Der Atem der Welt

by Carol Birch, Christel Dormagen (Translator)

Jaffy Brown wächst in ärmlichen Verhältnissen auf: Londons Docklands im Jahr 1857 stinken nach Moder und Unrat, sind bevölkert von Matrosen und Huren. Eines Tages begegnet Jaffy einem aus einer Menagerie entlaufenen Tiger, einem herrlichen Geschöpf auf geschmeidigen Pfoten. Eine Begegnung, die ihn in eine fremde, verheißungsvolle Welt voll exotischer Schönheit, wilder Tiere und wundersamer Geschöpfe versetzt. Und die in Jaffy Sehnsucht nach der Weite des Meeres weckt: Mit seinem besten Freund Tim heuert er auf einem Walfänger an, der sie auf eine abenteuerliche Reise führt, tief hinein in die Stürme des Indischen Ozeans. Und schließlich an die Grenzen der Welt und ihres Menschseins.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Adventure, Historical, Book Club, Literary Fiction, Fantasy

393 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2011

About the author

Carol Birch is the author of eleven previous novels, including Turn Again Home, which was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize, and Jamrach’s Menagerie, which was a Man Booker Prize finalist and long-listed for the Orange Prize for Fiction and the London Book Award.

Reviews

[Hannah Greendale (Hello, Bookworm) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh my word… that was amazing. 🐯

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"The tiger made me. When my path and his crossed, everything changed."

Eight-year-old Jaffy Brown's story begins in a crowded market where he encounters an escaped tiger and reaches out to pet it. The tiger’s owner is a famed importer of strange creatures named Charles Jamrach who then takes Jaffy into his employment.

Jaffy works in Jamrach’s exotic menagerie alongside a handsome boy named Tim who teeters on the edge of being Jaffy’s friend and his rival. Tim also has a beautiful twin sister named Ishbel who holds a special place in Jaffy’s heart.

Jaffy and Tim are teenagers when rumors surface of a dragon living on an island in the Dutch East Indies. So Jamrach recruits Jaffy and Tim to capture the fabled dragon.

The boys set off on a whaling ship, embarking on a journey that turns out to be one of the grandest sea faring adventures I’ve ever read. This reading experience was further enhanced by the fact that the audiobook is narrated by Steve West (who also narrated Strange the Dreamer).

Carol Birch's writing style is so robust and lyrical that I felt transported to every bustling market, creaking ship, and humid island she describes in this book. And while there were sometimes too many men on the ships for me to keep track of, the story's central characters were always firmly in my mind. Hearing their story unfold was one of the greatest highlights of my year.

Highly recommend this book for everyone (especially the audiobook)!

[Ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received my copy from Bookhugger's Real Readers programme and the first thing to note is that the cover is absolutely stunning. The second thing is that the opening paragraph is one of the most enticing I have ever read. Unfortunately, after such a promising first impression, it falls a little flat.

It's definitely an adventure novel, but this creates some odd strengths and weaknesses. I would disagree with the negative reviews which found it difficult to read. It's written in quite a compelling fashion and I never felt the urge to stop reading and pick something else up instead. It's very easy to get through and quite a quick read for its size. Where the problem arises, however, is that it's very much a case of "this happens, then this happens, then this happens" which leaves very little chance to satifyingly develop the characters.

A lot of reviews praise the emotion and depth of the novel whereas I found the characters to be quite thin and often struggled, or just didn't care, who was who on the ship. Names and actions often blurred or seemed inconsequential and the major characters seemed rather dull, with the exception of the strong, willful, Ishbel, who unfortunately is absent for most of the book, and Jamrach himself, of whom we learn very little. The others seem mostly like creations for events to happen to rather than complex, functioning human beings.

Where the book does shine though is in its descriptions of places. London especially feels very much alive and encapsulates the filth and magic of the city. The islands and ocean feel fresh, alien, and full of wonder. Jamrach's yard feels both fantastic and tragic. Arguably the places become the characters the people fail to be, with lives and mystery beyond the words on the page.

Despite my criticisms, there's something very endearing about this novel. Yes, it's quite dull; yes, the characters are underdeveloped, but I feel really bad for not liking the book more than I did. There's something there, whether it's the author's underlying skill, the appeal of adventure, or how close it comes to being good. It's a shame it didn't quite fulfill its potential, but there's enjoyment to be had here and I'd definitely consider reading more by Carol Birch in the future.

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's very clever how this book flutters on the brink of being a fantasy novel and yet has as its inspiration real life events. Also how dark it is at times and yet also magical and life-affirming. It begins with our narrator patting the nose of an escaped tiger. The owner of the tiger rescues him and employs him at his menagerie. He later sets sail in a whale boat to capture and bring back a dragon rumoured to inhabit a distant land. Completely by chance I found myself reading simultaneously two novels that deal with shipwreck and cannibalism - Dark Water is the other. This was a great read, very original in some of its aspects and beautifully written. Now eager to read another of her novels.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a really interesting read. It starts out almost like a Dickens novel- except more colorful. (Young, impoverished boy in Victorian London falls in with wild characters, goes on adventures, etc.) But it took a dreadfully dark turn that shocked the hell out of me, and left me disturbed for days. So be prepared for that—this is much more than the average coming of age adventure story. In retrospect there were hints of a wild, dark vein earlier in the story, I just wasn’t prepared for HOW dark the novel was going to go.

I think my favorite part of the novel was the rocky friendship between Jaffy and Tim, simply because it seemed so honest and complicated and not idealized at all. Tim is a great character- an utter little shit as a child (but still charming, somehow) and complex and enigmatic as a young man. He occasionally teases Jaffy, but there are other times when he is achingly sweet— like the scene in the ship where he holds Jaffy’s hand after a bad dream, and when he brings up the tiger story to give Jaffy the chance to earn the respect of others on the ship. Jaffy’s feelings for Tim are equally complicated: he resents his teasing bitterly and is deeply jealous (both of Tim’s “golden beauty” and his close bond with his twin sister, who Jaffy is in love with in a heady, feverous, very teenage way) but he also seems very attached to and at times proud of Tim.

Wonderful historical fiction, extremely vivid and interesting and filled with great characters— but be prepared to follow them into some very dark places!

