The Tiger Who Came To Tea

[nigelslaterfan]

dd loves this book but am I being unreasonable to suggest that Sophie and her mother are massive pigs to sit at home and have such a massive tea of cake and buns and sandwiches? I mean it seems greedy to me.

[qwvz]

Does anyone think the shop names when they go out onto the dark street with all the lights have any relevance? They seem like quite peculiar names to me and I feel the ginger cat is placed there for a reason

[cazzybabs]

mortalcoils - I just thought it was about a tuger who came for tea (cazzy puts on dunces hat and goes and sits in the corner)

[mortalcoils]

Isn't the tiger obviously meant to be having an affair with the mother? As I see it, the book is an attempted refutation of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, in which the assumption is that for a man to have an affair is bad, but not mortal for a marriage, but a woman's affair will always destroy everyone involved. In the TWCTT, the family survives the mother-tiger relationship, mainly through the compliance, innocence and good nature of the husband.

[NowWhatIsit]

My DH can still come home on occasion and be greeted by me saying, Oh No, you'll never guess what happened... we have to eat out/get takeaway.....Pesky tigers.

[MarineIguana]

at changing the food - outrageous! What a miserable killjoy. If I knoew anyone who did that I think I would have to sneakily read the book properly to their DC when they weren't looking

[lousouthend]

I loved this book when little and always felt really, really sad that the tiger never came back even though the lovely tiger food was there waiting. Reading it to my kids this bit troubles me still. Are any of you saddened by this? Also my sil changes the cafe meal to chicken and peas(and no icecream) because it is healthier and it really annoys me,because I think it the cafe meal should be fun. What do you think?

[nigelslaterfan]

If the Tiger were a film:

Tiger - Benecio del Toro/Robert Mitchum
Sophie - Saoirse Ronan from (younger girl from Atonement)
Mummy - Shelley Winters
Daddy - Gregory Peck

But what about Mog's Bad Thing? The Shame.
And Mog's Christmas?
The Talking Tree? The Aunties on tippy toe? The garrulous uncles? The terrible juggled dead mice? The tragedy of Mog having gone Up Onto The Roof? The cancellation of Christmas? It's too awful.

[PerArduaAdNauseum]

Nah, not get out more, just publish

[RedLentil]

Grammar awful there. Sorry.

[RedLentil]

PerArdua

It was roundwindow who noticed the carnival tights btw. If this thread goes on it's going to need a proper referencing system.

I noticed today that Mog, the definitely female cat, is always under pressure to submit to the desires of others. Not just because she is a version of a toddler, but a version of a mother too (she often dreams of having kittens.

She feels suffocated by the demands of a baby, disrupts a cat beauty pageant and fights back against medical intervention by a vet who is definitely up to something dodgy with his submissive veterinary assistant.

Even in the burglar one she strikes a blow against patriarchy by sitting on top of the television and obstructing Mr. Thomas's view of the boxing.

Do I need to get out more? You can answer honestly.

[Cathpot]

Tiger voice- deep, slow, posh, slightly sing song
Mummy - very very RP,radio announcer from 1950s, hint of repressed hysteria, clearly highly self medicated
Daddy voice- soft cockney- hints that possibly mumy married beneath her and hasnt really got a grip on having to do domestic things oneself darling

but he neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeveeeer did

(Anyone else find themselves reading Dr Dog's voice in clipped pyscho-analyst style German?)

[PerArduaAdNauseum]

I am now so very much in love with redlentil, emskaboo and blu.

I really must spend more time here.

And maybe read the Tiger who came to tea.

[nigelslaterfan]

LOL Blu at Daddy and the carnal desires and the little marmalade cat - good call, I have to respect that! Daddy comes home and stands all huge in the door to return the house to ORDNUNG!

emskaboo yes yes yes yes! singing the end just like that!

Redlentil love the carnival tights too

time4tea exactly that voice yes!!

Also for those of you who love Daddy coming home and rescuing the feminine principle from imminent self destruction by its own lust, what say you about his incredibly sad and loving expression as the titchy munchkin wifey expounds upon the tragedy of the empty cupboard? He looks like Gregory Peck in To Kill A Mockingbird - Noble Forbearance and Mature Love Up Against the Horror of the Real World

[TantieTowie]

Not to mention Pigwitchery, in which a pig-witch loses her wand and with it her ability to do magic.

Until the wise old pig of the forest tells her she doesn't need a wand to do magic, all she needs is her own tail - and promptly goes into a sequence that can only be interpreted as orgasmic. Seems so obvious to me I was quite embarrassed when DS wanted his grandpa to read it to him...

[RedLentil]

Blu - that chimes with the reading of the small cat we had earlier. Now if we need intertexts we can link it to Hemingway's 'Cat in the Rain' ...

[MarineIguana]

Has anyone got The Dancing Tiger? Now that is so obviously about female sexuality I can hardly read it without blushing. Old granny passes onto her her granddaughter her thrilling secret that once a month (!) she sneaks off at midnight and has an, ahem, "dance" with a magical "tiger".

[Blu]

RedLentil, I think that the subjugation of the carnal dsires which takes place on Daddy's return is symolised by the transormation of the tiger into a small marmalade domestic cat who picks his way through the rain, amidst the rest of the humdrum traffic, as they walk home from the cafe. Daddy's order is fully restored.

Apart, of course, from the can of tiger food which lurks within the dark, secretive, closed interior (a clear vaginal metaphor) of the kitchen cupboard. The constant challenge to reason.

[RedLentil]

Restorative buns here after the class too Cory.

Carnival tights - genius.

I think we are barking up the wrong tree though in seeing the loss of water as a bad or threatening thing.(and in 1968 the book pre-dates the 1970s strikes).

For parents it would be a nightmare, but for Sophie the lack of water means not having to go through the nightmare of having her long hair washed and getting shampoo in her eyes.

No water=a good thing.

[cory]

thank you very much for the buns and biscuits

[MarineIguana]

I thought the definitive performance was by Marc Warren (blond one out of hustle) on Cbeebies bedtime story. His tiger was kind of growly/fruity and very posh, with fantastic eyebrow movements.

[MarineIguana]

Ah brilliant thread.

When I was little, I thought the fact that Sophie got to go to the cafe in her nightie was the best bit (even more exciting than the tiger!). That was the most "moment of misrule" part for me. I thought wow, once a tiger's turned up and eaten all your food, my god anything can happen...

[time4tea]

when you read this story, what sort of voice do you give the tiger? I give him a sort of posh, modest voice - just right when he says "I think I'd better go now"

tiptop thread

[emskaboo]

And we always sing gooooodbye gooooodbye gooooodbye, for a wee while my ds used to say that to everyone instead of his more customery, bye (moist eye emoticon)

[RedLentil]

I'm an old colleague of a Canadian lecturer in the department there, Foxy. We used to teach together at a university in the Midlands.

The children's literature MA sounds great. Sadly, I am old and wear the bottom of my trousers rolled.

20thC Irish writing in English is my usual stomping ground.

The cafe is wonderful isn't it.We always read it as CAF -FAY in a flamboyant kind of way and sing 'Toodle-oo, toodle-oo, toodle--oo' at the end.

[foxy75]

Brilliant, Redlentil, love it. Like the 'canned' referring to the tin of tiger food at the end. You should be on my Children's Literature MA at Roehampton, or have you already graduated?!

So many children's picture books have this kind of carnivalesque breaking-out. Of course, The Cat in the Hat is another favourite one. I will keep my eyes out for the carnival next time I read a bedtime story...