The Night Tiger: The Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick

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The Night Tiger is a galloping good read that’s blessedly free of political polemics and post-colonial self-righteousness. Instead, what author Yangsze Choo has given readers is a darn good yarn replete with shape-shifting tigers, severed fingers, complex sibling bonds, an evil stepparent, vivid dreamscapes, thwarted love, a psychopathic serial killer, poison, and grave-robbing. Alongside this is the story of Ji Lin. Refused the chance to be a doctor because she is a girl, Ji Lin instead works as a dancehall girl, unbeknownst to her abusive stepfather and beloved stepbrother. When a handsy dance partner one night leaves something behind, she discovers to her horror that it is a severed finger. The dance partner in question is shortly found dead. Soon a mysterious man is showing up, following Ji Lin around, and asking questions. Sherwood, Harriet (18 April 2022). "The God of Small Things to Shuggie Bain: the Queen's jubilee book list". The Guardian . Retrieved 30 April 2022. The book is set in 1931 in Malaysia, the main characters are Jin Li also knoen as Louise, a young woman, who has a busy life working in part-time jobs and she still doesn't know what to do with her life!

Yangsze Choo writes an enthralling and exhilarating piece of well researched historical fiction set in the British colony of Malaya (Malaysia) of the 1930s. The fraught and upset British doctor is dying and worried about what will happen to his soul upon death. He had been gifted a 11 year old Chinese house boy, Ren, by a friend. Ren is a kind, loyal and compassionate boy and when his dying master on his deathbed asks that he finds his severed finger and bury it with his dead body to prevent his soul from roaming the earth forever, he complies. However, he must do this within 49 days, adding a strong sense of urgency to his time sensitive obstacle ridden quest. Ren is to find his path crosses with that of Ji-Lin, a bright and intelligent woman, whose ambitions to be a doctor have been thwarted by her step father. This is a atmospheric story of tradition, culture, masters, servants, love and the dead, incorporating the central role of Chinese mythology and folklore, colonisation, dreams and superstition. Starred Review. A sumptuous garden maze of a novel that immerses readers in a complex, vanished world…Choo weaves her research in with a feather-light touch, and readers will be so caught up in the natural and supernatural intrigue that the serious themes here about colonialism and power dynamics, about gender and class, are absorbed with equal delicacy. To her credit, Choo manages to intertwine all these plots and subplots with themes of superstition, Confucianism, and the desire for personal fulfillment versus the tug of familial loyalty. Altogether, a bravura performance. A work of incredible beauty…Astoundingly captivating and striking in its portrayal of love, betrayal, and death, The Night Tigeris a transcendent story of courage and connection.” ― Booklist(starred review)When I was researching my first novel, The Ghost Bride, I found a book called Malay Magic.It details a lot of charms, and short poetry about magic, and really caught my attention. When I was researching an earlier book about an elephant detective, I kept finding stuff about tigers, and that stayed with me. Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.

I loved the part when Jin Li wanted to study medicine but when her parents stopped her because she's a girl I really had mixed emotions as this is an everyday problem in every society! And the parts of Jin Li working in different jobs only to cover her mother's gambling debts are so powerful and feminist, I enjoyed her as a character she is really strong and smart woman! Schultheis, Patricia (21 March 2019). "The Night Tiger: A Novel | Washington Independent Review of Books". Washington Independent Review of Books . Retrieved 5 May 2022.

Jin Lin and Shin survive an attempted murder by Koh Beng. We learn Lydia is also a murder. Ren accidentally serves William poisoned tea and he dies. Let’s discuss all of this. What happens next for Jin Lin, Shin, Ren and Lydia? Will they always be connected? If the author wrote a sequel, what would you like to see happen in it? Ren is 11 years old and charged with an impossible task: locate the severed finger of his now-deceased master, Dr. Macfarlane, and reunite it with the doctor's body. He has 49 days to do so, or else his master's soul will wander the earth. Wandering souls are awful enough in their own right, but made all the more dangerous because Dr. Macfarlane may have been a weretiger in his last living days. To further complicate matters, according to tradition, the finger cannot be returned willingly--it must be "taken or stolen." The novel's title evokes the story of the weretiger, "a beast who, when he chooses, puts on a human skin and comes from the jungle into the village to prey on humans." What is the significance of that Malayan folktale in the novel? What does it represent for the different characters? Richly complex…Gorgeous…Transport[s] us into a colonial world we more often see from the view of the occupier, in this transcendent tale about twins who share no blood, mythology and superstition, sibling rivalry, loyalty, forbidden love and identity.” — San Francisco Chronicle The Tyger" is a poem by visionary English poet William Blake, and is often said to be the most widely anthologized poem in the English language. It consists entirely of questions about the nature of God and creation, particularly whether the same God that created vulnerable beings like the lamb could also have made the fearsome tiger. The tiger becomes a symbol for one of religion's most difficult questions: why does God allow evil to exist? At the same time, however, the poem is an expression of marvel and wonder at the tiger and its fearsome power, and by extension the power of both nature and God.