[Karen· · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not suitable for vegetarians.

Well, not for squeamish vegetarians.

Actually, no, scrub that. Not suitable for the squeamish full stop.

But I 'really liked' it, so. Not squeamish. (lovely word) And/or there are compensations for the ickiness. Yes; Jaffy's voice is a steal. Birch creates him and his world, conjures them up out of nothing and there is no sense of artifice, it plops smoothly into place alongside anything else you have read of 19th century London. Then he is wrenched away and of course we know it's all going to go disastrously, catastrophically, of course it will, but then that's what we want isn't it? To vicariously live out the horror - Dickens and Melville on a stick, and home again in time for tea. Adventure without the tears. That'll do me fine.

The origin of the story can be found here

[Debbie Zapata · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book at the library sale shelves. The cover attracted my attention first, and after reading the first paragraph I was hooked.

"I was born twice. First in a wooden room that jutted out over the black water of the Thames, and then again eight years later in the Highway, when the tiger took me in his mouth and everything truly began."

How could I resist finding out what happened next?!

A word of advice, though. I did not read the blurb on the book jacket when I bought the book. I did not read the GR blurb either, which I have just discovered quotes the cover blurb exactly. The trouble is, that blurb is pretty much a condensed version of the book. Because I dove in without knowing any of the details given in the blurb, I was surprised when dramatic events happened, and never knew until the very end how Jaffy's adventure would turn out. This made the book more dramatic. I mean, if you expect this that and the other to happen, where is the thrill of reading something for the first time? So don't read the blurbs, just read the book.

But be prepared for some gruesome passages and lots of detailed descriptions of throwing up. It is in many ways a dark and disgusting tale. The author recreates the living conditions of the Thames waterfront of the 1800's in gory detail. Before Jaffy meets his tiger he plays in a river that is practically all raw sewage, and when he is hired at the Menagerie of the title he loves the animal stench of the place because even in its rankness it smells better than the river.

With this author's help it is not hard to imagine oneself living back in 'the good old days'. And being thankful that at least some things are better these days.

I was captivated throughout much of the book, and I must say, the waterspout storm at sea passage was one of the most dramatic I have ever read. But somehow during the long slog after the storm, I lost focus and just wanted the excruciatingly detailed section that followed to be finished. Perhaps I was too intensely 'there' in the story and that is why I wanted out? All I know is that I was relieved when the end came, but was also disappointed in how it arrived.

Overall the book had its moments, but I don't think I would read more by this author.

[yvonnelesenundso · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Es ist ein guter Platz, einer, den ich am späten Abend mit meiner Pfeife aufsuche. Ich schaue dann in die Sterne und lasse mich von den Wellen forttragen, höre das Brüllen des Ozeans, das Donnern am Himmel, fühle die Dünung, höre die Stimmen der Dämonen der Tiefe, die alles übertönen mit ihrem Geheul. Auf die eine oder andere Weise, könnten Sie vermutlich sagen, habe jene Reise mich geformt. Ich wäre wohl Hilfsarbeiter und Handlanger geblieben. War das Ganze nur dafür da? Um aus mir den Mann zu machen, der ich jetzt bin? Ist Gott wahnsinnig? Läuft es darauf hinaus? Eingeklemmt zwischen einem wahnsinnigen Gott und einer erbarmungslosen Natur? Was für ein Scheißspiel. Ich passe nicht in die Welt der Normalen, in der die Menschen ihren alltäglichen Beschäftigungen nachgehen, sich pünktlich schlafen legen, pünktlich aufstehen, pünktlich zu Abend essen. Da möchte ich nicht hingehören. Manchmal sehne ich mich nach einer Mönchszelle, einer Höhle in einem Felsen, einem Plätzchen im Wald, damit meine Gedanken in alle Richtungen strömen können, wie das Wasser, wie das Meer. Zeit zum Schauen. Auf den Wellen. Steigen und fallen, der Atem der Welt."

[Allie Riley · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was torn between two and three stars for this. Perhaps it is more like 2.5. This book was a chore for me to read. I felt disappointed and that it ought to have been so much better. Maybe the problem was one of marketing: it is called "Jamrach's Menagerie" and yet the vast bulk of it is about a voyage to find a (presumably komodo) dragon.

For a book with such Dickensian ambition, the characters were remarkably lifeless. I felt that I should have identified with them more and been more drawn in. Yet I wasn't. Parts of the plot were horrible (the 65 days adrift after the storm, for example). They were also unoriginal.

I gather the writing has been praised. It is true that parts of it were very beautifully written. In other places, not so much. There were inconsistencies, too.. Why would a boy with little schooling, who wasn't sure where Peru was, know the phrase 'amniotic fluid'? Especially when in common parlance they are more often referred to as 'waters'.

In general, I thought that this novel had the potential to be much, much better. As a result I have judged it perhaps more harshly than I otherwise might have done. Not one to be recommended in my view, unfortunately.

[Felice · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jamrach's Menagerie is the most colorful, grimy, brutal, salty coming of age story you are likely to read. It's the story of Jaffy Brown a nineteenth century boy who comes fully loaded with all that the best urchins have to offer: abject poverty, a single parent, limitless optimism, no education but natural smarts and a love of the sea. Jaffy is part Pip, part Popeye, part Ishmael, part Steve Irwin and thanks to Birch all freshness and charm. He's our narrator in Jamrach's so it's good thing you want to spend time with him, to root for him.

Jaffy's life pre-Jamrach is all work and the cesspool atmosphere of London slums. His one bright light is his Mother. She seems barely older than Jaffy at the start of the novel and they are devoted to one another. Jaffy enters Jamarach's life through the jaws a tiger. One of my favorite moments in the book is when Birch describes this magnificent tiger through Jaffy's inexperienced eyes. Jamrach is an agent of procurement for the wild and exotic that fill wealthy,private Victorian zoos. He is Jaffy's Magwich, a mysterious benefactor who puts him on a path out of the slums. Through the menagerie business Jaffy gets teamed up with another boy, Tim who becomes his friend and rival and Dan Rymer the sailor and adventurer who becomes father and mentor to both boys on the voyage to catch a 'dragon' that is the crux of the novel.

