Tokarczuk, Olga "Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead" (Polish: Prowadź swój pług przez kości umarłych) - 2009
I have read one book by Olga Tokarczuk (Primeval and Other Times) when she received her Nobel Prize for Literature. And I wanted to read more by her since then. A bookclub member lent me one now and I read it in more or less one go, it is so exciting. Janina Duszejko is such an interesting character. And the story is starting so quietly, you don't even notice at the beginning that it is a crime story which are not my favourites.
Even though she is the protagonist of the novel, you don't see her as such at the beginning. Janina is a middle-aged, slightly weird woman living in the middle of nowhere in the mountains at the Polish-Czech border where she looks after the summer houses of some rich people. She works with astrology and translates poems by William Blake. She loves animals and she is a conservationist. A remarquable woman.
Where this story leads to, I don't know. But I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in great literature.
From the back cover:
"One of Poland's most imaginative and lyrical writers, Olga Tokarczuk presents us with a detective story with a twist in DRIVE YOUR PLOW OVER THE BONES OF THE DEAD. After her two dogs go missing and members of the local hunting club are found murdered, teacher and animal rights activist Janina Duszejko becomes involved in the ensuing investigation. Part magic realism, part detective story, DRIVE YOUR PLOW OVER THE BONES OF THE DEAD is suspenseful and entertaining reimagining of the genre interwoven with poignant and insightful commentaries on our perceptions of madness, marginalised people and animal rights."
And why the German translation is called "Der Gesang der Fledermäuse" (The Song of the Bats) is still a mystery to me.
Olka Tokarczuk received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2018 "for her narrative imagination that with encyclopedic passion represents the crossing of boundaries as a form of life".
I contribute to this page: Read the Nobels and you can find all my blogs about Nobel Prize winning authors and their books here.
The life story of a Jewish woman who loses all her family in the Holocaust. Except for her husband. She is sure he is still alive and she looks for him everywhere.
In the description it says this is a beautiful love story. And it is. In a way. Just not what you would usually expect from a love story. And the style is completely different. It reads like diary. But it's more than that. Quite interesting.
It's amazing what a human being can do in order to save their loved ones.
A good book about a strong woman.
Comments from members:
For me the topic of the WWII in books is very unwelcome as I have a great imagination and empathy, but in this book I really liked how the author scaled back on the emotions in the writing, not wallowing in the horrors, yet still showing very skillfully the realities of the war.
The story was interesting historically and serendipitously.
Smart choices and having a clear purpose helped make hard things easier for the lead character, while others turned the difficulties and how to survive mentally into blaming others.
From the back cover:
"An extraordinary love story, spanning 60 years, from 1939 to 2000, from the Warsaw Ghetto to Israel.
'This is the last leg of my journey. It would be silly to lose my mind now.' After the deportation of her husband to Auschwitz, Izolda Regenberg, alias Maria Pawlicka, has only one aim: to free her husband. Her race to beat fate might appear absurd to others, but not to her. In times of war and destruction she learns to trust herself.
Why Peirene chose to publish this book:
'This is a beautiful love story. A story which makes one weep for mankind. While Hanna Krall's terse prose is designed to convey the utter desperation of war, her deft touch evokes hope and a sense of homecoming.' Meike Ziervogel"
Gray, Martin "For those I loved" (French: Au nom de tous les miens) - 1971
I read this book many years ago, but it is one that has never left me. The life that Martin Gray led, no, that he had to experience, was so hard. One loss after another. I don't know how he got through it. First the Warsaw ghetto, then Treblinka and later, when he found a family, a fire destroyed his whole life again.
Apparently, not everything happened exactly as described in the book. But the key data of the author's life is correct, and that's bad enough.
An impressive work.
From the back cover:
"Martin Gray was in his fourteenth year when the Nazis marched into Poland ; on his nineteenth birthday he entered Berlin with the Red Army. In the intervening years - in the Warsaw Ghetto, in the death camp at Treblinka, with the partisans and the NKVD - Martin Gray grew up in a hell on earth.
For Those I Loved is a classic account of survival against incredible and horrific odds.
Martin has come full circle since his boyhood world was turned upside down by the German invasion of Poland in 1939. Overnight, the teenage Martin and his family were immersed in the horrors of the Holocaust and held captive in the Warsaw Ghetto. It was a nightmare of brutality, starvation, and death. Martin became a clever smuggler to help his family survive - until the 'butchers' of Treblinka took his mother and brothers. Against impossible odds, Martin survived and returned to fight in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. As the Nazis incinerated the ghetto, he escaped to fight with the partisans, and then the Red Army.
