leah_hael's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Loveable characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
saralynnburnett's review against another edition
4.0
What a unique read! Though it never explicitly stated it (that I remember) this short novel is set on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, so the use of the word Surau (instead of Mosque) and the tiger lore makes sense.
It kicks off with a bite (pun intended!) as a young man kills another man in his village by viscously biting through his throat.
What follows is a beautifully told tale of village of characters, each with their own fascinating, and fascinatingly human stories. While it might seem digressive it all comes together to answer the questions why. Why is there a tiger inside of our main character Margio and why did he kill a man by biting through his throat.
It kicks off with a bite (pun intended!) as a young man kills another man in his village by viscously biting through his throat.
What follows is a beautifully told tale of village of characters, each with their own fascinating, and fascinatingly human stories. While it might seem digressive it all comes together to answer the questions why. Why is there a tiger inside of our main character Margio and why did he kill a man by biting through his throat.
emr158's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
papermiwnt's review against another edition
emotional
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
aeri_8412's review against another edition
4.0
Margio, seorang anak muda berusia 20 tahun, membunuh Anwar Sadat yang telah meniduri Ibunya, Nuraeni hingga melahirkan seorang bayi perempuan kecil bernama Marian. Aku merasa sangat prihatin melihat bagaimana kekasaran dan kebengisan ayah mereka, Komar. Aku tak bisa berhenti menitikkan air mata membayangkan terutama bagaimana sakitnya Nuraeni yang selalu dihajar tanpa ampun. Nuraeni yang dulunya cantik dan ceria, telah berubah menjadi Nuraeni yang sayu dan menyedihkan karena si bengis Komar.
Selain itu, Mameh dan Margio juga sering menjadi sasaran pukulan Komar, tak peduli mereka melakukan kesalahan atau tidak. Namun alih-alih merasa sedih karena belum memperlakukan isteri dan anak-anaknya dengan baik, Komar justru merasa sedih saat mengetahui isterinya mengandung benih dari laki-laki lain. Lalu, Margio juga diperhadapkan pada pilihan yang cukup sulit, memilih antara keluarga atau gadis yang dicintainya, yaitu Maharani yang mana merupakan putri bungsu dari Anwar Sadat.
Di sini aku cukup salut dengan keputusan Margio untuk mengungkapkan kejadian yang sebenarnya dibanding memendamnya terus menerus. Margio rela kehilangan gadis yang dicintainya demi kebahagian Ibunya. Endingnya menurut saya sangat mencengangkan. Saya sudah menduga bahwa Margio tidak mungkin membunuh Anwar Sadat tanpa ada alasan. Usut punya usut ternyata Margio mendatangi Anwar Sadat dan memintanya untuk menikahi Nuraeni. Namun ia menolaknya dan mengatakan bahwa lagipula ia tidak mencintai Nuraeni, itulah mengapa harimau putih keluar dari tubuh Margio dan menggigit leher Anwar Sadat sampai hampir putus.
Alur novel ini maju mundur, sehingga kita butuh sedikit fokus untuk mencerna setiap detail kejadiannya. Selain itu, penggambaran setiap kejadiannya juga sangat detail. Novel ini juga memiliki dialog percakapan yang sangat sedikit, yang memungkinkan para pembaca yang belum terbiasa dengan gaya bahasa khas Eka Kurniawan akan merasa sedikit bosan.
Selain itu, Mameh dan Margio juga sering menjadi sasaran pukulan Komar, tak peduli mereka melakukan kesalahan atau tidak. Namun alih-alih merasa sedih karena belum memperlakukan isteri dan anak-anaknya dengan baik, Komar justru merasa sedih saat mengetahui isterinya mengandung benih dari laki-laki lain. Lalu, Margio juga diperhadapkan pada pilihan yang cukup sulit, memilih antara keluarga atau gadis yang dicintainya, yaitu Maharani yang mana merupakan putri bungsu dari Anwar Sadat.
