Page Turning Non-Fiction: Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival

[Edwardsville Public Library]

Reading and Discussion Schedule for The Tiger:
Week One (Oct 7 - Oct 13) Prologue – Ch. 6
Week Two (Oct 14 - Oct 20) Ch. 7 – 12
Week Three (Oct 21 - Oct 27) Ch. 13 – 18
Week Four (Oct 28 - Nov 3) Ch. 19 – End
This discussion will be moderated by Jacob D.

[Edwardsville Public Library]

Through this early section of the book, John Vaillant paints Primorye as a pretty rough place to live, which makes illegal activities like poaching seem worth the risk to survive. What struck you about this remote part of Russia and the people who live there?

[Katherine]

I was struck by the poverty of the people and surprised that anyone stayed there after almost all of the legal businesses left. What keeps people living in such horrible situations? I'm sure some of them don't have the money to leave and others don't know what they would do if they left.

[Edwardsville Public Library]

Katherine, I think it takes a certain kind of person to thrive in a place like Primorye. After weeks away, hunters grow tired of sitting at home within a matter of days--they're ready to get back to the wilderness. While Chris McCandless (from Into the Wild) romanticized the rustic lifestyle before it led to his death, inhabitants of a place like Sobolonye have known no other lifestyle. Some of these guys would surely take this lifestyle over any city or suburb. So, for the hunters with wives and children at home, maybe their families' situation is worse than that of the husbands. The domestic life in this region is likely where you'll really feel the level of poverty and 'remoteness.'

[Edwardsville Public Library]

In the second week's reading, some interesting similarities between The Tiger and In the Heart of the Sea arise. The idea that trophy hunting has gradually decreased the size of the species is apparent in both books. But there seems to be a big difference in the relationship between man and beast in the two books. Sperm whales seemed to benefit very little from a human presence. The relationship between tigers and man appears to be very symbiotic in this book. What struck you about the way man and tiger co-exist in this part of the world?

[Katherine]

I was intrigued by the comments made by those who had lived in the area a long time. There was a lot of respect for the tigers. Something to the effect of "if we don't mess with them then they don't mess with us". I also found it fascinating that those same people believe that you can be "marked" by a tiger and that once you anger a tiger, you are a goner. It definitely seemed true in this book.

[Edwardsville Public Library]

I was surprised by the concept of a tiger marking a specific group of people. If you look and smell like Markov, or anyone else who shot the tiger, you are guilty by association. One of the Udege men didn't want to get involved with tracking and hunting the tiger because he didn't want to have his whole tribe of people on the tiger's radar.

And near the end of the book, once we can see all the bullets in the tiger's body, the 'if we don't mess with them' adage proves even more true. This tiger had been shot at so many times, no wonder it wanted to get rid of the men in the Bikin River Valley.

What would you do if you saw a tiger 100 yards away from you in a forest? I think I'd rather be in that situation than swimming around in shark-infested waters. But people also try to tell me sharks only attack humans when they mistake us for seals. I'd probably take either scenario over being anywhere near alligators or crocodiles.