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Tigerlily Orchids Ruth Rendell 9780385668880 Books

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Tigerlily Orchids Ruth Rendell 9780385668880 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.


Tags : Tigerlily's Orchids [Ruth Rendell] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. From the incomparable, award-winning Ruth Rendell — the grand dame of British crime fiction ( The Gazette</i>) —comes her latest psychological thriller. When Stuart Font decides to throw a house-warming party in his new flat he invites everyone in his building. The party will be one everyone remembers. But not for the right reasons.... Living opposite,Ruth Rendell,Tigerlily's Orchids,Doubleday Canada,0385668880,Fiction General

Tigerlily Orchids Ruth Rendell 9780385668880 Books Reviews

Rendell has always had a fondness for populating her novels with a tenuously connected group of people, a group of people whose accidental proximity changes lives and generally results in a death. In "Tigerlily's Orchid's", true to form, someone dies violently, but the identity of the killer isn't the main focus of the novel - the focus is on how the characters misapprehend each other and (mostly inadvertently) change each other's lives.

The most egregious minsunderstander is Duncan, who, in rather Rear Window-ish fashion, spends most of his time watching his neighbors and conjecturing about what they might be up to, but, unlike Jimmy Stewart, he's always comically (or is it tragically?) mistaken. He does have a good view of Lichfield House right across the street, and it's the comings and goings of the tenants there that provide the primary focus of the book. There is Stuart, who never met a mirror he didn't like. There's Michael, who writes a medical column despite his fundamental confusion about all matters medical. And there's Olwen, who's decided to drink herself to death, who wants nothing at all from life but to be able to do so without interference, who has a pension more than adequate for her purposes, but of course her simple ambition is thwarted at every turn.

Rendell at her best is fascinating - ordinarily she has her claws out in the most delicious way, and "Tigerlily's Orchids" is no exception. Social satire of a high order.
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.