Di sini aku cukup salut dengan keputusan Margio untuk mengungkapkan kejadian yang sebenarnya dibanding memendamnya terus menerus. Margio rela kehilangan gadis yang dicintainya demi kebahagian Ibunya. Endingnya menurut saya sangat mencengangkan. Saya sudah menduga bahwa Margio tidak mungkin membunuh Anwar Sadat tanpa ada alasan. Usut punya usut ternyata Margio mendatangi Anwar Sadat dan memintanya untuk menikahi Nuraeni. Namun ia menolaknya dan mengatakan bahwa lagipula ia tidak mencintai Nuraeni, itulah mengapa harimau putih keluar dari tubuh Margio dan menggigit leher Anwar Sadat sampai hampir putus.
Alur novel ini maju mundur, sehingga kita butuh sedikit fokus untuk mencerna setiap detail kejadiannya. Selain itu, penggambaran setiap kejadiannya juga sangat detail. Novel ini juga memiliki dialog percakapan yang sangat sedikit, yang memungkinkan para pembaca yang belum terbiasa dengan gaya bahasa khas Eka Kurniawan akan merasa sedikit bosan.
spetty88's review against another edition
challenging
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
nidhimahajn's review against another edition
4.0
[Edit] This book review was originally written for Scroll.in and has been published on their website here.
Lyrical, bawdy, experimental, political: There aren’t enough adjectives for this novel.
Eka Kurniawan’s Man Tiger (2015) is almost a literary child of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart (1958) and Gabriel García Márquez’ Chronicle of a Death Foretold (1981). However, this does not mean that it lacks originality. Longlisted for the Man Booker International Prize 2016, Man Tiger is as much a crime novel as a social critique.
Like Kurniawan’s first novel Beauty is a Wound (2002), Man Tiger is set in an unnamed Indonesian township near the Indian Ocean. The central protagonist of the novel is Margio, a young man possessed by a white tigress. The tigress, “white as a swan and vicious as an ajak”, is an inheritance that Margio receives from his grandfather. The first line of the novel introduces the central event of the narrative. It reads: “On the evening Margio killed Anwar Sadat, Kyai Jahro was blissfully busy with his fishpond.” In five neat chapters, the novel takes its readers on a quest, reliving the events that lead to the crime and introducing the characters that are variedly involved in it.
Time has stopped
One of the most compelling things about the novel is its engagement with time. The first chapter opens in the present day; the subsequent chapters take the reader back to Margio’s childhood and further back to his parents’ days of courtship; and the final chapter returns, once more, to the present. However, it is rarely as simple as that. Time in the novel expands and contracts, past flows into the present and the present often harks back upon the past. At one point, the novel announces, “Time has stopped.” Time, like memory, flows but never in a perfectly linear fashion.
Repetition or repeated emphasis is another way in which the novel engages with time. The narrator takes the reader back to the past, traces the events that led to the present, and emphasises the present by repetition. Time stops when Margio kills Anwar Sadat, the central event of the present that is constantly emphasised.
A repository of culture
The purpose of taking the reader back and forth in time is also to present a picture of the cultural milieu in which Kurniawan’s characters are embedded. In this regard, the motif of mythology and story-telling is especially significant. Benedict Anderson, in the Introduction to the novel, writes that Kurniawan established an early connection to literature through the stories of his grandmother and an old lady of his village. One can see the influence of these stories and village histories in both Beauty is a Wound and Man Tiger.
The story of the white tigress, the narrator of Man Tiger informs us, is one of the “many stories [that were] passed between successive storytellers across the generations.” Culture (as defined by the Kenyan writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o) is a collective memory bank of people’s experiences in history. These experiences are narrated and transmitted across generations through personal and collective stories. It is often through these many narratives that people perceive their identities in a culture. Kurniawan’s novel is one such narrative; it is a repository of the culture of a small Indonesian township.
Social Critique
However, Man Tiger does not present an idealised picture of this culture. Far from it. It lays bare the atrocities that are encoded in this society; atrocities that more often than not find a meeting point in the marginalised figures of women in the narrative. The crime itself is a result of oppressive societal codes. Kurniawan shows how the crime not only interlinks two tormented families but also tears them apart. As individuals who uncritically adhere to the codes, the characters in the novel become accomplices in the crime that Margio commits.