After the war, Martin made his way to New York. The cunning and skills he developed during the war enabled him to learn the language and create a successful business. At 35, he retired to France with a fortune and a beautiful Dutch wife, starting a family and living in happiness and peace. But his world was shattered once again by a forest fire that engulfed his fleeing family. In a tragic repeat of history, Martin alone survived.
Martin Gray's past could be our future if we don't heed his call to be the change. In this 35th anniversary expanded edition of For Those I Loved, a book beloved by millions of readers worldwide, Martin reminds us that the past is connected to the present. Only we can ensure that history is not repeated.
Martin Gray still lives in the South of France (*) and has devoted his life to his family, writing, human rights, and environmental and cultural causes. He received the United Nations Dag Hammar-skjold Award and the Gold Medal of European Merit."
A great tale of a Jewish family's history.One critic wrote that Katja Petrowskaja could have written a great novel, but only reproduced fragments.I think it is precisely these fragments that show more of what this family - representative of all other Jewish families - went through, all the little details that you don't often hear about.
A wonderful book.
From the back cover:
"An inventive, unique, and extraordinarily moving literary debut that pieces together the fascinating story of one woman’s family across twentieth-century Russia, Ukraine, Poland, and Germany.
Katja Petrowskaja wanted to create a kind of family tree, charting relatives who had scattered across multiple countries and continents. Her idea blossomed into this striking and highly original work of narrative nonfiction, an account of her search for meaning within the stories of her ancestors.
In a series of short meditations, Petrowskaja delves into family legends, introducing a remarkable cast of characters: Judas Stern, her great-uncle, who shot a German diplomatic attaché in 1932 and was sentenced to death; her grandfather Semyon, who went underground with a new name during the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, forever splitting their branch of the family from the rest; her grandmother Rosa, who ran an orphanage in the Urals for deaf-mute Jewish children; her Ukrainian grandfather Vasily, who disappeared during World War II and reappeared without explanation forty-one years later - and settled back into the family as if he’d never been gone; and her great-grandmother, whose name may have been Esther, who alone remained in Kiev and was killed by the Nazis.
How do you talk about what you can’t know, how do you bring the past to life? To answer this complex question, Petrowskaja visits the scenes of these events, reflecting on a fragmented and traumatized century and bringing to light family figures who threaten to drift into obscurity. A true search for the past reminiscent of Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything Is Illuminated, Daniel Mendelsohn’s The Lost, and Michael Chabon’s Moonglow, Maybe Esther is a poignant, haunting investigation of the effects of history on one family."
In
2013, Katja Petrowskaja received the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize, one of
the most important awards for literature in the German language.
Menasse, Robert "The Capital" (German: Die Hauptstadt) - 2017
I have lived in Brussels forty years ago and met my husband there. We have been back there at least once every year, most often more times. However, when my son found a job there, I realized that I have read very little about Belgium and nothing about Brussels itself. So, I went and searched some literature. This one received the German Book Prize in 2017 and was praised internationally. It is mentioned that it is the first book where Brussels is called the European capital. We have always called it that.
The book tells us about several officials from the Department of Culture and their jobs. The characters are as international as any of the offices of the European Union, they are from Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Cyprus, Hungary, the Netherlands, Poland, and the UK.
There is also a crime story for those who love that in a book. To be honest, I have no idea why that is needed for the story especially since it doesn't really have anything to do with the main story. The protagonists are mainly officials who work for the EU and try to accomplish something, mostly their promotion. We meet bureaucrats, experts, lobbyists … It shows how the different interests within the EU have to be considered for many events, laws, regulations. Not an easy task as we all know. Yet, we all benefit from our countries being a member of this large union - even if some don't want to see that.
One of the stories within this chunky book is the plan to celebrate the 50 year anniversary with a big jubilee project and how to arrange this so that everyone is happy about the outcome. We see the difficulty of reaching a European consensus and still have every state participate in the result.
Oh, and there is a pig. One of the introductions to the book is: "The threads come together in Brussels - and a pig runs through the streets." Again, not really necessary for the story.
