Moon Tiger - Penelope Livley

Moon Tiger is haphazard journey backward and forwards through time, told from varying points of view about the life of Claudia Hampton... who and how she loved and lost and damaged along the way. She decides on her death bed to write the history of her life as a reflection/blueprint (vainly) of the history of the world. 

Should I be embarrassed to admit that I hadn't heard of this book/author before being introduced to it/her by my book club?  It won the 1987 Booker Prize, that's more than enough time for me to have heard about it!!!

 

I am really glad I read this book.  I loved (most of) it. I'm a sucker for beautifully sculpted language.  I just love when an author uses beautiful or interesting prose to create not just a story but an interesting or clever way of delivering a story. Penelope Lively is certainly one of those authors.  Like this:

“I’ve always thought a kaleidoscopic view might be an interesting heresy.  Shake the tube and see what comes out. Chronology irritates me.  There is no chronology inside my head. I am composed of a myriad Claudia’s who spin and mix and part like sparks of sunlight on water.”  

 

How beautiful!  That the rest of the novel was reflected in these few lines makes them even more beautiful, and clever.

 

 I really enjoyed the way Lively tells and retells parts of the story from the perspectives of the different characters.  It sort of reiterated the protagonist Claudia’s point that each one person’s “history of the world” is different from another’s.

I found the story... not really moving... but interesting and provocative.  I really enjoyed reading about all of the slightly warped relationships in Claudia’s life.  She’s one hell of a woman.  Clever and worldly, but not what I’d call likable. 

I did get a bit bored/bogged down in all the historical/factual references Tito, Napoleon, Darwin et al.  Perhaps if I were more of an intellectual I would have gotten some sort of symbolism out of it... I suppose it was relevant in that it tied in with Claudia’s “history of the world” idea.  Ha!  What a beautifully arrogant woman!  That she considers her own life history synonymous the history of the world – very apt!

Moon Tiger is a sort of character study of the people/relationships in Claudia’s inner circle.  Relevant to me? Well, it made me reflect on the relationships in my inner circle. I do have a brother who I just adore (certainly not to the extent that Claudia loved Gordon!!!)... and being the type of mum that I am, I just hated the way Claudia treated Lisa.  What a bitch!  I don’t think that in the end there was any redemption as such for Claudia... but I love the way the book ended.  The simple, empty nothingness of death.  So lonely those last few lines – so stark after the firecracker life that was Claudia Hampton.

** Adapted from my own submision to a book club to which I once belonged.