One can also read Margio’s crime as an act of rebellion against the encoded norms. This reading is especially valid if one considers the white tigress as a spirit of rebellion, which it was when Margio’s grandfather was possessed by it. The narrator tells us that Margio had heard stories of his grandfather’s prowess and how his elders had resisted the Dutch efforts to abduct young men for forced labour. This passing comment gives a political context to the novel and allows the reader to see Margio as a hero.
As a final thought, I would say that Man Tiger is a short and stunning piece of work, the credit of which goes to both the author and the translator. The novel does contain brutal and violent scenes of sexual assault and marital rape. If you feel triggered by such scenes, perhaps this novel is not for you.
Lyrical, bawdy, experimental, political: There aren’t enough adjectives for this novel.
Eka Kurniawan’s Man Tiger (2015) is almost a literary child of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart (1958) and Gabriel García Márquez’ Chronicle of a Death Foretold (1981). However, this does not mean that it lacks originality. Longlisted for the Man Booker International Prize 2016, Man Tiger is as much a crime novel as a social critique.
Like Kurniawan’s first novel Beauty is a Wound (2002), Man Tiger is set in an unnamed Indonesian township near the Indian Ocean. The central protagonist of the novel is Margio, a young man possessed by a white tigress. The tigress, “white as a swan and vicious as an ajak”, is an inheritance that Margio receives from his grandfather. The first line of the novel introduces the central event of the narrative. It reads: “On the evening Margio killed Anwar Sadat, Kyai Jahro was blissfully busy with his fishpond.” In five neat chapters, the novel takes its readers on a quest, reliving the events that lead to the crime and introducing the characters that are variedly involved in it.
Time has stopped
One of the most compelling things about the novel is its engagement with time. The first chapter opens in the present day; the subsequent chapters take the reader back to Margio’s childhood and further back to his parents’ days of courtship; and the final chapter returns, once more, to the present. However, it is rarely as simple as that. Time in the novel expands and contracts, past flows into the present and the present often harks back upon the past. At one point, the novel announces, “Time has stopped.” Time, like memory, flows but never in a perfectly linear fashion.
Repetition or repeated emphasis is another way in which the novel engages with time. The narrator takes the reader back to the past, traces the events that led to the present, and emphasises the present by repetition. Time stops when Margio kills Anwar Sadat, the central event of the present that is constantly emphasised.
A repository of culture
The purpose of taking the reader back and forth in time is also to present a picture of the cultural milieu in which Kurniawan’s characters are embedded. In this regard, the motif of mythology and story-telling is especially significant. Benedict Anderson, in the Introduction to the novel, writes that Kurniawan established an early connection to literature through the stories of his grandmother and an old lady of his village. One can see the influence of these stories and village histories in both Beauty is a Wound and Man Tiger.
The story of the white tigress, the narrator of Man Tiger informs us, is one of the “many stories [that were] passed between successive storytellers across the generations.” Culture (as defined by the Kenyan writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o) is a collective memory bank of people’s experiences in history. These experiences are narrated and transmitted across generations through personal and collective stories. It is often through these many narratives that people perceive their identities in a culture. Kurniawan’s novel is one such narrative; it is a repository of the culture of a small Indonesian township.
Social Critique
However, Man Tiger does not present an idealised picture of this culture. Far from it. It lays bare the atrocities that are encoded in this society; atrocities that more often than not find a meeting point in the marginalised figures of women in the narrative. The crime itself is a result of oppressive societal codes. Kurniawan shows how the crime not only interlinks two tormented families but also tears them apart. As individuals who uncritically adhere to the codes, the characters in the novel become accomplices in the crime that Margio commits.
One can also read Margio’s crime as an act of rebellion against the encoded norms. This reading is especially valid if one considers the white tigress as a spirit of rebellion, which it was when Margio’s grandfather was possessed by it. The narrator tells us that Margio had heard stories of his grandfather’s prowess and how his elders had resisted the Dutch efforts to abduct young men for forced labour. This passing comment gives a political context to the novel and allows the reader to see Margio as a hero.
As a final thought, I would say that Man Tiger is a short and stunning piece of work, the credit of which goes to both the author and the translator. The novel does contain brutal and violent scenes of sexual assault and marital rape. If you feel triggered by such scenes, perhaps this novel is not for you.
lottesuardi's review against another edition
challenging
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape, Child death, and Domestic abuse
Moderate: Child abuse and Gore