But what makes this story worth reading is the message it brings us about the European Union. It is one of the most important organizations we have ever been part of. It has united many countries that were enemies before, brought us not only prosperity but peace for the longest time anyone can ever remember. Just for that, I think this book is significant.
From the back cover:
"Brussels. A panorama of tragic heroes, manipulative losers, involuntary accomplices. In his new novel, Robert Menasse spans a narrative arc between the times, the nations, the inevitable and the irony of fate, between petty bureaucracy and big emotions.
Fenia Xenapoulou is facing a career setback. She has been 'promoted' to the Department of Culture by the Directorate General - no budget, no power, no reputation. So the 'Big Jubilee Project' comes just at the right time for her: she is to revamp the boring image of the European Commission. Her Austrian personal assistant Martin Susmann suggests proclaiming Auschwitz as the birthplace of the European Commission. Fenia is thrilled, but she didn't take the other European nations into account. Austria: a Polish camp could not be misused to question the Austrian nation. Poland: Auschwitz is a German problem. Germany: Islam, by now a part of Germany, had nothing to do with Auschwitz. What's more, Fenia can't count on David de Vriend, one of the last living witnesses, any longer: he runs to the metro station Maalbeek at the wrong time.
Inspector Brunfaut is in a difficult situation as well. He is supposed to leave a murder case covered up at the highest level at rest. But luckily he is friends with the chief computer scientists of the Brussels Police Department, who can gain access to the secret files of the public prosecutor's office. Matek, the Polish hitman, knows nothing of this when he makes his escape. But he does know that he shot the wrong guy. That’s not nothing to Matek. He would rather have become ordained a priest; the fact that he had to follow his father's and grandfather's footsteps in becoming a 'soldier of Christ', doesn’t really make him happy. And yes, there are others who are unhappy as well: the pig farmers who take to the streets with pitchforks in protest of the existing trade restrictions blocking the profitable export of pigs' ears to China."
Singer, Isaac Bashevis "Yentl the Yeshiva Boy" (Yiddish: נטל בחור ישיבה/Yenṭl der Yeshive-boḥer) - 1983
I am a huge Barbra Streisand fan and have seen quite a few of her films. And one of my favourite movies ever (not just by and with Barbra) is "Yentl". So, I was surprised to only now find out that it was based on a book. Of course, I could have guessed, such a great story, even if they changed quite a few important parts from the story in the film. So, it's probably a good thing I saw the movie first.
Unfortunately, it's only a short story, I'm sure Nobel Prize winner Isaac B. Singer would have had more ideas to describe Yentl and her life. But, nevertheless, it is a fantastic story and I hope to read more by this fantastic author.
From the back cover:
"Recognizing that Yentyl seems to have the soul and disposition of a man, her father studies the Torah and other holy books with her. When he dies, Yentyl feels that she no longer has a reason to remain in the village, and so, late one night, she cuts off her hair, dresses as a young man, and sets out to find a yeshiva where she can continue her studies and live secretly as a man."
Isaac Bashevis Singer received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1978 "for his impassioned narrative art which, with roots in a Polish-Jewish cultural tradition, brings universal human conditions to life".
I contribute to this page: Read the Nobels and you can find all my blogs about Nobel Prize winning authors and their books here.
Stroyar, J.N. "Becoming Them" (The Children's War Book 3) - 2017
Ten years ago, I read "The Children's War" and "A Change of Regime", one of the best books I ever read and still my favourite. As a German, having to live with the consequences of one of the most terrible wars ever, I have always asked myself what would have happened if the Nazis had won the war. We all would have lost, that's for sure. J.N. Stroyar has brought these thoughts to paper and painted a very vivid picture in her first two books. Then, one day, I learned there was a third one. Wow! I couldn't believe it. I was lucky to find a copy. I have no idea why these books don't get reprinted, I know so many people who would love to read it.
So, I finally found a copy. It had been ten years since I read the first two books. Would I remember enough to jump right back in? Looks like I didn't even have to. The author was so clever to include a ten pages of summary in the front where she retells the story for those who want to review what was in the first books and it might even be enough for those who never read the first ones. I think this should be obligatory for any sequel to any book. Makes reading the follow-up so much easer.
They say on the back cover "the long awaited finale". I didn't even know there was to be a finale. I didn't even know there would be a third book. Mainly, I think, because so little is known about the author. All I know is that she's a US physisict who used to live in German (Frankfurt, I believe) and now lives partly in London and partly in the USA. And that she won the "Sidewise Award" in 2001, an annual award for "Alternate History". She doesn't even have a Wikipedia page. So, I haven't seen anywhere that she was writing a third story.
