Product Description

Claudia Hampton is dying. As memories crowd in, she re-creates the mosiac of her life, her own story enmeshed with those of her brother, her lover and father of her daughter, and the centre of her life, Tom, her one great love both found and lost in the "mad fairyland" of war-torn Egypt.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #35096 in Books
• Published on: 1988-08-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Customer Reviews

Wonderful imagery and heartfelt emotions
I read this book because it was a Booker Prize winner. I love this book because it's deep beyond words. I found it incredibly moving. The lyrical way Ms. Lively blends the past with the present is amazing. In the end you feel you've lived life right along side the main character, Claudia. She has become at once a relative you never knew you had. Her thoughts and fears take hold of you and despite your feelings about her choices in life, you care about her and are moved. The detailed historical references and incredible imagery are not to be missed.

Death makes every individual reflect on their life.
Penelope Lively's Moon Tiger confronts and helps resolve everyone's fear of death. The flashbacks of Claudia Hampton reveal not only lessons on life but also provides an interesting storyline. Claudia Hampton is dying of stomach cancer and decides to preserve her own history in a novel. Alternating viewpoints and the kaleidoscopic approach to her writing contribute to Lively's success in capturing the reader's attention. The novel explores World War II and the effects of death on the character's lives. Incest, lovers, death, war, and other private matters are discussed in Moon Tiger. Claudia exposes her entire life and matures from a cynical fiercely independent woman into a calm, peaceful old lady. Moon Tiger is a great novel to help explain death and describe the life of a fictional character. I strongly recommend that anyone interested in the history of World War II or anyone dealing with the loss of a loved one read this Booker Prize winning novel.

Where the Future Begins
A history of the world. What's said and what's left out. The things and people that construct the world of an individual. The grand events of a civilisation are on an equal level with the detailed actions of human relations and rather than recount a life as a progression it is looked at as a mosaic, focusing on points here and there, gathering the impression of a whole life. The narration jumps between all forms of telling: 1st, 2nd and 3rd person narration recounted events through numerous viewpoints. A focused attention is required throughout the novel to keep track of who is talking and in what point of history they are at in any section. What Claudia is trying to do in this history of the world is an impossibility. She moulds languages to work for her own purposes by using it for multiple perspectives. "The power of language. Preserving the ephemeral; giving form to dreams, permanence to sparks of sunlight." The question of how to recall the past is the central issue. Rather than flow through the past as in a stream of conscious novel we're given slabs of moments pitted against each other pointing out the importance of individual emotions. Slowly throughout the novel the reader is made increasingly aware of what isn't being remembered. Claudia's relationship with Tom was on of the most emotionally turbulent times of her life, one she is uncertain of how to recount which is why she avoided writing about Egypt for so long. But once she has recalled it she can begin to leave the past behind and what begins is the future.