former library book. hardcover.

registered as part of the 'race to a million' challenge for the third bx anniversary, book 83 of 100.

nice perspective of narrating a life. reminds me a bit of the stone diaries, although i liked this one a lot better.

RELEASE NOTES:

to the wonderful maupi, who seems to be collecting volumes of this book.

Yep, I loved this book and therefor decided to badger others with it, for which purpose I need additional copies.

I read Moon Tiger originally as a ring, here's the journal entry I wrote then:
"... It is a book I want to have in my home to reread it now and then.

I mentioned the book on the Book Talk forum, in the thread "Read this book!". This is what I wrote:
"Read Moon Tiger!
It is amazing. The structure is so intricate, all kinds of perspective shifts. An old woman looks back on her life, it is partly stream of consciousness, partly same scenes seen through different eyes, partly very interesting historical background and many things more. (...) I started reading it and on one of the first pages I already wanted two friends to read it, desperately, force feed it to them! Read it now, while I was reading it. I'm going to send them copies, if they want them or not."
I had then just read this passage:
P. 2 f. Self-centred? Probably. Aren't we all? Why is it a term of accusation? That is what it was when I was a child. I was considered difficult. Impossible, indeed, was the word sometimes used. I didn't think I was impossible at all; (…) I always ached - burned - to go higher and faster and further.

Here some passages that I want to remember:

P. 28 Only with hindsight are we wise about cause and effect.
This is true, so true.

P. 158 On writing a book about Cortez and Montezuma and how this historical moment meshes into Claudia's own life: Like everything else: it enlarges me, it frees me from the prison of my experience; it also resounds within that experience.
I like that immensely, the notion of enlargement, the experience, knowledge, expanding one's own humble historical dot in history, how one is part of whole.

P. 168, about appearances and underlying lives: She looks at other groups, other superficial conformities of man, woman and child; she wonders what other histories are concealed beneath appearances.
Yes, appearances, we conform to be able to move in society. But there's always so much going on underneath the well-mannered surface.

P. 199, about surviving in the extreme madness of war: Everyone has their tale of a miraculous escape - that I suppose is mine, except that miracles don't come into it, just blind chance. But no one likes the idea of chance, so they play games with language and talk about miracles instead.
The power of language, to conceal, to seemingly disarm, to make bearable what can never actually be endured.

...

June 2005: I did get my own copy! I found it in the American Book Center in the used books corner, a clean and pleasant copy (I'm a bit picky when it comes to used books). The guy behind the cash register remarked that this was the cheapest book he'd sold that day (and I get a discount on top of the low used-book price), to which I could only reply that the price in no way corresponded to the value the book has for me ;-)"

And of course many thanks to nrrdgrrl who remembered my Moon Tiger obsession and gave me this copy last Friday in the notorious Amsterdam OBCZ Lef.

Surprise! How nice and thanks. Will read when time and moment is right. And the postcard is great: Dick Bruna's Miffy reading a book.

..Egocentric Claudia is once again subordinating history to her own puny existence. Well – don’t we all? And in any case what I am doing is to slot myself into the historical process, hitch myself to its coat-tails, see where I come in.

Thanks for sharing, maupi, it was a good read. Witty at times. Liked the changing perspectives in the story; how one sees, feels and reacts to things differently under the same circumstances (time, place, people). Claudia sometimes annoyed me, I don’t find her a sympathetic person, yet her existential struggle is so very human.

The day is refracted, and the next and the one after that, all of them broken up into a hundred juggled segments, each brilliant and self-contained so that the hours are no longer linear but assorted like bright sweets in a jar.


Because unless I am a part of everything I am nothing.

Making a ray out of this:
Barbje
lolamarie
... and lolamarie, you can decide what you want to do with the book.

Het boek is veilig aangekomen!

Het boek is nog steeds hier! Niet kwijt, kapot of voor eeuwig verloren. Ben er alleen nog niet aan toegekomen. Hoop het nog even te mogen houden, het ligt nu bovenop!

OK, na een half uur zinloos gesurf:

wat IS een moon tiger??

(ben op p.51, als de titelverklsring snel komt laat dan maar zitten ;-)

Het is zo'n gloetouwtje dat als een slang op een bordje ligt en langzaam opbrandt en muggen e.d. op afstand moet houden. Net als zo'n touwtje brandt Claudia's levenstouwtje langzaam op en wordt haar leven tot as. Zo iets.
Lees ze!

I'm glad I took the time to read this book; I needed some time to get used to it, but in the end I loved it. I already started telling others about it . ;-)

I liked the story, but loved the beautiful 'oneliners'.

3/5: sending the book to Lolamarie!

Received in the mail yesterday. I'm looking forward to reading this one soon!