In this final book of the trilogy, we see how everything gets together in the end, how the long and arduous underground work finally leads to the end of the Nazi party. But not without many, many difficulties first. This third book is just as fascinating, exciting and thrilling as the first two. I hope many people will be able to read it.
I also hope that the author is going to write more books.
Quote from Wikipedia: "The Bradenton Herald described The Children's War as 'a brutal look at what might have been and a reminder of the price of freedom.'" So very exact and true.
From the back cover:
"The long awaited finale of The Children’s War is presented in Becoming Them. Drawn from genuine historical incidents and people, both from the past and the present, the story examines the psychology of war, torture, and resistance, of guilt and innocence.
Set in a world sixty years after the conquest of Europe by Nazi Germany, the resistance movement continues its struggle for freedom, passing their war on from generation to generation. Peter Halifax, one-time member of the English Underground, has just been released from prison and now works with his assassin wife Zosia Król in Berlin under the direction of her brother, Ryszard, who, as his alter-ego Colonel Richard Traugutt, is second in command of the Third Reich. Together they attempt to collapse the Nazi Party and reform the Reich from within.
The story begins in London where Peter has been sent to liaise with the English Underground as a member of the newly formed Nichtdeutsch Council, but instead he becomes the target of an assassination attempt. It is only one indication of the growing chaos and violence in the Reich as the population becomes disenchanted with the dithering leadership of their new Fuhrer, Josef Frauenfeld.
As a member of the Nichtdeutsch Council, Zosia attempts to organize the various opposition factions into a coherent movement while struggling to raise her family, carefully keeping her three children away from Berlin high society where Magdalena, who is Elspeth’s and Peter’s daughter, might be recognized. She also maintains contact with her base in the Carpathian mountains and undertakes jobs for them that lead her into ever more questionable actions.
Richard Traugutt, as special advisor to the Fuhrer, works to change the laws of the Reich to give more rights and freedoms to its subjects, but he is endlessly stymied by Frauenfeld who has fallen under the sway of Richard’s enemies, the Lederman brothers, who are staunch supporters of the racial categorizations of Reich law. In an attempt to shatter Frauenfeld’s illusions about the rigid class system, Richard maneuvers Peter, who is still classified as subhuman, into the highest tiers of Berlin society, into re-establishing his illicit relationship with Elspeth Vogel, and even into befriending the Fuhrer in the hopes of causing a cultural clash that will force Frauenfeld to re-evaluate his adherence to Nazi philosophy. Traugutt’s plan falls foul of all his directives, and his determination to follow his own personal agenda for reform, ruthlessly manipulating people and events to maximize their effectiveness – whatever the personal cost – results in constant conflict with his allies and a withdrawal of support from the Underground hierarchy.
As their plots unfold and the Resistance begins to tear itself apart, the past comes back to haunt them all, sowing distrust and fear among the conspirators. With each passing month they more and more come to resemble that which they hate. Their loyalties are frayed, their motives are questioned, trusted comrades turn traitor, and their enemies grow in power. Time is running out.
As background to the story, Becoming Them contains a complete summary of both The Children’s War and A Change of Regime."
Tokarczuk, Olga "Primeval and other Times" (Polish: Prawiek i inne czasy) - 1996
When the name of the person who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2019 was finally announced in 2020, I wanted to read one of her books right away. I had chosen "Primeval and Other Times" which is translated into German in "Ur und andere Zeiten". "Ur" really stands for a time in German, a time long, long ago. It is used as a prefix for great-grandparents etc., e.g. Ur-Ur-Urgroßmutter would be the great-great-great-grandmother. It is also a proposed supercontinent from about 3,000 million years ago.
But the book was sold out in German. I decided to wait a while. Then, our book club decided to put it on the reading list. And here I am, reading it in the English translation.
The book was interesting, something completely different from a lot of other reads. The elements of magic realism make them surreal, even though the setting during and after WWI as well as in and after pre-WWII is realistic enough. The characters were also quite lively, the families were described into every little detail, so you can imagine them and their lives very well. The author tried to describe the situation of both the German and the Russian soldiers and managed that very well, also.
