The Night Tiger

The Night Tiger

By  Yangsze Choo

Quick-witted, ambitious Ji Lin is stuck as an apprentice dressmaker in 1930s Mayalsia, moonlighting as a dancehall girl to help pay off her mother's Mahjong debts. But when one of her dance partners accidentally leaves behind a gruesome souvenir, Ji Lin may finally get the adventure she has been longing for.

Eleven-year-old houseboy Ren is also on a mission, racing to fulfill his former master's dying wish: that Ren find the man's finger, lost years ago in an accident, and bury it with his body. Ren has 49 days to do so, or his master's soul will wander the earth forever.

As the days tick relentlessly by, a series of unexplained deaths racks the district, along with whispers of men who turn into tigers. Ji Lin and Ren's increasingly dangerous paths crisscross through lush plantations, hospital storage rooms, and ghostly dreamscapes.

Ooo, another good one, I'm on a roll!  Eminently readable, although definitely not for everyone.  It's very hard to describe, since the tone of the book is not quite magical realism (as many people have pointed to) but more - the interaction of normal life with the mysticism found in dreams.  Everyday Living with Ghosts, so to speak.   We switch off narration from two main characters, Ren, an 11 year old trying to find a finger, Ji Lin , a young woman working for a dressmaker and in a dancehall, who found the finger, much to her disgust, and one secondary character, William Acton, a British doctor with ~secrets~ (mostly about how he's banging a bunch of women).  

I was sucked in very quickly, the book is pretty atmospheric, so if you like it to start, that's pretty much how it continues.  Both the main characters were fun to read about, though I preferred Ji Lin.  That may be a cop out though, since I mostly just wanted good things to happen to her, and for most of the first part of the book, she seemed to be at risk for "bad things happening" than Ren.  

My biggest beef is that it seemed there was a lot of "suggestive" spiritual/fantastical things, like the weretiger, but they were basically dropped.  The mystery had an entirely human explanation, and although the dreams were intriguing, most of it didn't really connect to things in the normal world (like how each of the five had "something slightly wrong" with them - was this ever really addressed? or the dream sequences, the way that Ren's brother seemed to have another agenda going on, but it never really panned out).  

I know some people were weirded out by the step-brother romance thing - it was telegraphed early enough and obviously enough that I was prepared for it, so it didn't upset me in the sense of coming out of nowhere, and I was really rooting for those crazy kids, but I will say that once it was out in the open and her brother was basically like, "I'm going to try to seduce you," that was a little creepy to me.  Like the vibe at the end of that movie, The Graduate, where they run off so happily, but then we stay on them and you can see the smiles just sort of gradually disappear.  Why can't Ji Lin have nice things!

I would however, be more than happy to read about Ji Lin and Ren's continuing adventures in Singapore! I feel like they would make a wacky and entertaining detective team.  One of the most disappointing things was how little time they spent together in this book - although it wouldn't really make sense for them to join forces (this isn't a comic book, after all), I really would have loved to see them interact more, if only because each got very little support from other people in their lives, and it was nice to see their connection.    Man, I could have strangled William for shooting Ren though, that was messed up. Even if it was an accident.  

I'd like to re-read this again, this time with more of an eye towards the non-mystery parts of the story.  I mean, one of the strengths of the book is that even though I was incredibly curious about how it was going to be resolved, the writing really sucked me into the mood and atmosphere, instead of feeling like it was just slowing the plot down (although at roughly 1/3rd of the way in, I was like, "How can this plot fill the rest of the book?" and I'm still not sure how it took so long to wrap up, but I never minded the ride).  Which is good, because that increases the re-readability. I guess what I'm saying is, it felt very immersive and dreamy, which I hope was the intention of the author, almost like being there, and I enjoyed the trip very much.