Tournament of Books discussion

Man Tiger: A Novel, by Eka Kurniawan



About the Book (excerpted from Goodreads)
A slim, wry story set in an unnamed town near the Indian Ocean, Man Tiger tells the story of two interlinked and tormented families, and of Margio, an ordinary half-city, half-rural youngster. At once elegant and bawdy, experimental and political, Man Tiger will help to establish Indonesia’s new voice, underrepresented in world literature, while demonstrating the influence of world literature on Indonesian writers.


About the Author
Eka 'Spin Binder' Kurniawan is an Indonesian writer. He was born in Tasikmalaya, West Java, November 28, 1975. He studied philosophy at Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta. He works as a journalist, writer and designer. He writes novels, short stories, movie scripts and graphic novel, as well as essays. His novels have been translated into Japanese, Malay, French, Italian, Dutch, German, Korean, and English.


Author's Website: http://ekakurniawan.com


NY Times Review: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/13/boo...

On Translating Kurniawan: http://www.pen.org/non-fiction/transl...


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If you would like to chat about this book, or this author, here's a place to do so!

Happy reading!!

I am not particularly good at writing insightful reviews, but I finished this book this morning. I was a little unsure at first about why it was selected, but then I got a little farther into the book, and things started coming together, and suddenly I didn't want to stop reading.

The story centers on Margio and his family and a neighboring family, the father of which Margio has just killed as the novel opens. We then go back in time and learn more about Margio and his family and their relationship with their neighbors.

Rachel wrote: "I am not particularly good at writing insightful reviews, but I finished this book this morning. I was a little unsure at first about why it was selected, but then I got a little farther into the b..."

Rachel, I too had a learning curve, especially to get used to people's names at first and to remember who everyone is in the beginning, when characters are still being established. It was something like my experience at times when reading Russian novels where every character has multiple names. When I read the first sentence of Man Tiger I first thought the "Anwar Sadat" murder was referring to an assassinated former president of Egypt, and every time I read "Ma Soma" I had to remind myself it wasn't referring to someone's mother. But I also eventually settled in and found this a fascinating story, very vividly written.

After you've read the novel, here are links to two essays/reviews of Kurniawan's work, both of which I found enlightening:

http://www.bookforum.com/review/15151

https://newrepublic.com/article/12267...

From the Bookforum review, link above: "Man Tiger is... complex in structure—its chapters both involuting and expanding, and rigged with trap doors you keep falling through into some unexpected plane. " That describes my reading experience pretty well.

Carol wrote: "Don't you think it was a formulaic ending?"

I'm on a completely different wavelength on this novel, Carol. I thought the ending was as perfect as a perfect piece of music--unexpected, sudden, and unresolved, where the novel ends with a question rather than with an answer.

The thoughts that occurred to you as you read didn't even register with me, for instance what the time frame is and and whether the life depicted mirrors Indonesia today or why the tiger appears when it does or why the murder took a certain form. I just didn't have those questions because the storytelling itself was so nonlinear and tonal and because the core of the story felt universal to me. I won't go as far to say the tiger is a metaphor but it is a means and an excuse for Margio's single violent act. To me Margio is a character much like Bigger Thomas. The superficial trappings of the story aren't as important as the core of the story, which is how one man is driven to extreme violence through circumstances beyond his control, and by both the slights and the acts of violence from others that he must endure, and that systematically take away his humanity as well as that of his beloved sisters and mother.

I was also completely captivated by the depth to which I came to understand the many characters, one by one, in the seemingly digressive vignettes about individual lives, which of course in the end aren't digressive at all, but instead converge in a focal point where all that comes before drives Margio to his final act of violence.

Also--I think the novel is much deeper than the blurb calling it "wry" or reviews calling it a "murder mystery." It's almost as if the publisher doesn't understand the novel they actually published. The character of Sadat reminds me of the complacent village elders in the film The Act of Killing, whom you repeatedly see in the film being complacent about violence they have committed toward others.

The New Republic review comes closest to how I felt about this novel. Kurniawan's Beauty Is a Wound also came out this year and is reviewed first in the article so you need to scroll down to get to the Man Tiger comments. An excerpt:

Kurniawan is exceptionally sensitive to women and children trapped in a brutal, self-interested patriarchal world and one feels, in the frustration and heartbreak of the moody Margio, in his growing anger at his father and Sadat, an indictment of an entire generation of violent patriarchs—Suharto and his henchmen—who handed out suffering to those they claimed as their own.

