For our third and final Reader's Den discussion of Tigerman by Nick Harkaway, we will be looking at Chapters 7-21 of the book.

Thank you for joining us and if you have missed any of the previous posts, please feel free to visit any of the links below:

Week 1: Introduction
Week 2: Chapters 1-6
Week 3: Chapters 7-21

While the violence of Chapter 3  provides the initial impetus behind the novel's narrative and invention of the Tigerman persona, Chapter 7 seems to be the point at which the relationship between Lester Ferris and the boy subtly begins to shift. The sergeant at once views the boy with a protective, paternal instinct, yet also glimpses the latter's independence and world-weariness when their conversation turns to Bad Jack:

"But the boy knew all this—and he knew the difference between story and truth. He read Superman and watched Fox News, read Batman and watched Al Jazeera. He was not the sort to fret about a bogeyman. A child living on an island which is itself under threat of execution for the crime of having been environmentally raped has no need of invented villains" (p. 118).

This mingling of references to superhero comics and real world politics lies at the heart of Harkaway's novel. It can leave the reader with a slightly disoriented feeling: Mancreau is a fantastical island which seems to lie outside of time—not to mention one plagued by a mutant bacteria straight out of an adventure story—yet, it also satirizes the strife of a post-colonial society and a menacing, privatized military force (in the form of the Black Fleet), which is all too real.

As the island descends into chaos, Tigerman remains committed to solving the murder which haunts the boy and maintaining order in the midst of entropy, mirroring the superhero comics the boy carries around with him:

"The first thing he understood in that hour was that it was never about hitting people. It was always about proving a point. Hitting people was just a background, the way a uniform was. The message varied like the soldier. For Superman, that point was about justice and ideals. He really was a perfect American dream. For Batman, it was something else altogether. It was a statement that no matter who you were, how tough you were or how wicked, there were some things you simply could not do. He was not primarily about punishment orr even prevention. He was a living cypher, a message that the set of actions which were availabe to human beings did not include certain crimes, and that line was absolute, made absolute not by him but by what he represented, the human capacity to say 'no'" (p. 134).

Although it may not be obvious at the onset of the novel, Harkaway seems less interested in satirizing the exploits of comic book heroes and villains, and more interested in subverting and complicating them. Lester Ferris dons his costume despite the fact he knows it will end in disaster. Likewise, his relationship with the boy (his naive, enthusiastic, pop-culture spouting sidekick) eschews the easy comraderie of a dynamic crime-fighting duo, offering instead a web of fragile alliances, secret identities, and unspoken truths.

Some discussion questions:

1. Did you enjoy the references to superhero comics? Was there one that particularly stood out to you?
2. In what ways does Tigerman incorporate real world politics into its tale and is this successful?
3. What did you think of the novel's ending ?