought, happily ever after in North Oxford” (23). I detected a note of jealousy, because Claudia and Gordon were rather close.
So, I have another check mark on my journey through the Man Booker Prize Novels, and I continue to believe this prize represents the best literary fiction. Alice Hoffman was correct. Penelope Lively is most definitely under-appreciated, and Moon Tiger is a great example of her work. I have one more of her novels, and then … but you know what I am going to say. 5 stars
--Jim 3/7/14