Moon Tiger

OK, I have two more days left of my book challenge and I think that gives me, or should give me at least, enough time to finish one more book. So yeah, I FAILED. But in my defence, it IS the summer holidays and I have five more days of it left. So get off my back.

I wouldn't have read as much though if it wasn't for this stupid, totally do-able of course if it wasn't for the given circumstances, but I'll call it stupid now, challenge. So I'm grateful that I took it up.

Shut up, Faidhi. 

Anyways, Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively. 

This is definitely not a book I can appreciate in the span of three days. The narrative changes from first to third person so fast, and the time setting changes too. One has to be very patient, or at least very educated I guess, to fully appreciate this. I am of course, lacking of both. My knowledge of literature encompasses only that which I have read, and a little bit of high school KOMSAS, which is next to nothing out of the SPM world. My knowledge of history, on the other hand, is slightly more than your average twenty one year old, I think, but only very slightly. So armed with all this, I was able to tolerate 208 pages of this novel within the LIMITED days that I had. Sure, I knew I was losing the book challenge but that doesn't mean I'm giving up before the EXACT date. I am a Hufflepuff for a reason you know. I soldiered on, trying hard to finish this book as fast as I can, although I knew it pretty much killed a lot of the story for me.

There were times when some of the passages passed like a trance for me, to be honest. My eyes and occipital lobe (that's doctor talk right there, people!) were reading for me, but the rest of my brain didn't work so well with them, I didn't understand anything. So thanks a lot for the pressure, Faidhi.

Observe:

“The place didn't look the same but it felt the same; sensations clutched and transformed me. I stood outside some concrete and plate-glass tower-block, picked a handful of eucalyptus leaves from a branch, crushed them in my hand, smelt, and tears came to my eyes. Sixty-seven-year-old Claudia, on a pavement awash with packaged American matrons, crying not in grief but in wonder that nothing is ever lost, that everything can be retrieved, that a lifetime is not linear but instant. That, inside the head, everything happens at once.”

Very beautifully written, no?

The story is about a dying woman, recollecting her memories and slowly but surely unravelling everything, her history, to the reader. 

I hate the protagonist. But I realized what a wonderful book this truly is when my heart broke for her in the end. It really is a remarkably written book, perfect for reading for days on end with a cup of warm tea during the monsoon season. You just have to stopf for a a while when reading a paragraph sometimes. It could be just me of course, to each his own. But read the book. It kind of reminds me of Life of Pi. The beginning was just so daunting for me to read but once all the sea-action started, I truly felt all the background was worth it. 

It feels like the monsoon season right now in Terengganu, by the way. It rains like every night! Beautiful. I've missed Terengganu rain for so long :)