Carol wrote: "Instead, I simply wanted to be done reading & for all the revolting men to be dead."

That's what happened pretty much but then again the weird obstinacy of Margio's father's corpse refusing to fit in his grave was horrifying, and gave me the sense that these men don't ever really die.

Here's a new review of Man Tiger, just published today in the Guardian:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015...

While Kurniawan's Beauty Is a Wound made this year's NYT "Notable Books" list rather than Man Tiger, I think I might prefer his prose in short extreme bursts like this novel.

I wish I could give both the author and the translator a high-five. I loved the prose in this! The cover designer gets a high-five from me, too.

I was engrossed in the characters, but what I really loved was the structure. I love that description from the Bookforum review: "rigged with trap doors." When starting to read the book, it was like thinking I was climbing the trunk of the tree (starting with a murder! the root of much literature!) and realizing instead I was on a branch, and the sturdier part of the story was still to come, once I worked my way there.

I wasn't as strongly turned away by the depiction of "male brutality," because I didn't think it went universally uncountered (or necessarily rewarded by the narrative). I really liked that Margio was specifically struggling with this, and that he seemed to be recognized by others in the community for not being a brute. There's a lot I think I still have to unpack about this, though. Like, the tiger as female: I'm not sure if I read Margio killing Anwar Sadat as him being a vehicle for female vengeance, but I did think about that. Definitely saw it as something tragic, that his outlet for trying to resist patriarchal norms (something definitely not limited to Indonesian culture) was to engage in violence, though.

I too agree kudos to the author and the translator!
I held my breath as I started to read as I wanted so much to like this book and hoped it lived up to the praise bestowed on it – but I was not disappointed as this book lives up to its praised and I enjoyed everything about this book.
It is certainly a book to savor.
I liked the format and the way the story unravels and the digressions gave us insight into the characters, culture, and customs.
I often felt like the narrator was speaking directly to me when telling the story, and could tell when I needed more information and provided it and then moved back into the story. I also felt that the narrator knew when I wanted more answers at the time and would shush me as if to say, be patient I am telling the story.
An exploration of family and culture ties that bind and captivate us with a slight hint of the political in the background.
The translation felt like this book was written in English and so for me this was a smooth effortless read where I did not feel the “jarring of words” that I have sometimes felt with other translated works that would take me out of the story flow until I could get back into the mindset of the story.
While I always enjoy/appreciate a story that lets me have insight into other cultures and traditions, I thought this story has universal appeal and explores themes of sacrifice, loss, search for self, hope and despair.
Now I am so ready to read Beauty Is A Wound but first on to other alt-TOB books.

poingu wrote: "Also--I think the novel is much deeper than the blurb calling it "wry" or reviews calling it a "murder mystery." It's almost as if the publisher doesn't understand the novel they actually published..."

Thanks for all the links you've rounded up, Poingu. I agree that it seems hilariously misguided to approach Man Tiger as a pulpy "crime story" (as The Guardian critic would have it), or as a "wry" story. Obviously, the murder is no mystery, but the later impression that the story is of a comedic bent is equally ludicrous to me. I can't imagine reading the final sections of the book as anything but a great familial tragedy.

I wonder how much of this misunderstanding can be credited to a fundamental discomfort with the narrative style, which doesn't follow the conventions of "serious literary fiction" as to being monotonous (sticking to one tone) and highly elucidated (everything is explained).

I hope y'all don't mind me popping into the conversation. :)

hey, kaion! nice to 'see' you! :)

Kaion wrote: "I wonder how much of this misunderstanding can be credited to a fundamental discomfort with the narrative style, which doesn't follow the conventions of "serious literary fiction" as to being monotonous (sticking to one tone) and highly elucidated (everything is explained).
"

That could be. It is very different. I was captivated by the digressive and yet extremely wise voice that tells this story, and how confidently this voice allows the story to settle into unexpected places, fluidly, like water flowing down a hill and settling in a depressed place for a while before filling the depression and spilling downward again. Totally natural and yet so different from Western linear storytelling.

