REVIEW- Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively

Title: Moon Tiger
Author: Penelope Lively
Date: 1987
Booker Prize Winner (1987)

Nearing the end of her illustrious life, Claudia Hampton decides that her final work as a historian should be to write the history of the entire world. While she may not achieve this lofty goal, Claudia succeeds in providing the history of her own life. Lively uses her narrator's profession to great advantage, and the novel is comprised of Claudia's ruminations on her past told in the first person, as well as glimpses of her experiences told in third person. Her philosophies about history--which permit both anachronisms and fictionalization--dictate the manner in which her life story unfolds. Claudia informs us, "I've always thought a kaleidoscopic view might be an interesting heresy. Shake the tube and see what comes out. Chronology irritates me." Her other assessment, that she is "a myriad Claudias who spin and mix and part like sparks of sunlight on water," also provides the framework for which the story will be told, and is representative of the poetic tone Lively uses throughout the novel.

The majority of the novel recounts Claudia's experiences as a journalist in Egypt during World War II, where she engages in a fondly-remembered romance with a soldier named Tom. With the exception of the unusually close bond she shares with her brother Gorden, most of the other events and interactions in Claudia's life--however exciting and life-altering--pale in comparison to her love for Tom. Her relationship with her daughter, Lisa, is strained, probably because two of Claudia's most admirable traits--professional ambition and wanderlust--result in frequent absences from the child's life. Although her relationship with Jasper, Lisa's father, is amicable and provides one of the few constants in Claudia's life, it lacks the intensity she feels with Tom. As her life draws to an end, Claudia considers the separateness of the past and present, while not discounting the former's everlasting influence.

While the temporal and narrative shifts are initially confusing, they work well within the greater concept of the novel, and it is interesting to watch Claudia's life unfold from the "kaleidoscopic" view. Occasionally, a scene narrated by Claudia will then be told in the third person, with slightly different details, adhering to the notion that history is never free of fiction. Lively's narrator is witty and amusing, albeit distant and abrasive to those around her. She's seldom apologetic or regretful which, strangely, seems to make her more likable. Claudia does not try to drive people away for the sake of being icy or vindictive, it is simply part of her nature to give precedence to her own pursuits. (As I was reading, Katharine Hepburn came to mind. Claudia would have been right at home in Hepburn's repertoire of unconventional, fiercely independent wartime heroines.)