The library and finds....
Library visits require a bit of strategic planning for me. Usually a Saturday, after I've put Lil G to sleep. Then I can club library and specific grocery stuff . But rarely do I ever get to do this alone. G does not sleep in the afternoons and so she tags along, insisting on dragging the trolley and managing to keep a constant chatter and doing her hop-a-skip step.
Once we get into the library, we've normally decided beforehand who gets to choose first and head to the appropriate section. I have to be firm sometimes with G as a book is chosen by its cover and if it's pink. Seriously! Well, she can't read on her own yet so she tends to judge a book by the cover! And I am impatiently waiting to head to the limited but nevertheless well-stocked fiction section. Kid in a candy shop then, that's me.
Tiger, Tiger by Margaux Fragoso -
It was the back page narration that piqued my perverse curiosity. It talks about the victim narrating her relationship with a paedophile. Humanizing a paedophile - this phrase that caught my eye.
Margaux was in a relationship with a 51 year old man, for 15 whole years beginning from the time when she was 7 years old. They meet at a public swimming pool, she is with her mother then and and starts going to his house accompanied by her mother. There is no mistaking that she comes from a dysfunctional family. Only child of an immigrant father who is a jewelery craftsman (drunk a lot of the times) and a mother who is vague and suffering from mental illness, depression and such. Why would a normal child who feels emotionally secure and fulfilled with love and attention of parents feel the need such an unconventional relationship?
Their relationship blossoms under the not-so-watchful eyes of her supposedly vigilant mother and the very tactful and tacit understanding created by Peter, the man who makes her believe that she shares a very special relationship with him. The biggest metaphorical illusion she makes is about the tiger, and the whole secrecy of the relationship. For the discerning, certainly there are more such metaphors. The relationship continues through her growing up years. It turns a full circle too. Once she has attained puberty, it is as if she has more control over the relationship, a greater sexual influence which she uses to provoke. The whole cycle comes to an end when Peter kills himself by committing suicide.
It is a no-holds barred narrative, gripping, disturbing too during some very sexually explicit recounting of herself as a child of 7 or 8 being initiated and manipulated emotionally into a physical relationship with Peter. The writer has tremendous survival spirit and has come to terms with it to have written in such vivid detail. She mentions that Peter had also encouraged her to write their story. There is a sense of mixed feelings of love and hatred towards her abuser runs course in the book
There are many reviews on this book that suggest it is a promotional idea, or even question the authenticity of the story. However, I feel the author has to be commended for her courage to bring to the open the travails of a confusing and misfraught childhood and adolescence. She has eventually married and has a daughter. Margaux herself says that it will help others who have/are undergoing such abuses, people who work with victims, families and the society at large. It will certainly be a reminder on how child abusers can empathize with their victims.
On a lighter note, I read a story to G every night. Some days she picks up a book in Dutch and I beg off as I don't know a lot of words. Smartie that she is she brings to bed the book as well as a dictionary so I can refer easily:))
Once we get into the library, we've normally decided beforehand who gets to choose first and head to the appropriate section. I have to be firm sometimes with G as a book is chosen by its cover and if it's pink. Seriously! Well, she can't read on her own yet so she tends to judge a book by the cover! And I am impatiently waiting to head to the limited but nevertheless well-stocked fiction section. Kid in a candy shop then, that's me.
Tiger, Tiger by Margaux Fragoso -
It was the back page narration that piqued my perverse curiosity. It talks about the victim narrating her relationship with a paedophile. Humanizing a paedophile - this phrase that caught my eye.
Margaux was in a relationship with a 51 year old man, for 15 whole years beginning from the time when she was 7 years old. They meet at a public swimming pool, she is with her mother then and and starts going to his house accompanied by her mother. There is no mistaking that she comes from a dysfunctional family. Only child of an immigrant father who is a jewelery craftsman (drunk a lot of the times) and a mother who is vague and suffering from mental illness, depression and such. Why would a normal child who feels emotionally secure and fulfilled with love and attention of parents feel the need such an unconventional relationship?
Their relationship blossoms under the not-so-watchful eyes of her supposedly vigilant mother and the very tactful and tacit understanding created by Peter, the man who makes her believe that she shares a very special relationship with him. The biggest metaphorical illusion she makes is about the tiger, and the whole secrecy of the relationship. For the discerning, certainly there are more such metaphors. The relationship continues through her growing up years. It turns a full circle too. Once she has attained puberty, it is as if she has more control over the relationship, a greater sexual influence which she uses to provoke. The whole cycle comes to an end when Peter kills himself by committing suicide.
It is a no-holds barred narrative, gripping, disturbing too during some very sexually explicit recounting of herself as a child of 7 or 8 being initiated and manipulated emotionally into a physical relationship with Peter. The writer has tremendous survival spirit and has come to terms with it to have written in such vivid detail. She mentions that Peter had also encouraged her to write their story. There is a sense of mixed feelings of love and hatred towards her abuser runs course in the book
There are many reviews on this book that suggest it is a promotional idea, or even question the authenticity of the story. However, I feel the author has to be commended for her courage to bring to the open the travails of a confusing and misfraught childhood and adolescence. She has eventually married and has a daughter. Margaux herself says that it will help others who have/are undergoing such abuses, people who work with victims, families and the society at large. It will certainly be a reminder on how child abusers can empathize with their victims.
On a lighter note, I read a story to G every night. Some days she picks up a book in Dutch and I beg off as I don't know a lot of words. Smartie that she is she brings to bed the book as well as a dictionary so I can refer easily:))
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