I don't have the book in front of me (my friend Carol, above, still has it) but the scene that elevated this book once and for all for me, and that made it better than a run of the mill great book, was the story of the widow who owned all the land in the area and who just couldn't give it away fast enough and who finally, joyfully, starts to eat the land to keep it from her greedy children, and thus dies happy.

The whole book is stuffed with these odd beautifully rendered vignettes though, from the first pages--the way the men hurry off to see the scene of the murder as if they can still do somethign to prevent it...which perfectly captured for me the way people actually behave in a crisis.

The structure of the story owes something to the "town gossip" style of storytelling (a la Chronicle of a Death Foretold). But rather than taking the typical (Western) documentary note, the style takes on a much more oral flavor as it moves between the viewpoints and time frames without necessarily drawing attention to who is doing the telling. The tale is the tiger itself -- restless, roving, and ravenous -- stalking closer and closer to the core of the story.

Natural is the perfect word for it, Poingu. There's a naturalness to the way the different story threads bleed into each other because the narrative always follows a single downhill trajectory emotionally speaking.

That is a lovely vignette, though one of the ones I really wanted more of! I don't have the book in front of me either, but I think my favorite is that of the younger sister, and her insistence on the correct rites for their father's death. Correctness as a balm for the unreality of the situation.


Jennifer wrote: "hey, kaion! nice to 'see' you! :)"

Did you miss me? ;) (I missed you.)

aw -- yeah! i have missed your insights, for sure!! so glad you are here to join in on all of this. :)

This is a five-star read for me. Powerful and very moving storytelling and writing. It took me a week to read it, despite its only being 172 pages, I think because it's so different from typical Western novels and there's so much to puzzle over. The discussions here and the interviews helped a lot. I look forward to the hearing from people who can be more analytical and articulate. I just finished the book and started crying, I guess from holding my breath for 172 pages!

Jan wrote: " I just finished the book and started crying, I guess from holding my breath for 172 pages! "

Me too. For me the ending was a complete shot to the heart, and it left me feeling the same way I felt just after coming to the end of James Joyce's "The Dead" for the first time, even though that's a weird comparison since the stories aren't anything alike, obviously. Just the feeling they each gave me is the same. It's all the more mysterious because there is no surprise here, since the ending is revealed in the beginning. But somehow in this novel the storytelling rushes forward and compresses into those final pages until it finally becomes high tragedy in those very last sentences.

That's not very analytical or articulate.

Jan wrote: "This is a five-star read for me. Powerful and very moving storytelling and writing. It took me a week to read it, despite its only being 172 pages, I think because it's so different from typical We..."

I had been wondering at how little conversation Man Tiger is generating, when it seems like everyone who has responded to this thread is over the moon about it.

I wonder if it has to do with how emotional of a story it is. I myself am not a person who speaks freely about my feels, but the ending left me a little bereft with its potent combination of bleak and loving, angry and empathetic.

There's something that feels very humanistic about Kurniawan's aims. We are set up at a distance to believe that this is a story of a young man who becomes something supernatural and less than human. Atavism.

But as the tiger draws closer, Kurniawan reveals that to be something of a convenient fiction that allows people to distance themselves from empathy, to deny their responsibility and relationship to the tragedies of the world.

We thought this is a story of hate, but it's a story of love. It's the capacity for love which dooms the characters, but it also the very quality that glues them together, makes their soulstuff. The tiger stalks ever closer, the narrative becomes more effusive with hope and despair and love and hate.

Despite that the story begins and ends in violence, Man Tiger celebrates that quality of emotionality, no matter how painful-- that it is what in fact keeps its characters from becoming dehumanized, from becoming less.

Kaion wrote: "We thought this is a story of hate, but it's a story of love. It's the capacity for love which dooms the characters, but it also the very quality that glues them together, makes their soulstuff. The tiger stalks ever closer, the narrative becomes more effusive with hope and despair and love and hate."

Thanks for taking the time to write these lovely, careful thoughts about the novel, Kaion. The novel had a lot of emotional force for me and the end reminded me of a classical music concert of a kind where the conductor has just come to the end of something exquisite, has just lowered their arms, and the people in the audience aren't ready to interrupt the feeling as yet with their clapping.

I keep reaching for explanations and coming up with metaphor instead.

I want to read Beauty Is a Wound and at the same time I want to save it so I can look forward to reading it.

Poingu & Kaion, Thank you both for sharing your thoughts. You guys are good!!

