Audiobook Review: Beloved by Toni Morrison

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Author: Toni Morrison
Publisher:Books on Tape
Narrator: Toni Morrison
Duration: 12 hours 3 minutes
Summary (taken from Goodreads)

Staring unflinchingly into the abyss of slavery, this spellbinding novel transforms history into a story as powerful as Exodus and as intimate as a lullaby. Sethe, its protagonist, was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. She has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe's new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved. Filled with bitter poetry and suspense as taut as a rope, Beloved is a towering achievement by Nobel Prize laureate Toni Morrison.

Overall Rating: 3/5

Let me start off by saying that this book is beautifully and powerfully written. It is one of the best character studies I have ever read -- there's a reason why this book has won a Pulitzer. Honestly, there is no criticism I can give this book. The characters are beautiful, and real. The way in which this story is told is eerie and haunting and perfectly fitting for the topic. It's a book that I think everyone should read (or at least try to read) within their lifetime.

However,while it is brilliant, it is not the type of story that interests me. It is completely character-driven with very little plot. There was nothing for me to grab onto. While the characters are perfectly depicted, I wasn't able to fall in love with them. Now, this may be because I listened to the audiobook before I read it in print (which I am planning on doing, to give the book a fair chance). I am easily distracted and I think that reading such a slow-moving, detailed story will be much better than hearing it.

It is told at a very slow pace, and I found myself drifting during parts of it. However, I think that if you've already read the book, the audiobook is definitely worth it. There is nothing like hearing the author tell the story herself (or himself), with pauses and emphases exactly where the author intended. Toni Morrison doesn't have a great range of voices (she is, after all, a writer and not a narrator by trade), but it's hardly necessary for this book, since each character is so distinct and unique, their identity shows through the words.

Book Review: The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht

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Title: The Tiger's Wife
Author: Tea Obreht
Publisher: Random House
Hardcover: 338 pages
Summary: (taken from Goodreads)

Natalia Stefanovi, a doctor living (and, in between suspensions, practicing) in an unnamed country that's a ringer for Obreht's native Croatia, crosses the border in search of answers about the death of her beloved grandfather, who raised her on tales from the village he grew up in, and where, following German bombardment in 1941, a tiger escaped from the zoo in a nearby city and befriended a mysterious deaf-mute woman. The evolving story of the tiger's wife, as the deaf-mute becomes known, forms one of three strands that sustain the novel, the other two being Natalia's efforts to care for orphans and a wayward family who, to lift a curse, are searching for the bones of a long-dead relative; and several of her grandfather's stories about Gavran Gailé, the deathless man, whose appearances coincide with catastrophe and who may hold the key to all the stories that ensnare Natalia.

Overall Rating: 3/5

The Tiger's Wife is about Natalia, a doctor whose grandfather has just died. While immunizing and caring for orphans, Natalia goes through the stories of her grandfather's past, taking the reader on a journey through one man's life. This novel largely deals with the themes of death and superstition and how they intertwine.

I liked the way this novel is told. There is a huge difference between past and present. Natalia is working with people who live in a rural setting; they don't have much in the way of technology or city-life, so superstition and folk tales control their lives. However, while the present is filled with superstition, the past turns that superstition into a sort of magical realism. In the stories about her grandfather's past, the superstitions and fables become real. This, I think, perfectly represents our relationship with the past. We can never perfectly remember past events, and when we're hearing them second-hand, especially decades after they've happened, they take on a vague, magical quality that makes them very distant and surreal.

I would have liked more of an actual plot, however. Although the book is titled after a death-mute woman from her grandfather's home village who tames a tiger, there was nothing to really connect that to Natalia's story. That disappointed me. For much of this book, there was nothing to really connect the past to the present, and I would have liked that closure. Instead of a novel, this read more like a short story cycle. Different characters have their different stories, but the many of the connections are loose at best, and The Tiger's Wife is largely a collection of stories form the past. A short story cycle would have worked better, because while a theme (death) connected it all together, a concrete plot did not, and I expect a solid plot from a novel. 

Despite that, the writing is lovely, and I enjoyed reading it. The detailed descriptions offset the magical qualities of the stories, and I loved how Obreht spent her time giving each character a complex backstory, making them come to life and enriching each story.

This is a great debut novel that intelligently deals with complex themes and ideas. I am looking forward to see what Obreht will come out with next.

*I received a copy from Goodreads First Reads in exchange for my honest review.*