At times like this the boy looks far younger than his years. The old man is sorry—he wishes he could do it himself, but he’s exhausted. Instead, he turns his face to the wall. Crisscrossing Ren’s tale are those of William Acton, a philandering surgeon who becomes Ren’s new employer, and Ji Lin, a young woman chafing under her limited horizons as a dressmaker’s apprentice. Time and again, the missing finger passes among them: surfacing, then becoming lost again, then found, then stolen, then buried, and finally reburied. A lively, sexy, and thought-provoking East-meets-West story about community, friendship, and women’s lives at all ages—a spicy and alluring mix of Together Tea and Calendar Girls.

My own choices — working at a dance hall, getting mixed up with a dead man’s finger, and telling lie after lie — could hardly be called wise, despite my supposed cleverness at school.” The old man opens his watery blue eyes, those colorless foreign eyes that had frightened Ren so much in the beginning, and whispers something. The boy bends his cropped head closer. This book is wonderful, covering a fascinating time period set in the 1930’s colonial Malaysia. ( called Malaya in the 1930’s). As you might be able to piece together - Ren and Jin Lin are going to cross paths. It’s filled with surprises- textured characters - ( engrossing sibling relationship), unexplained deaths - danger- humor - suspenseful turmoil - foods to make you hungry- ( I was so in the mood for steaming yummy noodles when I finished this novel), history - magical realism- ghosts - & tigers - forbidden love - Love -

Starred Review. A work of incredible beauty...Astoundingly captivating and striking in its portrayal of love, betrayal, and death, The Night Tiger is a transcendent story of courage and connection. These complaints, especially the latter, had a big effect on my reading experience, but I still thought The Night Tiger was a really good book. I loved the quiet, eerie, magical feel of it all. I think maybe I need to read The Ghost Bride. In Yangsze Choo's The Night Tiger, the two main characters, Ji and Ren, are named for two of the five virtues that make up the ethical system of Confucianism. Confucianism is a spiritual/philosophical tradition born out of the teachings of Chinese philosopher Confucius (who is believed to have lived circa 551-479 BCE), and it has been profoundly influential on the cultures of many Asian countries, including China, Vietnam, Japan and Korea. The five virtues come from the Confucian texts known as The Analects and The Book of Mencius (both originally published circa 475-221 BCE). They have been an integral part of the Chinese ethos for millennia, and continue to serve as moral guidelines in contemporary life. On top of that, there's a lot of repetition, which unfortunately doesn't feel like a narrative device, but like a tool to keep the bar low for readers with short attentions spans: How often do we have to hear about the five virtues and what they signify, how often do we have to hear about Ren's age, how often do we have to hear explanations regarding the weretiger? (Yes, I can repete myself as well, but do you feel like my review is literature?)Undeniably, however, embedded in Choo’s novel is a criticism of colonialism, albeit not as harsh as deserved. References to the darker, unseen forces that silently govern the everyday existence of Malaysian locals seem to hint at a critique of imperialist ventures and underlying currents of uneven geopolitical power dynamics. Underneath its sparkling, somewhat romantic exterior, there are dark things brewing in this world. Discuss the structure of the novel, alternating between Ren's and Ji Lin's perspectives. How do their narrative styles and worldviews compare? Do you prefer one to the other? How would the novel have been different had it only been from one perspective? The Night of the Tiger" is a short story by Stephen King. Originally written in the 1960s, it was first published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in February 1978. Ren is a 13 year old, he is an orphan and has suffered with the loss of his twin, also he worked for an English physician!