a b King, Stephen (2000). On Writing: A Memoir Of The Craft. Simon & Schuster. p.41. ISBN 978-0-7432-1153-6. We have 5 read-alikes for The Night Tiger, but non-members are limited to two results. To see the complete list of this book's read-alikes, you need to be a member. 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. 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. As Ren begins his journey to his newly arranged place of employment, Choo introduces us to Ji Lin who finds herself weighed down by the task of paying down her mother's mahjong debts while working as a dressmaker and secretly moonlighting as a dancehall girl. Both women fear Ji Lin's cruel step-father who makes life miserable for the family. Her older step-brother, Shin, works as a medical student at a local hospital. Shin has had many an altercation with his father and stays away as much as possible. Their relationship will be an oddly carved one with unexpected sharp edges.

Second, I really disliked the stepsister/brother romance. Not my thing at all. I don't know why so many authors do this. There's just no need. If your sibling/step-sibling is starting to look hot, get yourself out of the house. Seriously. 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. 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.

Customer reviews

You wrote The Night Tiger over the course of four years. What was that process like and how did you stay committed to the story? Ren is an 11-year-old boy on a mission to locate his former masters missing finger so that he can bury it with his body. He has 49 days to do so for his master to be a rest. If he fails to find the missing finger, his master will be doomed to roam the earth forever. Time is running out: there are only 20 days left before Dr. Mac Farlane’s forty-nine days of the soul are over. If by then he can’t find the finger, he’ll have failed. How will his old master rest? Ren remembers Dr. MacFarlane’s last days, shivering fevers. And then the dreams, the waking nightmares in which the old man would cry for mercy, or crawl slavering on all fours. If Auntie Kwan had still been with them, she would have taken charge, but in the end there was only Ren”. There were a number of ways I got into the story. One of them is my love for old houses. Malaysia has a lot of abandoned colonial houses left by the British, and they speak to a completely different lifestyle. So one way to think about this novel is something like a Downton Abbey of the tropics, in which it's all colonial. The British had these large houses with large local staffs and, because of the language barrier, sometimes the people in the house didn't know what the staff were saying, or what they knew about them. That was always very interesting to me.

Malaya, with its mix of Malays, Chinese, and Indians, is full of spirits: a looking-glass world governed by unsettling rules. The European werewolf is a man who, when the moon is full, turns his skin inside out and become a beast. He then leaves the village and goes into the forest to kill. But for the natives here, the weretiger is not a man, but a beast who, when he chooses, put on a human skin and comes from the jungle into the village to prey on humans. It’s almost exactly the reverse situation and in some ways more disturbing”. 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! Unfortunately, I did have a few issues with the book. One thing I noticed was some repetitiveness in the dialogue. It was especially noticeable when I was listening to portions of the book on audio. Ren, a young houseboy, is an orphan and has also suffered the loss of his twin. Alone and with complete loyalty to his dying master, Ren has accepted his final task to find his master's missing amputated finger and bury it with him in his grave before the 49 days of his soul are over. The soul cannot rest in peace if the body is not made whole again at death, and 49 days is a long time to wander the earth.

Book Summary

Jin Lin was a rookie dressmaker....but the job as a student/apprentice wasn’t enough money to help get her mother out of a Financial jam. So on the side she secretly took a job working at the May Flower Dance Hall. The Night Tiger: A Novel is a 2019 novel by Malaysian author Yangsze Choo, written in English. [1] [2] [3]

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 - Ren’s porous sense of reality (and Choo’s smart use of the present tense) gives his passages a propulsive vitality that grips the reader’s attention. Ren doesn’t know what is going to happen next, and neither does the reader. Conversely, Ji Lin relates her story in the past tense, but neither she nor the reader benefits from hindsight. 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. 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. My only qualm in a story I mostly enjoyed, was the love story. Felt it was unnecessary, and lowered the novel a notch in my estimation. Many other readers have not found this to be the case. Guess, it all depends on how you interpret what you are reading, as well as your expectations going into a story. Still, I liked it because it was different from others I have read, and for a look at a culture of which I knew little..

Beyond the Book

The Night Tiger, by Yangsze Choo, blends the legends of jungle weretigers, restless spirits and prophetic dreams with everyday challenges in 1930s Malaysia. The Mama, shifting her large bulk practically, said, “You’ll need a name. Preferably English. We’ll call you Louise.” Reading Paulette Jiles' revenge western Chenneville, it's easy to remember she's a poet. She plays ... 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. 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.