Tigerlily Orchids by Ruth Rendell Unabridged CD Audiobook Ruth Rendell 9781456133962 Books
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Unabridged CD Audiobook ... 7 CDs / 8 hours long
Tigerlily Orchids by Ruth Rendell Unabridged CD Audiobook Ruth Rendell 9781456133962 Books
Ruth Rendell was a truly gifted writer, especially when it comes to her character studies. This book is no exception. From the very beginning, the reader is drawn into a Hitchcockian world where neighbors in close proximity spy on and speculate about each other. As "Rear Window" teaches us, things are rarely as one-dimensional as they seem. The person who hasn't seemed to learn that lesson is the character who is the focal point of the novel, Stuart Font. He's handsome (to say he knows it is an understatement), self-centered, superficial, cowardly, and not very bright. Through most of the book he's sleeping with a married woman, who has a violent husband, but he's too big of a weakling to break things off with his aggressive lover. When he sees "Tigerlily," the most beautiful woman he's ever seen, he becomes obsessed with her. A discerning reader will see that this is the obsession of a white man for an Asian woman who he believes will submissively put him at the center of her universe and care only for him. But this is Ruth Rendell and things never turn out the way her characters expect them to.I've given this four stars instead of five because even though I thought the writing was excellent and the characters incredibly well drawn, I compare every Rendell to her masterpiece "A Judgement in Stone." This book is not as good, but that doesn't mean it's not worth a read - it definitely is. If you're looking for a murder mystery, you will be disappointed. Yes, there is a murder, and yes, the killer is not immediately revealed. But the murder is a subplot compared to the many stories of the characters who populate the world of the victim. When a book has me constantly second guessing the characters motives and actions, I know I've found a good one.
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Tigerlily Orchids by Ruth Rendell Unabridged CD Audiobook Ruth Rendell 9781456133962 Books Reviews
Ruth Rendell sets up her story by first introducing us to her characters and lets us get to know them in depth as they live complicated lives in the six flats at Lichfield House. Across the street from Lichfield House is a semi-detached home named Springmeade and attached to that is Duncan's home, which in the winter is so warm and cozy with the extra insulation that he tells all of his friends about it. There is quite a bit of interest in his neighbors at Springmeade who are Asian and in particular, the young woman who is nicknamed Tigerlily, because she is so beautiful, but quite aloof as are the rest of the family members there. They turn down all invitations and stay to themselves.
One of the tenants at Lichfield House is Stuart Font, and he has inherited a sum of money and has bought the flat and decides to have a party, but the party turns to disaster as the husband of his present lover, Claudia, who is a guest, shows up. Freddie, the husband, wallops Stuart and then threatens to kill him if he ever sees Stuart with his wife again. The relationship between Claudia and Stuart goes downhill from there on. Guests leave in fear when the fight starts and Stuart's party turns out to be a disaster, something to be ashamed of for the host.
As readers, we are the spectators who watch Olwen deliberately try to drink herself to death. Her husbands are dead, she has no children and she sits day after day in her Lichfield House flat drinking, that is, after she has struggled to the store to buy the day's supply of alcohol. The caretakers at the House are a bit on the rough-around-the-edges side, but Walter, the husband, is into things he shouldn't be. His wife cleans the flats in short, tight skirts and stiletto heels.
The tension builds slowly until the end when we find out how intertwined the residents of this neighborhood are, and the whodunit of the mystery is revealed. To say much more would be to give away a lot, but the characters are all very interesting no matter what they've done in the past and what they do now. The revelations about Tigerlily were the most interesting of all to me, and I enjoyed the book very much.
While the title conjures up images of the Indian Princess in "Peter Pan", the same-named character in Ruth Rendell's "Tigerlily's Orchids" is seldom seen to the point of being non-existant; but for her necessary presence in certain plot machinations, Tigerlily merely seems like a broadly drawn throwaway who isn't nearly the enigma the book suggests she should be. In fact, Tigerlily (a name made up for her by a nosy neighbor) is a mysterious Asian beauty living in a house with other mysterious Asians up to mysterious goings-on at all hours of the day and night. While this suggestive intrigue should command our attention, it somehow does not. Much more interesting are the folks living in the London apartment building across the street and, luckily for us, these are the people who really propel the story and provoke our interest. Among the building's inhabitants a spoiled, vain young man having a desultory affair with a vapid, married woman; an aging hippie who recognizes a female tenant from a long-ago event that profoundly affected his life; three female college students sharing the apartment owned by one's father; an unsuccessful doctor and his wife; a woman determined to drink herself to death; and the building's caretakers, a husband and wife who have their own secrets. Keeping a quiet eye on all his neighbors is Duncan, a widower living next door to Tigerlily's gang.
As is customary with Rendell, the characters--with the exception of Tigerlily, herself--are well-drawn, with believable motivations and consequences for their actions that aren't too farfetched. There is suspense aplenty, but it is leisurely presented, which I think could be a problem for readers accustomed to certain bestselling authors who write two and three page chapters, each one ending with a cliffhanger. This is not Ruth Rendell's style.
Since "Tigerlily's Orchids" is, ostensibly, a crime novel, there are an array of dirty deeds happening, but when the requisite murder finally occurs, we've already been drawn into the lives of other, more empathetic characters, so that the murder seems almost beside the point. Despite there being a host of likely suspects, the whole murder business presented here somehow doesn't seem integral to the central story. True, it adds another layer to the tale, but things would be just as interesting without it.
While I tend to prefer Rendell's stand alone novels to her Inspector Wexler series, "Tigerlily's Orchids", while very good, isn't one of my favorites. However, it is much better than the irksome "Portobello", Rendell's last outing; and, the fact that she is still a prolific writer in her eighties who has had more hits than misses earns extra kudos for this entertaining, if unmemorable, entry into her oeuvre.
Ruth Rendell was a truly gifted writer, especially when it comes to her character studies. This book is no exception. From the very beginning, the reader is drawn into a Hitchcockian world where neighbors in close proximity spy on and speculate about each other. As "Rear Window" teaches us, things are rarely as one-dimensional as they seem. The person who hasn't seemed to learn that lesson is the character who is the focal point of the novel, Stuart Font. He's handsome (to say he knows it is an understatement), self-centered, superficial, cowardly, and not very bright. Through most of the book he's sleeping with a married woman, who has a violent husband, but he's too big of a weakling to break things off with his aggressive lover. When he sees "Tigerlily," the most beautiful woman he's ever seen, he becomes obsessed with her. A discerning reader will see that this is the obsession of a white man for an Asian woman who he believes will submissively put him at the center of her universe and care only for him. But this is Ruth Rendell and things never turn out the way her characters expect them to.
I've given this four stars instead of five because even though I thought the writing was excellent and the characters incredibly well drawn, I compare every Rendell to her masterpiece "A Judgement in Stone." This book is not as good, but that doesn't mean it's not worth a read - it definitely is. If you're looking for a murder mystery, you will be disappointed. Yes, there is a murder, and yes, the killer is not immediately revealed. But the murder is a subplot compared to the many stories of the characters who populate the world of the victim. When a book has me constantly second guessing the characters motives and actions, I know I've found a good one.
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