Jaffy's hard knock life thus far takes a turn for the worse after he goes to sea. At this point the novel shifts gears a little. Jaffy's childhood as difficult as it was still had an innocence to it, as he approaches adulthood on board the Lysander the tone of the book becomes harsher, more adult too. The change is subtly done. It goes from an almost lightheartedly dangerous Dickensian tale of life on the streets populated with colorful characters to a more Joseph Conrad nature verses man while man verses man tale.

Birch does a magnificent job bringing nineteenth century London and a globe crossing ocean voyage to life. The sights, the smells, the struggle to survive all leap off the page at you. What could have been an endless dirge of squalor, gin, abuse and near death experiences instead become a brilliant tour of lives lived by wit and sheer determination to last just another day. These places: London slums, the deck of the Lysander, a deserted island these are not locations that bring out the hopeful dreamer or the rags to riches tale. Birch makes these stops the natural progression of Jaffy's life after his singular good luck in finding himself in the tiger's mouth.


Jamrach's Menagerie owes some of it's events to the real life sinking of the whaling ship The Essex in 1820 (which inspired Melville's Moby Dick) and in exploits of Charles Jamrach. Jamrach was a German born merchant who dealt in wild animals and whose escaped tiger in London carried off a small boy. There are other plot elements in the story that I won't detail but will have a vaguely familiar ring to them. This is not a criticism. Birch's use of a true facts and a few known legends only enhances the feeling of historical accuracy in Jaffy's story. She retells these moments within the larger plot with a vivid immediacy that makes Jamarach's a page turner as well as a graduate level course on how to write historical fiction.

[Lance Greenfield · Rating 4 out of 5]

The intensity, the deep feeling, the strong relationships, the joys, the horrors, the experiences, the adventures are all described so wonderfully by the author through the senses of Jaffy Brown in the first person, that I shall not even attempt to tell you about them. You need to read the book for yourself.

Short-listed for the Man Booker Prize in 2011, I cannot imagine how good the eventual winner must've been in the eyes of the judges to have beaten Jamarach's Menagerie.

Towards the end, I was beginning to think of alternative titles for the book. Jaffy's Oceans or The Long Voyage of Jaffy Brown came to mind, but I suppose that the title is appropriate, as it all started when eight year-old Jaf Brown stroked the nose of a Bengal tiger which had broken loose from Jemrach's Menagerie and he was carried off by the magnificent beast. This incident is based on fact. The rest of the story is mostly based on fiction.

I can't tell you the other fact without ruining the reading for you. But I'll tell you about one if the early events which told me that I was going to love this book.

On the day following the tiger incident, Mr Jamrach sent his "boy", Tim, round to find Jaffy and to buy him a raspberry puff. Jaffy had never sampled raspberry or cream or puff pastry in his eight years on Earth. The description of his happiness as he enjoys his first bite of this wonderful experience is guaranteed to make you enjoy it with him. How far from his previous life of scraping through the stinking sewers of Bermondsey could be this new joy?

There he [Tim] stood with his hands in his pockets and watched me eat the raspberry puff. The first bite was so bitterly sweet the corners if my mouth ached. So beautiful, a film of tears stung my eyes. Then the pain dispersed and there was only delight."

Tim eventually becomes Jaffy's very best friend, and that friendship has its ups and downs. Some of them are very severe. I suppose one could argue that Tim's sister, Ishbel, becomes Jaffy's best friend, but I am not about to enter a debate on the matter, because it doesn't really matter.

Be warned that there are some very moving, sad parts to this story. If you are not careful, you could end up joining melancholics anonymous before you're finished, but you should read it. You will not regret it.

[M.L. Rio · Rating 4 out of 5]

I finished Jamrach’s Menagerie several days ago (and I’ve read two other books in the meantime), but I’m still thinking about it.

Based in part on the true story of the whaleship Essex, it tells most of the life story of Jaffy Brown, a poor boy living in the Victorian hell-hole of Bermondsey until he inexplicably finds himself trapped in the mouth of an escaped tiger, belonging to one Mr. Charles Jamrach, the keeper of an exotic animal emporium on the colorful Ratcliffe Highway. Jamrach’s titular menagerie (though it has surprisingly little to do with the real meat of the story) takes the tale from the drab shite-brown backdrop of Bermondsey and thrusts its into a technicolor world of tropical birds, gators, wildcats and Tasmanian devils.

This taste of the ‘stuff of legends’ grows a little sharper when Jaff and his new friend Tim Linver are swept out to sea on the Lysander in search of a ‘dragon’ – which, if they can catch it, will be by far the most ambitious addition to Jamrach’s emporium. As they hop from one tropical island to the next the boys learn how to be sailors – and whalers – and hatch a plan to catch the ‘dragon’ once they reach the Azores.

I won’t ruin the story for you, but Tim, Jaff, and Dan (a surrogate father to both of them aboard the Lysander) do eventually encounter and catch a dragon, and with the monster aboard, life on the Lysander takes a turn for the worst, and eventually, disaster strikes.

Here is where the meat of the story lies. And this is what I mean about a peculiar narrative arc – up until this point in the novel (just a little over halfway), the capture of the dragon has been the main focus of the story, gilded with fanciful, whimsical accounts of the islands and life at sea. At the start of Chapter 10, the remaining crew is adrift, dragonless, and facing the all too real prospect of being indefinitely stranded on the open ocean.

The following hundred pages are slowly, quietly devastating.

The peculiar stillness of the open ocean is a harsh contrast to the previous pages’ bright, colorful sense of adventure, and that stark, sudden contrast is in part what makes what happens out in the whaleboats so unsettling. After the swashbuckling fantasy of the first 170 pages, the misery of the last 120 is crushingly real. And here is where Carol Birch truly excels – in chronicling the slowly increasing desperation of twelve men lost at sea, succumbing one by one to hunger, thirst, disease and madness, and forced to do unspeakable things in order to survive. Birch somehow manages, in the simple delivery of details – sometimes gross, but never gratuitous – to help the reader understand how Jaff and Tim and Dan all arrive at the climax of the story, which is bound to leave both the characters and reader heartbroken and permanently scarred.