I think I agree with everything you're both saying. I see Kurniawan as a very humane, compassionate and even feminist writer, despite the violence of the story. The ending is so tragic and yet quiet. Just heartbreaking. I still feel slightly stunned.

Such an interesting contrast to A Little Life, which had a similar emotional impact (for some folks!) but took 4x the pages to achieve it. ;-)

Poingu, I really like your idea of the audience not being ready to dive right in with the applause at the end of an exquisite piece of music. Your image made me think of the end of Hamilton, where after 2.5+ hours of exuberance, the play ends on a very quiet, sad note. I haven't seen the play (yet), but based on how I feel at the end of the cast album, I imagine there will be a moment of silence before the applause erupts.

Something really needs to be done about some of these marketers and reviewers. A "wry, affecting tale"? A mystery? Give me a fricking break!!

Jan wrote: "Poingu & Kaion, Thank you both for sharing your thoughts. You guys are good!!

I think I agree with everything you're both saying. I see Kurniawan as a very humane, compassionate and even feminist..."
After reading all the thoughts here, I am preparing to up my star-rating because I agree with the reasons people are loving it... Poingu: indeed the vignettes were amazing - they give such a sense of place and emotion. Someone mentioned Ma Rabiah 'cheating' her greedy children of their inheritance; that story was vivid and great. I loved the picturesque detailing of Nuraeni's garden-wilderness... sort of a reflection of her inner turmoil and decay.
And the ending? I loved it. To some degree it felt like the punchline to a complex joke... usually those fall flat in fiction; the payoff just isn't enough for the lead-up. But this felt right.
I understand the negative responses to the scenes of domestic violence but they felt familiar to every place and time which made the foreign and fantastical elements feel connected to any reader.

What do you think is going on with the first Part? Each of the subsequent Parts mostly follow one of the central characters (Margio or one of his family members) but the first Part is from the perspective of a bunch of secondary characters who hear what has happened second hand. It was slow for me to get through while the other Parts flew by. Do you think the community is the 'character' followed? Or that it was the vehicle to introduce the setting and incident quickly in lieu of exposition? Or was Kurniawan finding his footing? Other thoughts?

Amy wrote: "What do you think is going on with the first Part? Each of the subsequent Parts mostly follow one of the central characters (Margio or one of his family members) but the first Part is from the pers..."

I know what you mean about it feeling different in the beginning. I was thinking as I read it, though, that I was just getting used to the narrative style, which continues to rove from character to character throughout. Now that I reflect, I think you're right that the time spent on each character is shorter in this first part. Also it's not clear as yet how important these people are to the story (it turns out not very) so that's disorienting as well--it's hard to know who to focus on.

What delighted me about it anyhow was that I could see, exactly, these ersatz leaders of the community becoming so very flustered, but not being able to show it, and not knowing what to do, only that they need to look important...for instance the small perfect half-sentence about how they run to the scene of the crime, as if there is still some reason to hurry. These small details built up a feeling for the village until it worked for me.

I would just be guessing about the author's intention, but this style also sets from the beginning that this is a story of a small community that has grown up together and where the people all know each other extremely well and where they all play their parts, and know what to expect from one another, even when one of them is unexpectedly murdered. Their thoughts and motives and behavior toward one another all feel very much like patterns long established.

For those who are interested in reading Man Tiger but have not yet purchased it, Verso Books is running a 90% off sale on all its e-books on its website, www.versobooks.com, making the price of Man Tiger a whopping $1.90.

http://www.versobooks.com/books/1921-...

The sale ends January 1, 2016.

Amy, I agree that the opening was probably treating the community as a character, and maybe our entry into the individual stories. This book called to mind our curiosity for what drove the murderers in unusual or dramatic crimes that tend to grip the imagination of an entire community.

The biggest surprises in the book were usually when a character is introduced one way, and then we get their chapter and your understanding of them doesn't necessarily changed, but becomes more nuanced. My biggest takeaway from this book was that it was really good at making me feel or empathize with all of the characters involved in a tragic event, even Margio's father, the least likeable character.

It was a little difficult for me to find any bigger message or meaning in this book, perhaps there is some allegory that I'm not seeing. But maybe it was enough to have the experience of empathy, or even find really ordinary and identifiable qualities, in people involved in such a dramatic murder.

