The Tiger: An Epic Tale of Retribution and Endurance

chris S.: I've recommended this non-fiction story to my students and just gave it as a gift to a friend who is working on her phd in an environmental topic. It's chilling because it reveals this magestic animal as a thinking and planning apex predator in a way that would not seem possible if it were not a true story. It also provides a nice bit of insight into life in a remote part of Russia where all things are difficult, especially if you are ill-advised enough to poke a Siberian tiger!

United States on Jul 30, 2023

Gordon: Fascinating to learn about the Amur tiger and its relationship to human life in the forests of Northeastern Asia. But also slow going at times learning about all the human characters involved in that region, and the philosophical and cultural issues surrounding the tiger.

United States on Jun 27, 2023

Vaughn Robert Miller: I would have never picked up a book like this, but it came highly recommended. And it delivered! The writing is so vivid, and it brings to life a part of the world I never knew existed. I also learned about Russian culture, tigers, wildlife conservation, hunting… And so much more. I really was struck by the author’s ability with language. At one point, he described the tiger’s stripes as “primordial calligraphy,” and that really delighted me.

United States on Jun 25, 2023

Lisa: I bought this book back in 2021 and have tried to read it in full since then. The story excited me and I was so looking forward to reading this but I’m admitting defeat and deleting it from my kindle.
As other reviewers have mentioned, there is just so much sidetracking. This is essentially a history book and not an easy one to read at that. Very dry.

United Kingdom on Feb 05, 2023

Amethyst_isis: This was a fascinating tale to read, but was let down by the authors tendency to go off on a tangent. Had he not done this it would have been a shorter, much more enjoyable read and would have taken me a darned sight less than the 2.5 weeks of reading it took.

The kindle version has errors in the consistency of both the typeface and font size used, there are gaps in words (spaces) which shouldn’t be there.

United Kingdom on Jan 03, 2023

Peer Sylvester: Das Buch fängt super an, quasi in Media res wird man gleich in die Position des Rangers Trush geworfen, der einen Tiger, der Geschmack auf Menschenfleisch gefunden hat, finden und töten muss - ohne dass dieser ihn zuerst findet. Doch nach der spannenden Einleitung gibt es erst einmal eine Menge Backstory über Trush und vor allem über das Gebiet an der Russisch-Chinesischen Grenze und den Lemurtigrn. Auch das ist sehr interessant, weiß man doch wenig über das Gebiet, über Amurtiger und über das schwierige Verhältnis zwischen potenziell gefährlichen Tigern und dem Schutz der bedrohten Tiere.
Leider ist das zweite Drittel des Buches deutlich weniger interessant, hier geht es vorrangig um die Vita aller anderen Beteiligten Personen. Der eigentliche Fall kommt immer wieder vor, aber oft nur in kleinen Brocken, was schade ist, da dies jetzt die spannenden Teile sind. Die letzten 20% sind wieder mehr im Fokus der Jagds auf den Tiger, aber auch hier geht es Häppchenweise voran, mit zudem vielen Wiederholungen. So vergeht kein Kapitel in dem nicht auf die unglaubliche Kraft eines Tigers eingegangen wird und diesem zudem große taktische Fähigkeiten zugesprochen werden.
Es...

Germany on Jul 16, 2022

aruna: In this book, John Valliant mentions of ethnologist Jacob Von Uexkull’s concept of umwelt ( an imaginary soap bubble around each creature to represent its own world and when we then step into one of the bubbles our reality is transformed…” Umgebung is the objective relative we live in; but each of us experiences it differently from our own umwelt (subjective reality). This reference in the story is poignant – did the tiger step into the umwelt of its victim to kill it?

The gruesome site where Andrei Markov a tayozhnik (forest dweller) was killed rather annihilated by the tiger in a remote taiga (forest) in Russia left the investigators and Markov’s friends or for that matter everyone around shocked and bewildered. Such ferocious brutality against man was unknown. The Inspection Tiger (the team charged to address tiger related issues in the taiga) saw in the evidence an intentional and calculated act; as if the tiger had marked out Markov, dictated the narrative and executed its plan to perfection. But why was the tiger angry with Markov?

John Valliant recounts this fascinating story of man and tiger encounters that took place in December 1997 in one of the...

India on Oct 29, 2019

wordparty: While following the trail of a maneater at large in Russia's wild east, much more than the chase is described in this extremely interesting book.
Some readers may be frustrated that the story is not pure adventure but takes several detours through the history of the land in which it is set. I found those detours fascinating and enriching though - whether they were about the culture, ancient and modern, of the remote Primorye region, or about the dark social effects of pre- and post-perestroika culture in the area, or about the various characters: principled, unprincipled, hard-working, dedicated or feral who populate the book.
The real and symbolic powers of the siberian tiger are illuminated, as is much else in the book, and I never found the background dull or distracting. Behind it all was the intense and gripping tiger-pursuit which culminates in a dramatic and shocking way.
At the end, the decline in tiger numbers - bringing these spellbinding animals to the verge of extinction - is starkly set out, all the more stark after reading about the power and beauty of the persecuted beast.
A minor irritation in the kindle edition is that many words - not at the ends of...

United Kingdom on Dec 03, 2011

J. Parisse-brassens: The Tiger, by John Vaillant had been on my list of books to read for a while, but because of travel and work, I hadn't got to it yet. I have now read it. It didn't take me very long, which is a good sign. This is non-fiction, but Vaillant is fairly good at creating an interesting narrative out of a true story. In Far East Russia, an Amur (Siberian) tiger has been shot at and wounded by a logger and poacher. The tiger stalks him, kills him and eats him. This sends the Primorye region into turmoil, because in spite of the bitter cold, its inhabitants have to go into the Taiga to make a living. There are a number of tigers living there, but they normally don't attack people. This tiger, however, proved it can be different. Because he was wounded (and indeed many times) he found it hard to hunt, and was starving as a result. After killing and eating his first man, he turned to others and killed a second person from the same village as the first one. This is not new - many similar stories have happened and still happen in India. A search mission was instigated, and the tiger killed. This is all that happens in the book (and not just quite enough for my liking), but Vaillant excels at...

United States on Nov 20, 2011

R. D'Alessandro III: Right from the start, this account of man versus nature reads like the very best fiction novels, drawing you in through visceral, powerful prose. Not simply a recount of the hunt for a rogue, man-eating Amur ('siberian') tiger in the Russian Far East, John Vaillant's exceptional work weaves a much more far reaching study of human existence and survival in and with nature, wildlife and nature conservation from this one isolated incidence of tiger predation upon humans and the subsequent hunt to exterminate the noble killer. With this second effort, Vaillant has shown the ability to tell a true story about the real world around us that rivals the spellbinding writing of John Krakauer and Mark Kurlansky.

Furthermore, this book is extremely personal for me - I KNEW these people in this book. Not so much the hunter/poachers, per se, but the Russian Federal anti-poaching rangers, such as Yuri Trush, who are the main protagonists in this true story. Between March 1996 and October 1997 I made five trips to the Russian Far East, using U.S. wildlife law enforcement special agents to provide training to Department Tiger of the former Ministry of Environment's Primorsky Krai Ecology...

United States on Jun 08, 2011