The falling action is quiet and detached, and makes a cautious foray back into Jamrach’s colorful domain, but with a new-found sense of respect for the natural world.

This is the kind of book that leaves you feeling traumatized. It’s a brutal story gently written – which makes it ten times more tragic than it would have been had Birch been foolish enough to sensationalize it.

It’s not perfect, of course, but the catalog of flaws is short. Sometimes the story drags a little bit, generally when the Lysander is moving from one island to the next. A few incidents early in the story (Jaff’s being trapped in Jamrach’s shop for the night, for example) seem very important but are never addressed again. Despite being called ‘Jamrach’s Menagerie,’ Jamrach isn’t actually present for 90% of the book.

These are all minor complaints in the greater scheme of things. I can’t remember finishing a book and wanting to hug it so tightly in a long time. Jamrach’s Menagerie deserves to be read, but not by the faint of heart.

[Clifdisc · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. This book was not at all what I was expecting. Jamrach's Menagerie is an amazing, brutal piece of literature and one of the most harrowing things I've ever read.

The book starts in 1857 when Jaffy, an eight-year old London street urchin is picked up by an escaped tiger and carried to Jamrach's Menagerie. Jaffy is hired by Jamrach and years later, as a young man, sets out on a whaling ship with his best friend Tim in search of an exotic animal for a wealthy collector. The first half of the novel is beautifully written and seems to be setting the stage for a light picaresque or a romantic historical adventure but the second half of the novel is something else all together. My father, who recommended this book, had hinted that horrible things beset our protagonist as the novel goes on but, even armed with this knowledge, I was unprepared.

Without spoiling things I will say that the plot points of the second half of this novel were not unfamiliar to me but Birch's treatment of the material was unlike anything I've ever read. I mentioned that the first half of the novel was beautifully written. The second half is no less so. It's also brutally unflinching. Birch's merciless attention to detail builds dread to the point where one thinks it must surely break and then keeps going. The effect is horrifying and, as readers, we share Jaffy's journey beyond the limits of human endurance.

Needless to say, this book is incredibly moving. It's also a deeply profound and thoughtful book.

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is one of those books where I really would like to know what the judges for the Man Booker Prize were thinking when they picked it over 100 other contenders to be longlisted for the prize for 2011. That's why I read it.

Parts of it have promise. The story starts with this young boy, Jaffy, who lives at the very edge of the Thames river, described uncomfortably well, in a way only rivaled by Stephen King. (Good but not good! It puts you there, in a way you would never want to be!) Jaffy has a run-in with a tiger and ends up working for Jamrach's Menagerie, thus the title of the book. To me, these were the interesting bits, unfortunately, they only took the first quarter of the book or so.

Then the author sends Jaffy off on a whale ship, partly to hunt down a "dragon" for the menagerie. Even this was okay, if a bit overdone. Quest! Whaling! The adventure of the sea! *yawn* (I sense that the Booker judges are craving adventure?) The hunt for the dragon was interesting, but I was starting to lose interest. And when the people on the boats start eating each other to survive, I started skimming and flipping through pages, hoping for it to end. I really think that when you have to resort to cannibalism for shock value, you should put down the pen, or turn off the computer. So did the judges pick this for shock value? Any adventure that ends in you eating your best friend is more than a little unnecessary in my book. READER BEWARE.

[Marialyce · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a book of substance. It was not an easy book fro me to read, certainly not a book that was flighty and irrelevant. The characters were very real and the scences depicted while at times being totally awful were authentic. The descriptions of being on the boat made me feel the rolling waves, the crushing sea, and the sickness which I feel when I am on a boat. Perhaps this sense of sickness made it a difficult read for me.

However, it was written masterfully with an eye almost to the mystical and philosophical. In our main character, Jaf, we see a true coming of age character as he lives a life of wanderlust that eventually bears dire consequences, but in it all, it makes him the man he becomes. A free spirit is set loose in his adventures at sea and so shape his life, his mind, and his very being. His friends, his shipmates, all who are within his life become like mists as they drift and ebb and flow into his being. He will forever be part and parcel of them as they in him.

It was a very profound book and one I am sure I will be thinking about for quite some time. I am very happy that I was able to take this soul searching journey with Jaf and do feel that Ms Birch has crested a novel that will bear well the elements of time. One never know what they will do to preserve and defend life. I do believe this book allows us to see that choices not easily made, are those that stay with us forever.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked this one to read because it was on the longlist for the Booker Prize. I started it when I first took it home from the library, but I did not get into it then and thought I wouldn't read it. But, then I decided to try it again, and when I got a little further into it (I had not read very much the first time), I started to enjoy it.
Jaffy is a young, poor boy living in London in the 1850's. At age 9, when a tiger escapes its cage at a local animal store, he walks up to the cat and strokes its nose. He wondered what it felt like. He is promptly taken by the tiger in its mouth, until the owner of the store, Jamrach, arrives and gets the tiger to drop him, unharmed. He sees a young girl that day, slightly older than he is, and he ends up working with her twin brother, Tim, at Jamrach's store, his Menagerie, mostly cleaning up after the many different kinds of animals. When he turns 15, he and Tim go off to sea primarily to help Jamrach's supplier of animals to capture and return a fabled dragon that is believed to be living on an island in the area of Indonesia. The ship they travel on is a whaler, and they also spend time hunting whales. This turns into quite an adventure that is so well told and written that I was riveted and greatly enjoyed every moment of the book, even the portions that seemed a bit drawn out (but, that was intentional and part of the point).

[K.D. Absolutely · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was shortlisted for Man Booker Prize this year, 2011. It lost to Julian Barnes’ The Sense of an Ending. I am still to read a Barnes but I am sure I will like his works since my brother like his “Flaubert’s Parrot.” However, I wanted to have some lighter reads every December so I picked up this book first. I made the right decision: this book is light to read yet heavy in its artistry.

Think of Robert Louis Stevenson’s sea adventure masterpiece Treasure Island because a big part of this book is about adolescent boys with grownup men sailing afloat the Atlantic. Throw in some survival-of-the-fittest and awakening like Yann Martel’s Life of Pi. Then there’s the quest of finding, hunting and bringing home a legend: a mythical dragon. Opps, I have not read a novel about dragon yet. How I wish I’d read one so I can make this review more convincing ha ha. But anyway, think of a quest like King Arthur’s desire for the Holy Grail. There I go, I read something about that when I was a young boy. I have now analogy: Sir Galahad was to Jaffy Brown as King Arthur was to Jamrach.