Also, was there really a tiger spirit? I found that it seemed like more of a device, but a meaningful one that acknowledges the power of devices in stories? And because it was female, does the book have something to say about the treatment of women in society? The most inexcusable thing about Margio's father for me was his sexism, and also his cluelessness about it, which probably has more to do with the society he lives in?

I'm excited to read through all your comments. I read this mid December and absolutely loved it. I need to put my thoughts together in response to what is written here but I wrote a short review after reading it with initial impressions: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show....

This was a reading gem for me. I'm anxious to get my hands on Beauty Is a Wound.

Elizabeth wrote: "Amy, I agree that the opening was probably treating the community as a character, and maybe our entry into the individual stories. This book called to mind our curiosity for what drove the murderer..."
thanks for pointing out how the perspective changes on Margio and other characters when viewed from a different person (or given backstory), I did find this especially true for Margio's father. While I still thought he was a rat-bastard, I could understand at least his lack of participation with Marian, and also what on earth was the story in his head to justify his years of ill-behavior. Even he seemed to know it was just excuses in the end, but you could see the house of cards he had built his life upon.
As for the tiger, I think we're supposed to take it as matter-of-fact. A hereditary she-tiger resided within Margio and to some degree prompted his actions. I didn't see her as a crusader for women necessarily, I actually saw Margio as the defender of women and the tiger merely as a sensing, feeling loyal part of him that reacted (hard to say if in defense or attack) in response to his extreme emotions. One could say the tiger sensed Margio himself was under attack and leapt to save and defend him.

ok, one more observation because it's bugging me. I found one time in all the pages where the narrator actually talks to the Reader. In the section about Nuraeni waiting for letters from her fiancé the narrator comments about the rest of the (non-fiancé) mail

but believe me, the numbers were insignificant.

It's 95 pages in so it surprised me with the commentary. I was thinking it could be a hint as to the identity of the narrator but if so, its not enough for me to guess. Or it could be a slip of translation and I am making too much of it :) especially since it doesn't recur and seems an insignificant choice in the plotline to add the sole opinion. Or it could be the hint that this is an oral tradition story and should be understood as folklore.

Elizabeth wrote: "Amy, I agree that the opening was probably treating the community as a character, and maybe our entry into the individual stories. This book called to mind our curiosity for what drove the murderer..."
ok. I thought about this and want to change my answer regarding the she-tiger. :)
I think it's both. in the story, the tiger is really a tiger. but since this is also folktale (I think), the tiger also means something else just as Greek and Roman gods' actions meant something else (usually changes in real geo-politics and social norms). I don't honestly know if the tiger is a regular figure of Indonesian stories (perhaps poingu has an article or research to answer!) but if so, my guess would be that like many a helpful female deity owned or associated with a hero, she is not actually about womankind but about helping the hero, who in this case is a boy/man. Not that Kurniawan couldn't turn that on it's head along with the running themes about injustices to women!

Amy wrote: "ok, one more observation because it's bugging me. I found one time in all the pages where the narrator actually talks to the Reader. In the section about Nuraeni waiting for letters from her fiancé..."

Cool ... That's a really intriguing thing you noticed about the voice of the narrator! I'd be willing to believe it was intentional, or if not intentional, then a byproduct of the writer thinking of the narrator as the town storyteller (aka gossip, haha). I had to return my library copy, so I can't go back and examine this yet. Wasn't there supposed to be a relative or town denizen that all the kids and/or adults like to hang out with because she told lots of good stories? Maybe it's her telling the story?

It would be fun to see what the translator's conversation with Eka Kurniawan was like. This might have come up.

As for the she-tiger, thinking back on it, I just recall finding the whole idea of this magical beast so alluring and pleasing to read about, including how she is passed down to succeeding generations, maybe skipping over one. My first instinct was to feel that the tiger is a figment of Margio's imagination or a sign of madness (hereditary madness?), because this supernatural element doesn't really show up in the other parts of the story. But I also feel like using this romantic, supernatural element gives more meaning to what many might view as a senseless act of murder or even an overreaction. It was motivated by this intense anger he had about how his mother was treated by the men in her life, it was personified (animified?) with this wild tiger.

At the same time, it does seem like the tiger is treated as real in the story. Otherwise there wouldn't be those unusual bites or lacerations that probably only a tiger or wild animal would have produced.