Since a trip to far Eastern Russia is not on my agenda anytime soon nor on my bucket list, I took a journey there via John Vailiant's written word. I listened to Mr. Vailiant interviewed about his book on NPR and found the story so fascinating I had to go out and buy the book immediately.
As most of my friends and readers know, I am a big fan of non-fiction. Good non-fiction requires great writing simply by the fact that the story alone simply cannot hold the reader's interest for more than a few dozen pages. We all remember the booooring history books that were required in high school or the intro history courses in college. Only after I was out of school did I discover writers like Steven Ambrose, David McCullough, Doris Goodwin,Edwin Morris, Simon Winchester and John Krakauer to name but a few. These are writers who brought history to life as much with their prose as with their detailed research.
Valiant begins the book "Hanging in the trees, as if caught there, is a sickle of a moon. It's wan light scatters shadows on the snow below, only obscuring further the forest that this man negotiates now as much by feel as by sight."
Starting with such a vivid description I am immediately taken into the desolation of Siberia and the local lives of desperation and survival where the hunters have become the hunted. The story takes place in a forgotten part of the "New Russia" which has been abandoned with none of the wealth and modernity of cities West of the Urals. But in spite of all this, the people here are at one with their natural surroundings and have to survive like any other animal in this magnificent, raw wilderness. It is the Tiger who connects all in this story. He is the most admirable character in Vailiant's narrative. He is the one most closely connected to this region and a life and culture that is trying hard to survive, yet is loosing the battle.
The original story, which takes place in 1996 probably was probably buried in the back pages of Western newspapers, or not reported at all. A story about a Tiger eating people in Siberia might make its way to the National Enquirer, but not the New York Times.
What makes the book more interesting is how Valiant places the story of the tiger and the locals inside a historical perspective. When I turned the final page, it was if I was at one with the Tiger and his hunter, but I also closed the book with a knowledge of a part of the world I previously knew nothing about.
The imagery of post Perestroika Russia is as much a part of the story as the complexity of the characters.
I recall as a child a visit to the circus with my Dad and seeing the tigers in the center ring on their perches being "tamed" by a very masculine guy with leather boots and a whip. (No comments about the boots and whip please). I will never forget those beautiful, regal-like animals. This story brought back those vivid memories. I hoped for the tiger to prevail. Today, there are but a few Siberian Tigers surviving in the wilderness and it is likely that before too long the only ones remaining will be bred in captivity. Sadly, tigers raised in captivity cannot survive in the wilderness.
The book will make a great movie if done right. But don't wait for the movie, read the book. You will not be disappointed. And most of all, you will have a new appreciation for these beautiful, special animals.
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