But the big and very interesting element of this novel is its Dickensian flavor. Jaffy Brown was, at the start of the novel, a young impoverished boy loitering in the dirty streets of London during the Victorian period. Birch’s storytelling has that Dickensian touch of comedy, innocence and a bit of realism amidst the grime and hopelessness. I really liked that part when as a boy, Jaffy thought that the stink in his surroundings because he was living near the market, was how the world smelled. He only realized this when his family transferred to another street. I also liked how he fell in love with Ishbel. I was almost tempted to say that I thought that the story would have been more interesting if Birch gave her character a major part, say Ishbel came with the two boys, Jaffy and Tim aboard the creaky whaling ship, Lysander. However, on the second thought, I guess it would have been too predictable as there are already too many children’s and YA books now with a young lady as the main protagonist: Twilight has Bella, The Hunger Games has Katniss, Divergent has Trish, The Mortal Instruments has Clarissa. We need more of those adventure books with young boys in it. I say, bring back the glory of Robert Louis Stevenson’s with his Treasure Island and Kidnapped or Herman Melville with his Moby Dick and Billy Budd! Let’s have more of Percy Jackson, Todd Hewitt and Sam Temple.

So this is really the reason why I cheer for this book: a youngish adventure book with boys ruling over girls. It is for children and young adults to enjoy and probably entice them to read where the author drew her inspiration from: the classic works of Dickens, Stevenson and Melville. And who knows, probably Birch was also inspired by her contemporaries like Martell, Rioldan, Ness and Grant.

I am still to read a Barnes but I say that this book by Birch truly deserves to have been shortlisted in this year’s Man Booker.

[Susanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

From reading others' reviews, apparently I am one of the few people who didn't really like this book (I also discovered that Jamrach was an actual person). I found the first half of the novel boring. Yeah, Jaffy almost gets his head bitten off by a tiger, but after that it's all work at the menagerie and sailing, and somehow Birch didn't make it interesting enough to hold my attention. There were some isolated events where I thought, "Yes! Finally, the point is being made clear!" - but these were, again, isolated and ended up not leading to anything. The plot picked up some after the shipwreck roughly halfway through the story, because it was interesting to trace the deterioration of the surviving sailors as their meager supplies run down over the weeks, bringing ill health, insanity, a loss of hope for rescue, and death. Still, I felt like there was supposed to be some deeper message to Jaffy's story, and I missed it. You lucky readers who managed to find the message and enjoy this book, I envy you.

Review originally posted on my blog: http://susie-bookworm.blogspot.com/20...

[Lisabet Sarai · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I was eight years old... I know we came in time to the streets about Ratcliffe Highway, and there I met the tiger. Everything that came after followed from that. I believe in fate. Fall of the dice, drawing of the straw. It’s always been like that.”

Jaffy Brown is a poverty-stricken urchin living in the churning chaos of Victorian London, when his fate finds him. A tiger escapes from the establishment of Mr. Jamrach, who buys and sells exotic animals, and Jaffy is so enchanted by the magnificent beast strolling down Watney Street that he walks up and strokes its nose. The tiger casually attacks hm, but he escapes unharmed. Impressed by the boy’s courage as well as his obvious connection to animals, Jamrach offers Jaffy a job caring for his merchandise. And as Jaffy says, the rest of his life flows from this event. He meets Tim, another of Jamrach’s boys, and his frustrating but enticing sister Ishbel. Jaffy and Tim sign on to a whaling ship which has also been tasked with bringing back one of the dragons rumored to live on a remote island in the South China Sea. The expedition finds and captures one of these fearsome and disgusting creatures, only to have it escape. Some of the ship’s crew believe that the terrible storm that follows represents their punishment for stealing the beast from its home. In any case, the vessel sinks, leaving the crew to drift helplessly in their fragile whale boats and to die of hunger, thirst, disease or madness – one by one.

Jamrach’s Menagerie is a brilliantly written, unconventional tale of one man’s astounding journey. The author brings the Victorian period to life in all its color and filth. Her detailed description of the process of whaling is more vivid, and distressing, than anything Melville ever wrote. Meanwhile, the chapters devoted to Jaffy’s harrowing weeks lost at sea were so realistic and painful that I sometimes had to stop reading after half a dozen pages.

In the interest of avoiding spoilers, I won’t reveal any more of the plot, except to share the fact that Jaffy does survive and find something like a happy ending, but not an easy one. I deeply enjoyed this book, and the imaginative, adaptable, observant character of Jaffy – but from an emotional perspective I found it a difficult read.

This book doesn’t really fit neatly into any category or genre. It includes adventure, love, tragedy, philosophy, poetry, even a touch of magic. Carol Birch makes the Victorian era deeply real, and I gather than Jamrach actually existed, yet I wouldn’t call it an historical novel in the typical sense. It’s a story about the choices we make and their totally unanticipated consequences, about friendship and death, guilt and redemption, and throughout, about the birds and animals who share our planet.

Jamrach’s Menagerie is truly original. That’s only one of the reasons that I recommend it highly.

[Ollie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I believe everyone should give a book a chance. I believe it's fair if that chance consists of the first 100 pages - if by that stage the author has failed to engage the reader, I say it's OK to put down the book and walk away.

I gave Carol Birch the benefit of 137 pages but it was no good. Jamrach's Menagerie is the tale of a boy from Bermondsey, South London, who comes into contact with a man who sells exotic animals after one of his tiger's escapes and nearly swallows the boy whole. Soon he's friends with two other children who are part of Jamrach's business and, later, he's given the chance to join Jamrach's ship expedition across the globe to capture a living dragon in a remote island.

The problem is that Birch's suspense-free novel fails at interesting characters, descriptive settings or anything resembling a story. And it was long listed for the Orange Prize for Fiction! We live in desperate times if weak writing like this is hailed as worthwhile reading. For every scene that might be noteworthy (the tiger's escape, the boys' participation in a whale hunt) there are tons of pages only serving to pad and push the reader's attention away.

