There’s love accumulated over stretches of time that they haven’t met and so you understand that moment when Tom and Claudia are walking in Cairo markets replete with their filth and fragrances, why he wants to buy her something….anything. They both don’t know if there is a future, times being as such, and hope is a flighty word. That desperation to offer something tangible, because who can hold love, is my favourite part of the story. It’s as human as it gets. Penelope Lively’s Claudia- the custodian of lost Hungarians, enterprising, almost fearless, leaving behind her wake of bad decisions, a spunky historian. She is a handful and age has nothing to do with it. As a feisty chit of a girl or as a supposed dowager, lying on white sheets, forgetting the names of things, pretend-sleeping through family visits- there was no point when I wasn’t rooting for her. No two people are born in the same family- siblings meet their parents at different growth trajectories, so each has a different childhood. History is something like that- how the world moves for an Indian is different for how it moves for a Ukranian, a Sudanese, an American. So when Claudia aspires to retell the history of humankind, in effect, it is her version of the world she is offering. Ambitious, much? But then we all think we have a tomorrow and the next year and a life planned till 80, so who isn’t? Travelling through time with Claudia was like diving into the vortex- levels fly past, and everything’s happening simultaneously on them. Lively was right- memory doesn’t care for chronology. Neither is it that clinical nor as neat. I loved the same version of events retold through different character perspectives. Moon Tiger isn’t a romantic read, lest my opening lines put you off. More like a manual for living- if we are going to take up space, might as well make the most of it. PS: The cover. I detest it. #moontiger #penelopelively #delhireader #delhibookstagram #bookerprizewinner #femaleauthors #readingwomen #feministbooks #bookflatlay #delhibookstafam #historicalfiction #smallbooks #recommededreading #womenwhoread #2023readingchallenge #bestbooks2023 #indianbookstagrammer (at India) https://www.instagram.com/p/Cn3YEEEL7HZ/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=