Even though the story takes place in the first half of the 20th century, it seems a lot longer ago at times. The magic realism parts make it almost feel like a fairy-tale. It also helps understanding Polish culture and how it was influenced by the communism. We can live, laugh and die with these ordinary people from an extraordinary time and imagine how their lives might have been without the war.
The story is only about 250 pages long but that doesn’t' make it quick to read. It's not difficult, yet very complex. I would certainly recommend this book.
During our book club discussion, we touched many aspects of the book. I will try to add them in short. If you haven't read it, there might be some spoilers.
Spoiler:
There were many allusions to the bible and Greek mythology, e.g. Ruta = Persephone, Cornspike = Demeter, Ruta's husband = Hades. The four directions of the village or the four faces of the angel.
The village life was like many villages but the author studied psychology, so we are sure she meant for us to draw these other conclusions.
Time is definitely a human construction.
Squire Popielski and his game was also a large part of our talk. The game represents the village and the bible the game of life.
We believe that the mythical characters like "Dipper the drowned man" contribute to the feeling/understanding of the story. Their personifications are aspects of nature.
The horror of the war came to view very well through the character of Genowefa and her reaction, it made it more real.
Food also played a big part in the book, it was a big part of life and gave comfort. Another bow to nature, I guess.
We discussed this in our international online book club in April 2020. To our book club members who were present in the online discussion, should I have left out anything or misquoted something, please, let me know.
From the back cover:
"Set in the mythical Polish village of Primeval, a microcosm of the world populated by eccentric, archetypal characters and guarded by four archangels, the novel chronicles the lives of the inhabitants over the course of the feral 20th century in prose that is forceful, direct, and the stylistic cousin of the magic realism in Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. Told in short bursts of 'Time,' the narrative takes the form of a stylized fable, an epic allegory about the inexorable grind of time and the clash between modernity (the masculine) and nature (the feminine) in which Poland's tortured political history from 1914 to the contemporary era and the episodic brutality visited on ordinary village life is played out. A novel of universal dimension that does not dwell on the parochial, Primeval and Other Times was awarded the Koscielski Foundation Prize in 1997, which established Tokarczuk as one of the leading voices in Polish letters, and it has been translated into many languages the world over. Tokarczuk has said of the novel: 'I always wanted to write a book such as this. One that creates and describes a world. It is the story of a world that, like all things living, is born, develops, and then dies.' Kitchens, bedrooms, childhood memories, dreams and insomnia, reminiscences, and amnesia - these are part of the existential and acoustic spaces from which the voices of Tokarczuk's tale come, her 'boxes in boxes'."
Olka Tokarczuk received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2018 "for her narrative imagination that with encyclopedic passion represents the crossing of boundaries as a form of life".
I contribute to this page: Read the Nobels and you can find all my blogs about Nobel Prize winning authors and their books here.
Fatland, Erika "The Border: A Journey Around Russia Through North Korea, China, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Norway, and the Northeast Passage" (Norwegian: Grensen: En reise rundt Russland gjennom Nord-Korea, Kina, Mongolia, Kasakhstan, Aserbajdsjan, Georgia, Ukraina, Hviterussland, Litauen, Polen, Latvia, Estland, Finland og Norge samt Nordøstpassasjen) - 2017
I usually don't review books here that have not been translated into English, yet. However, I have read that this one is supposed to be published soon and therefore, I want to whet your appetites already.
The author is a Norwegian journalist and she took a trip all around the Russian border. She visited every single country, even those that are not internationally recognized, like the de facto sovereign states in the Caucasus, though, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Adjara, Nagorno-Karabakh and Donetsk. It was not easy to get into some of them. To get into Nagorno-Karabakh, she had to travel into Armenia because you cannot enter it from Azerbaijan to which it still officially belongs.
She visited all those parts with a lot of difficulties and spoke to the people there who told her about recent and former history and you can learn a lot about that part of the world. I think it's good if we know more about the largest, very powerful and probably most dangerous country in the world.
We talk about a great, well-written book where we feel we are travelling with the author, we discover the countries with her, the people who live there and their history. Fantastic.
"Russia's border is the longest in the world. Erika Fatland takes us on a trip to Russia's fourteen neighbour countries, from North Korea to North Norway and through the North-East Passage. The journey goes through wonderful landscapes and highly diverse communities what only have one thing in common: We are all Russia's neighbours.