Apparently, there's some point in the novel where an eyebrow raising event takes place. So shocking/disturbing/surprising that it's probably the reason the Orange Prize panel paid attention. Do I care enough to read on until I find out what that is? Is it a horrifying scene involving one of the novel's children? A gruesome murder? A paragraph that miraculously sparkles with life? Nope, I just don't care.

[Meredith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Who here knows the story of the whale ship Essex? Anyone? Anyone? If not, for shame. You should read "Moby Dick," or at least watch The Discovery Channel more often. There was some foreshadowing in this story which made me believe that things were going to go very, very wrong, but they went so much wronger than I ever could have imagined...or something like that. For those of you who are familiar with the story of the Essex, how would you like to read 100 pages of fan-fiction based on that lovely little tale? That's pretty much what happens for the last half of this book.

I was really feeling more 3.5 starsish about this one. Sometimes the plot moved at a good pace, and I was dying (perhaps a poor choice of words) to know what was going to happen next. At other times, especially at the beginnings of chapters, Jaf, the main character, would wax nostalgic about something inconsequential for two pages, or spend so much time describing his feelings with flowery text that he'd have put the Bronte sisters to shame. While I know that Birch was probably trying to emulate the popular writing style(s) of the time, heaping piles of unnecessary adjectives bore me to no end. Pick a couple of descriptive words that will do the job well, and be done with it.

At the very least, this book taught me that drawing straws is usually not a great idea. If someone's gotta go, just kill the person everyone hates, even if it's not fair.

[Libby · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is almost hypnotically beautiful. Carol Birch creates worlds so vivid and tangible that I felt transported to her reality. Her writing is so evocative that I could taste and smell the salt and flowers and excrement.
The story is narrated by Jaffy, an urchin from the slums of London, who has an encounter with a tiger in Ramsgate Road. Jaffy's bravery and composure impress Jamrach, a dealer in wild animals. Jaffy goes to work for Jamrach, and eventually goes to sea, to be part of an expedition to collect a dragon for a rich customer. The adventurers successfully capture a huge and horrible reptile, but from that moment, everything goes wrong with the voyage. Wild weather and subtle madness sink their ship. The survivors are cast adrift in two small boats. In the end only two survive to return to London.
Those are the bare bones of Jaffy's tale. But the meat of the saga is so deliciously sweet, I can't begin to describe it. Jaffy himself narrates much of it as if in a dream. I am not much given to "literary" novels, but this one is worth the effort. The characters are fully realized people, unforgettable in their humanity. The settings tingle with color and odors and sounds. Most modern literature is deadly dull, but this is sparkling and fizzing and dazzling. Warmth, friendship, madness and menace, all roil together through the pages. I know I will always remember this story.
I strongly urge you to read it, and cherish it.

[Jan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed reading about Jaffy's adventures. At the beginning of this book I felt it was possibly going to be more of a young adult novel but as it progresses it most definitely isn't. I was a tad disappointed that the story doesn't concentrate more on the animals than it does and was hoping for a water for elephants Water for Elephants kind of feel but was very wrong.

Its a very atmospheric historical story about a young lad living in poverty in the London slums of the mid 19th century who comes across a tiger escaped from a local menagerie, which leads to his gaining employment with the animal keepre and meeting a whole new set of friends which set his life on a different course.

Together with his best friend Tim he sets off to sea on a whaling ship with hopes of capturing a fabled dragon creature from a south sea island. The main essence of the story centres around events at sea and the affect it has on his life. Gory and gritty many shocks are contained in this part, yet what could be a boring tale is kept vibrant and exciting by the superb writing and I was captivated from start to finish.

[Kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an unexpectedly engrossing read, a real tour de force, from the author. The book opens on a working class London street, where we meet colourful characters including our hero Jaffy Brown, as Birch sets up the novel in a tone that's appealingly Dickensian, with added squalor.
Then the wanderlust sets in, and young Jaffy takes to the high seas in search of adventure. (Think Patrick O'Brien minus the over-emphasis on nautical jargon, and add a slowly building sense of foreboding, and your getting close to the feel of things). Then a series of misadventures transforms the dark heart of this book into a claustrophobic and tense ensemble piece. Think 'Twelve Angry Men', (or should that be 'Hungry' Men), each burdened by the weight of unspeakable and inevitable truths.
Finally add a few chapters of introspective contemplation, followed by a suitably life affirming conclusion ( Think the beach scene from 'The Shawshank Redemption), and you have a finely realised piece of fiction, easily worthy of it's Booker short listing.
In short, classic storytelling, bordering on perfection.

[Ali · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jaffy Brown is running along a street in London’s East End when he comes face to face with an escaped circus animal. Plucked from the jaws of death by Mr Jamrach – explorer, entrepreneur and collector of the world’s strangest creatures – the two strike up a friendship.Before he knows it, Jaffy finds himself on board a ship bound for the Dutch East Indies, on an unusual commission for Mr Jamrach. His journey – if he survives it – will push faith, love and friendship to their utmost limits

This is an amazing book. It is, I am sure, the sort of book, I will be forced to continue thinking about for days to come. I have downloaded this and two others of the book shortlisted books for 2011 to read before the big announcement on the 18th Oct.

Set in the nineteenth century 'Jamrach's Menagerie' is the story of young Jaffy Brown, his extraordinary meeting with Mr Jamrach via the jaws of a Bengal tiger, and the adventure of a lifetime that comes later aboard a ship. As a young boy Jaffy comes to work for Mr Jamrach is the East end of London, and here he meets Tim, and his twin sister Ishbel. Jaffy and Tim's relationship is not always an easy one, petty jealousies and childish fallings out though, give way to a genuine friendship while at sea. The menagerie of the title is the collection of characters on the ship, including Dan Rymer, Skip, Captain Proctor, Gabriel and Rainey. Their friendships and the way this wonderful and terrible voyage and the search for the elusive Komodo dragon, test their humanity, and their ability to survive is breathtakingly told. The writing is wonderful, the descriptions of the sea beautifully poetic. There are some uncomfortable scenes in the later part of the book, but it is hard to put down and hugely readable. I loved the ending, it was somehow just right.

