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The novel is a little bit complicated because the Author is not focused only in one thing but it has various acts which are going on but they are reasonable reactions as in the end we can connect all the dots with such intrigue and unbelievable twists! Jin Lin was bright- she wished she could have left for college - wished to study medicine and become a doctor like her stepbrother, Shin’s plans. ( they were born on the same day), and Jin Lin had higher marks in school, but the culture in the 1930’s, Malaysia for women wasn’t encouraging. So.....dressmaker/ dance hall dancer it was.....
A tale of love, loyalty, food and perhaps even weretigers gives insight into Malay/Chinese traditions and folk legends (Gail B). I love a novel that pulls me into an unfamiliar time period, geographical area and/or culture. This one did all of that! (Kathryn F). The writing is beautiful, the story line multi-layered, and the main characters are richly developed (Carole P)... continued I tried to visit as many as I could. When you're inside an old house, you realize its character. You think: How many people came down these stairs? Why is the third stair worn away? Did people stop here to listen? Many of the buildings have now fallen into disrepair, and there's something very melancholy about these old houses that are just falling to pieces. Sometimes you can see them by the side of the road, and other times you can ask people permission to visit the house. a b King, Stephen (2000). On Writing: A Memoir Of The Craft. Simon & Schuster. p.41. ISBN 978-0-7432-1153-6. Throughout everything, there’s a murder mystery. Were you surprised that there were two killers: Koh Beng and Lydia? Choo] presents complex characters and multilayered stories in a vivid setting that coalesce into a richly evocative and mesmerizing tale in which myths and folklore intertwine in daily life. For fans of Kate Mosse or Isabel Allende.” ― Library JournalDatlow, Ellen (2010). Tails of Wonder and Imagination. Night Shade Books. p.638. ISBN 978-1-59780-255-0. There’s a rumor that when we colonials came to this part of the world, the natives, considered us beast-men as well, though nobody has said that to my face”.
I did not expect to be so entranced by this book. The variety of characters and the exotic setting, 1930's Malaya, was a positive aspect for me. And when I started this book, I actually spent some time driving around Malaysia. My parents still live there, so we went around to all these towns, many of which I'd been to as a kid. There are two main storylines here, which take place in Malaysia in 1931. The first belongs to Ji Lin and is told in the first person. Ji Lin is a young woman working as an apprentice in a dressmaker’s shop. She is also secretly working part-time at the May Flower Dance hall as a dance girl, which is not considered an appropriate job for respectable young women. Ji Lin needs the extra income to help pay off her mother’s mahjong gambling debts before her stern stepfather finds out. The second storyline is told in the third person and belongs to Ren, an eleven year servant assigned a task by his dying master. Ren must find and recover his master’s severed finger in the 49 days it will take his master’s consciousness to travel from one life to the next and bury it with his body so he can be whole in the afterlife. Malaya, with its mix of Malays, Chinese, and Indians, is full of spirits: a looking-glass world governed by unsettling rules. What do you think are some of the key themes of this story? In what ways did this serve as a fairy tale?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. What I liked about the first novel and also here, is the presence of Chinese-Malaya mythology such as weretigers, the underworld, the 5 Confucian virtues and all kinds of superstitions. However, in this one “evil spirits” were less creepy and some of the magical narratives were abandoned without a satisfactory conclusion. For example, there was supposed to be some sort of an important meaning about the meeting of the characters with the names of Confucian virtues but in the end it went nowhere. Also, at some point, Yi warned Ji Lin that the finger shouldn’t be returned to its owner but then the idea was abandoned. Moreover, the story moved from the mythology oriented story into a who-dunnit which was a bit confusing. I think the novel tried to be too many things. The same happened with the characters, there were too many main ones and they felt flat because they were not sufficiently developed, compared to her first novel. But perhaps this is just as well. Any probing self-analysis might have resulted in a more plodding novel, one that wouldn’t have been half as entertaining. As it is, readers may not be moved by The Night Tiger. But they certainly will be grabbed. 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?
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