It's also a trip through the dramatic stories of Russia's neighbours'. In any case, they have been influenced by the proximity of this mighty empire. We meet tsars that are addicted to conquests, brave adventurers and courageous individuals and Chinese dictators. The author visits contemporary conflict areas like the Ukraine whose borders with Putin's Russia have started to move again.
Erika Fatland shows her special abilities again to get close to people whom she meets on her way and lets them tell her a bit about the big stories of living near the border."
Expected publication in English: February 2nd, 2021.
Stachniak, Eva "The Winter Palace. A Novel of Catherine the Great" - 2011
I love learning about history while reading about ordinary people living through different times. In this case, the story of Varvara also tells the story of Empress Catherine the Great, how she entered the Russian court, how she became empress, how all the intrigues and betrayals helped her to get to the throne. This is not just a story about the empress but also about mid-eighteenth-century Russia. A very intimate behind the scenes story with a lot of information about life at the time. Something I always enjoy.
I really liked the protagonist, Varvara. Coming with her poor parents to St. Petersburg from Poland, her father makes sure she is taken in by the Empress Elizabeth if anything should happen to him. We see the palace, the court, and the arrival of German princess Sophie Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg who is to become Catherine the Great through her eyes. Very interesting.
I hope Eva Stachniak will write more historical novels like this.
From the back cover:
"When Varvara, a young Polish orphan, arrives at the glittering, dangerous court of the Empress Elizabeth in St Petersburg, she is schooled in skills ranging from lock-picking to love-making, learning above all else to stay silent - and listen.
Then Sophie, a vulnerable young princess, arrives from Prussia as a prospective bride for the Empress' heir. Set to spy on her, Vavara soon becomes her friend and confidante, and helps her navigate the illicit liaisons and the treacherous shifting allegiances of the court. But Sophie's destiny is to become the notorious Catherine the Great. Are her ambitions more lofty and far-reaching than anyone suspected, and will she stop at nothing to achieve absolute power?"
Grass, Günter "The Tin Drum" (German: Die Blechtrommel. Danziger Trilogie 1) - 1959
Günter Grass is one of my favourite Nobel Prize winners, certainly one of the best German authors we ever had. His style is unique, his language superb.
How to describe this book? To even try would be like rewriting the whole story which is, of course, impossible.
Why is it so important? The story represents not only a part of our history that is told from a completely different perspective than most books of the war, it also describes how many things could have been through the magic realism genre.
Oscar Matzerath was born in the then free city of Danzig (now the Polish city Gdańsk). When he is three years old, he decides not to grow anymore. He tells us the story of his grandmother and through his narration we go through WWII, the occupation of Poland and the post-war life of many refugees who went to West Germany.
Oscar incorporates many different characters, the grown-up child, the obsessive drummer, the evil of this world, the actor who wants to show us how it's done. He is many people in one, hard to grasp but so much one of us that we seem to know him.
This is certainly not one of the easiest books to read but it is totally worth it. It is a story you will never forget. I will continue reading the two other books of the "Danzig Trilogy": "Cat and Mouse" (Katz und Maus) and "Dog Years" (Hundejahre).
Like many other successful books, "The Tin Drum" was made into a film and received the Academy Award for best Foreign Language Picture.
From the back cover:
"Meet Oskar Matzerath, 'the eternal three-year-old drummer.' On the morning of his third birthday, dressed in a striped pullover and patent leather shoes, and clutching his drumsticks and his new tin drum, young Oskar makes an irrevocable decision: 'It was then that I declared, resolved, and determined that I would never under any circumstances be a politician, much less a grocer; that I would stop right there, remain as I was - and so I did; for many years I not only stayed the same size but clung to the same attire.' Here is a Peter Pan story with a vengeance. But instead of Never-Never Land, Günter Grass gives us Danzig, a contested city on the Polish-German border; instead of Captain Hook and his pirates, we have the Nazis. And in place of Peter himself is Oskar, a twisted puer aeternis with a scream that can shatter glass and a drum rather than a shadow. First published in 1959, The Tin Drum's depiction of the Nazi era created a furor in Germany, for the world of Grass's making is rife with corrupt politicians and brutal grocers in brown shirts:
There was once a grocer who closed his store one day in November, because something was doing in town; taking his son Oskar by the hand, he boarded a Number 5 streetcar and rode to the Langasser Gate, because there as in Zoppot and Langfuhr the synagogue was on fire. The synagogue had almost burned down and the firemen were looking on, taking care that the flames should not spread to other buildings. Outside the wrecked synagogue, men in uniform and others in civilian clothes piled up books, ritual objects, and strange kinds of cloth. The mound was set on fire and the grocer took advantage of the opportunity to warm his fingers and his feelings over the public blaze.