In the acknowledgments Carol Birch tells us of two historical incidents that are almost identical to events in the novel. That just blew my mind all over again.

[Ron Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Carol Birch could have paddled across the Atlantic Ocean in a canoe faster than her award-winning books have come to America. The accomplished British author is already 60 years old and on her 11th novel (!), but we’re just finally getting a look at what she’s been up to. (Please, ma’am, I want some more.) “Jamrach’s Menagerie” is a moving, fantastically exciting sea tale that takes you back to those great 19th-century stories that first convinced you “there is no frigate like a book.”

The story begins in the sewers of London with a cheerful, fatherless boy, Jaffy Brown, searching barefoot for coins in the muck. While he’s running errands, he sees “the Sun himself” strutting down the street: a Bengal tiger escaped from Mr. Jamrach’s exotic-pet store. “He drew me like honey draws a wasp,” Jaffy says. “Nothing in the world could have prevented me from lifting my hand and stroking the broad warm nap of his nose.” The tiger, of course, has other ideas.

Snatched from its jaws just in time, Jaffy becomes a local hero, and Mr. Jamrach, eager to quell any backlash, offers the boy a job that determines the rest of his legendary life. “The tiger made me,” Jaffy says, looking back. “When my path and his crossed, everything changed. After that, the road took its branching way, willy-nilly, and off I went into the future.”

One of the magical qualities of Birch’s story is that it gives that sense of Dickensian sprawl and scope even though it’s spun in fewer than 300 pages.We smell “the gorgeous stench” of England’s burgeoning capital in the mid-19th century and see its noisy alleys stretching out in every direction. Mr. Jamrach’s menagerie — from toucan to camel — is matched by an equally colorful collection of characters, beginning with the benevolent owner himself, who’s part natural scientist, part circus ringmaster.

Another wonder of this novel is sweet Jaffy’s dynamic voice, which evolves from the wide-eyed enthusiasms of boyhood to the weary melancholy of middle age. In the early pages, everything comes to us teeming with the lush sensory overload of his 8-year-old mind, a riot of impressions and fresh metaphors. One night when his best friend and rival locks him in the pet shop overnight, Jaffy experiences a waking nightmare that prefigures the very real horrors he’ll experience a few years later.

But it’s the novel’s long second part that will keep you up late and make you feel distracted whenever you have to set it down and leave Jaffy’s world behind. The adventure begins when Mr. Jamrach receives a commission to procure a ­“dragon,” which a sailor may have described to another sailor who may have mentioned it to another sailor somewhere east of the Java Sea. That’s not a report that inspires much confidence, but Mr. Jamrach runs a customer-oriented store, and so he collects a band of trusty animal catchers, including 15-year-old Jaffy, and gets them passage on a whaling ship.

“It’s not a real dragon,” Jaffy keeps saying nervously. “It hasn’t got wings.” But he’s out-of-his-skin excited to hunt for a creature still smoldering with myth. “We were all of us wild, great thumping fools,” he recalls, “with thumping hearts running about that first morning, making a pig’s ear of whatever we turned our hands to. We know nothing, nothing at all.” He knows he’s where he was always meant to be, though, and he takes to the sea like a fish. “It seemed to me for one moment that unhappiness was a nonsense.”

How quickly that glee evaporates.

Birch finds inspiration from the same tale that captured Herman Melville’s imagination: the horrific story of the Essex. That doomed vessel left Nantucket in 1819 but was sunk just a few months later by an angry sperm whale in the Pacific Ocean. The survivors of the Essex, you’ll recall from fiction or history, quickly found themselves delivered to the slower but more gruesome horrors of starvation and cannibalism.

Although “Moby-Dick” and “Jamrach’s Menagerie” are very different novels, Birch holds her own with breathtaking descriptions of the harpooners in action, the gory rendering of the world’s largest mammals and timber-splitting storms that crash down on the ship like giant ax blades. Even her monitor lizard seems capable of carrying the mantle of that deadly white whale. After all, a whale makes a great canvas on which Melville can project all his philosophical and theological concerns, but for bloodcurdling mayhem, nothing beats a riled-up Komodo ­dragon.

And frankly, Ishmael never had to confront the suffering that’s waiting for poor Jaffy. While Melville wraps up his epic a few paragraphs after Moby-Dick’s fatal strike, Birch pursues her tenderhearted hero into the madness that lies beyond mere survival. It’s a harrowing voyage that subjects the young man — and us — to ghastly deprivations and unimaginable choices, “stuck between a mad God and merciless nature.” For a new salty adventure across the watery part of the world, you won’t find a better passage than “Jamrach’s Menagerie.”

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/20...

[Harsha Priolkar · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one that was shortlisted for the 2011 Booker eventually losing out to The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes.

I picked it up because of it's intriguing title and rather droll cover. Don't you love a book with a great cover? It's a good read, although at times the descriptive prose tended to excess. It took me a while to get used to the author's style and her often abrupt prose. It suits the subject matter fine though which for the most part deals with sailors and their voyages. She's cleverly woven a coming of age story into a sailing background, which is very reminiscent of Life of Pi. But while Life of Pi has a surreal quality to it, what with the charismatic Richard Parker, this book is firmly rooted in reality.

There are parts of the story which were extremely tough for me to read, softie that I am! The ship-wreck and its aftermath, the dragon hunt & escape, the whale-killing - all very graphic, disturbing and yet imbued with a terrible beauty. The other parts I enjoyed, especially her character descriptions. The description of Jaffy's early days, his drive, his ambition and his early naivete were very endearing. His friendship with Tim and Ishbel, his joy at working at the Menagerie and the descriptions of the animals themselves along with the emotions they might have been feeling were spot on. It was easy to understand how Jaffy was enamored of the animals and especially the birds, because through her prose, the author made me fall in love with that rather seamy, chaotic place too. I could smell the smells and see the looks as it were!