As Oskar grows older (though not taller), portents of war transform into the thing itself. Danzig is the first casualty when, in the summer of 1939, residents turn against each other in a pitched battle between Poles and Germans. In the years that follow, Oskar goes from one picaresque adventure to the next - he joins a troupe of traveling musicians; he becomes the leader of a group of anarchists; he falls in love; he becomes a recording artist - until some time after the war, he is convicted of murder and confined to a mental hospital.
The Tin Drum uses savage comedy and a stiff dose of magical realism to capture not only the madness of war, but also the black cancer at the heart of humanity that allows such degradations to occur. Grass wields his humor like a knife - yes, he'll make you laugh, but he'll make you bleed, as well. There have been many novels written about World War II, but only a handful can truly be called great; The Tin Drum, without a doubt, is one. - Alix Wilber"
Günter Grass "whose frolicsome black fables portray the forgotten face of history" received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1999.
I contribute to this page: Read the Nobels and you can find all my blogs about Nobel Prize winning authors and their books here.
When visiting Lübeck a couple of years ago, I was happy to be able to visit the house where he lived. You can read about my experience here.
I really wanted to like this book. It is absolutely my genre and it was praised a lot. However, I wouldn't call this a tough read but nevertheless, I didn't find a closeness to the characters. A lot of things happened, obviously, but there seemed to be no action and no continuance.
More fleeing fragmented thoughts, bits and pieces thrown together. Someone trying to bring their thoughts in order but not being very lucky with it. Such a shame. This could have been a great book, the story is very promising.
What annoyed me most was that you hardly know who is talking if you don't read the introduction. But if you do read the introduction, you are given spoilers that can ruin the whole story. I hardly ever read the introduction but noticed halfway through the lecture that it was necessary in order to understand what this was all about.
I think a lot of people like it for it's poetic writing but then it shouldn't be classified as a novel.
Definitely not my book.
There were a few quotes I did like, though, the final sentence under "Anne Michaels' favourite books":
"When I was young I felt there was a mystery contained in the fact that the word 'read' was two words - both past and present tenses. This time travel is one way we hold our life in our hands."
and a quote, a Hebrew saying:
"Hold a book in your hand and you're a pilgrim at the gates of a new city."
From the back cover:
"Jakob Beer is seven years old when he is rescued from the muddy ruins of a buried village in Nazi-occupied Poland. Of his family, he is the only one who has survived. Under the guidance of the Greek geologist Athos, Jakob must steel himself to excavate the horrors of his own history.
A novel of astounding beauty and wisdom, Fugitive Pieces is a profound meditation on the resilience of the human spirit and love's ability to restore even the most damaged of hearts."
This story is told by the twins Pearl and Stasha, two Jewish girls who end up in Auschwitz and are brought into the "Zoo", the experiment chambers of Josef Mengele, also known as "The Angel of Death". The title refers to the fact that the twins had one Jewish and one Aryan parent and were therefore considered of mixed race, "Mischling" in German.
This novel certainly describes one of the darkest parts of a war that was so terrible already, there are no words to describe it.
This is not a pleasant book. There is nothing pleasant about a world where human beings are considered to be worthless because of their origin and where horrific things are done to children in the name of science. That doesn't mean that these kind of books shouldn't be written and shouldn't be read. No, everyone should have to read books like this. We all should be aware of what happened so that it never happens again. Nowhere. We are far away from that, there are atrocities happening all over the world and as long as politicians get votes for racist remarks, we are sliding closer and closer to this world again.
Getting back to the book itself, it is very well written. The twins both tell their stories and we get to know the whole story behind their fate. And the fate of many other people who survived the war or disappeared in it. A very deserving book. Yes, the subject is disturbing, but not knowing about it doesn't make it disappear as if it never happened.
From the back cover:
"It's the fall of 1944 when twelve-year-old twins Pearl and Stasha Zamorski are sent to Auschwitz with their mother and grandfather. In their benighted new world, the sisters take refuge in their identical natures, comforting themselves with the private language and shared games of their childhood. Catching the eye of Josef Mengele, Auschwitz's infamous 'Angel of Death'" and becoming part of an experimental population of twins known as Mengele's Zoo, the girls experience privileges and horrors unknown to other prisoners. They find themselves changed, stripped of the personalities they once shared, their identities altered by the burdens of guilt and pain.