I enjoyed the descriptions of the life-at-sea too. Birch paints pictures with her prose, so it's easy to imagine a ship leaving harbor, peopled with seasoned sailors and their wise, sorrowful eyes, and young boys out for an adventure, eyes bright and unafraid, untouched and unclaimed as yet by the wily seas. Easy to see her pitching on the high seas as her crew struggle for survival and battle the ocean in all its fury. And easier still to watch her anchored in a calm harbor where the beaches are lined with palm trees and where at last land offers respite, refuge and recreation. Especially loved the description of three hurricanes that dance on the water before all hell breaks loose and the scene that I'll simply call 'Jaffy & the Tiger'! Brilliant stuff!

But it's not all about the descriptions, there's a story here too, of love and friendship, of courage and sacrifice, of leaving and being left behind, of forgiving and being forgiven, of humanity and animals and whether they are so different as we like to think. I was a little confused by the choice of title, especially when the said Menagerie is absent for a good part of the story, until I realized that this is indeed a Menagerie, literally of animals and symbolically of humans, all thrown together by fate and circumstance to get along as best they can or die trying.

Although I cannot but help compare it to Life of Pi, which was for me an easier read and remains my favorite book on the subject, Jamrach's Menagerie is absorbing, intelligent and thought-provoking. In short it's everything a great read should be!

[Angela · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the second book I have read by Carol Birch. Having found ‘Orphans of the Carnival’ to be such an interesting and captivating read, I was keen to read another novel by this author.

The novel begins circa 1842, in Bermondsey, south of London. “Say Bermondsey and they wrinkle their noses”. You wouldn’t want to live there, not then. An industrial centre, known for tanning, leather working, and food processing, with many busy wharves and warehouses supporting the rapidly growing port of London. A poor area of London with many unskilled and casual workers. Much of its housing was dreadful slums.

We skip through eight years to Ratcliffe Highway, in Wapping, London, an ever so slight improvement on living standards.

“Charles Jamrach, Naturalist and Importer of Animals, Birds and Shells”. He really existed. He opened Jamrach’s Animal Emporium on The Highway, the first of its kind, in east London in the 19th century. At that time he was the world’s most renowned dealer in wild animals.

Jaffy Brown is our narrator, he takes us on a tour of Jamrach’s menagerie, where he loved looking after the animals. I liked Jaffy’s character, his emotions, his thoughts.

I love the names of the English pubs: Spoony Sailor, Malt Shovel, Paddy’s Goose. Names like this instantly make me think of England.

I hadn’t realised the novel would take the reader on board a Whaleship. ‘Mail on Sunday’s comment “Put Moby Dick, Treasure Island and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner into a pot, add a pinch of Dickens, and you will get the flavour of Carol Birch’s hugely entertaining novel.” The mere mention of “Moby Dick” should have given me a heads up.

I was already one third of my way into the book and had enjoyed it thus far. I decided not to cast the book aside and read on. Not surprising, I realised my cheeks were wet. I had shed a couple of tears, releasing the emotion I was feeling. There is nothing pretty about the slaughter of a whale. The author has such a way with description, I have no doubt Carol Birch did her research. This is the reality of it.

The majority of the novel is centred on a sea voyage, with a crew of 20 or more on a whaler called the Lysander. On this journey though, they have a special mission. They will be searching for a creature which has been spotted by “a friend of a friend”. Of course Jamrach wants it for his exotic collection. This is a story in itself.

As the story unfolds, each character is given a personality and face. Without giving anything away, the events that transpire are depicted so vividly and with such reality, and are at times, quite heartening.

I enjoyed the sailor’s ballads, especially “Tobacco’s But an Indian Weed”.

There was no way I could not give this book the 5 star rating. Carol Birch sailed me away, as if I was there. She has accomplished another amazing novel. I think sometimes we have to wade our way through the gruelling and confronting, to see the moonbow at the end.

[Ally Atherton · Rating 5 out of 5]

'I was born twice. First in a wooden room that jutted out over the black water of the Thames, and then again eight years later in the Highway. when the tiger took me in his mouth and everything truly began.'

Saved from the mouth of an angry tiger, Jaffy Brown's life changes when he is introduced into the world of Mr Jamrach and his menagerie of strange and exotic creatures. He is given the job of looking after the animals and then finds himself on board a ship bound for the Indian Ocean on a rather peculiar commission to find a creature that might not even exist.

But things are not easy on board the Lysander and he has to battle dragons and demons that walk on the surface of the water.

This book is quite literally astonishing, the story is quite simple, no doubt there have been hundreds of books written over the years about a young boy taking to the sea and travelling across the world. But what grabs you about 'Jamrach's Menagerie' is the stunning way it is written. It is beautifully written and to be honest it was a shame when I came to the end, I just wanted it to go on and on and never stop ! It is an emotionally powerful story loosely based on two real life events during the 19th Century. This may have become my favourite book of the year and of my 52 book challenge. Read it.

10/10

[Ai · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely not a book for those who cannot stomach detailed descriptions of gruesome situations.

First of all, I absolutely loved the writing style of the book. Other reviewers have mentioned that the first parts of the book are much more lively and the ending feels disconnected and unfocused in comparison. Personally though, this worked well for me, and I did not think that there needed to be a more focused closure reached. After what the main character experienced, I fully believe that his life would have played out the way it was written.

Life doesn't always have happy endings, and sometimes people never fully reach a satisfying conclusion and simply exist until they stop existing; and that is what makes this story so horribly real in the end.

I was left feeling viscerally dejected and depressed, which is not a good feeling, however in my opinion, it was the right feeling. There are some things that simply cannot be recovered from, and there are not many books that acknowledge this because writers tend to want their readers to finish the book with a good feeling, so I think it was a really bold move on Birch's part to finish the story the in the sort of non-concluded way she did.

[Christopher Waters · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exquisite writing, brilliant storytelling, gripping and poignant. This is easily the most accessible -- and at the same time the most realistic -- novel with a Victorian-era setting that I've ever read. The seafaring adventure, the scathing drama, the humor and humanity all blend together into something almost poetic. Life of Pi meets Rime of the Ancient Mariner. The epic tale -- sometimes joyous, sometimes funny, even though often anguished -- itself powered me through hundreds of pages in a sitting, while the masterful use of language made me want to read certain passages over and over, just to hear them roll off the tongue of my imagination. This is the first novel I've read by Carol Birch, but it will not be the last.