That winter, at a concert orchestrated by Mengele, Pearl disappears. Stasha grieves for her twin but clings to the possibility that Pearl remains alive. When the camp is liberated by the Red Army, Stasha and her companion Feliks - a boy bent on vengeance for his own lost twin - travel through Poland's devastation. Undeterred by injury, starvation, and the chaos around them, motivated equally by danger and hope, they encounter hostile villagers, Jewish resistance fighters, and fellow refugees, their quest enabled by the notion that Mengele may be captured and brought to justice within the ruins of the Warsaw Zoo. Their hearts mapped with longing, the young survivors discover what has become of the world, and they try to imagine a future within it."
Landers, Brian "Empires Apart. A History of American and Russian Imperialism" - 2010
This was a great recommended from a good friend of mine. It summarizes almost all of Europe's history as well as the North American one, compares both "empires" in chronological order and gives a great overview over today's' troubles, as well. There is so much information with so many details in this book, it's amazing how the author managed to put it all on under 600 pages.
It is interesting to see the similarities in the two great super powers of the cold war as well as the differences, the approach to expanding their territory and their influence on anything in the world.
The work is written in quite an easy manner, so even if you are not used to historical works, you should get through this with no problems. I am sure there are people who dislike the book because it doesn't just emphasize on the difficulties and problems caused by the Russians but also those the USA is responsible for but I believe it is quite an impartial view and therefore worth a read. Thought-provoking.
From the back cover: "The American road to empire started when the first English settlers landed in Virginia. Simultaneously, the first Russians crossed the Urals and the two empires that would dominate the twentieth century were born. Empires Apart covers the history of the Americans and Russians from the Vikings to the present day. It shows the two empires developed in parallel as they expanded to the Pacific and launched wars against the nations around them. They both developed an imperial 'ideology' that was central to the way they perceived themselves. Soon after, the ideology of the Russian Empire also changed with the advent of Communism. The key argument of this book is that these changes did not alter the core imperial values of either nation; both Russians and Americans continued to believe in their manifest destiny. Corporatist and Communist imperialism changed only the mechanics of empire. Both nations have shown that they are still willing to use military force and clandestine intrigue to enforce imperial control. Uniquely, Landers shows how the broad sweep of American history follows a consistent path from the first settlers to the present day and, by comparing this with Russia's imperial path, demonstrates the true nature of American global ambitions."
Here are a few quotes I liked for one reason or another:
"He [Constantinus VII] is said to have proposed marriage to her [Olga, Svytalov's mother]; clearly it was a truth then [950] universally acknowledged that a woman in possession of a large fortune must be in search of a husband." (page 24)
This link to my favourite author, a sentence everyone who likes classic books will know, shows how little times have changed.
"History is not what is taught in the classroom or buried in academic journals. History is the random collection of pictures and phrases, stories and prejudices that accretes drop by drop in the mind." (page 295)
I think that is one of the reasons we should read as many different kind of books from different authors with very different background. In order to learn from the history.
"... much of the twentieth century can be characterised as a Tale of Two Empires ..." (page 512)
Yes, indeed. The question is, is that a good thing or not? I think we should always have more than one superpower in order not to be overrun by the one and only but having two alone is not that great, either, because one will always try to overcome the other. And in the end, the "little man" pays, as always.
When I first learnt there was a trilogy about the past century, each part concentrating on a different war: First, Second and Cold, I thought the last one might be the one that least interests me. After all, I've been there, I lived during the Cold War, I keep telling my kids how it was - and probably bore them to death.
However, I only was there during part of the Cold War, I only lived the West German one, not the East German, the Russian or the American one. I think my part was closest to that of the English and Welsh families in the story, after all, we had free elections and could do as we pleased.
As in the previous parts, the author introduces the characters from the different families one by one and most of them are very close to some important people. They either work for Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, Khrushchev or there is a fictional character who resembles Solchenitsyn ... lots of true life connections that explain what happened in that time. Of course I knew about the civil rights movement but this book has taught me more about it, and I am sure it teaches others more about the parts they don't know.
I was surprised that some people had given this book a bad rating, I think that is mainly because they didn't agree with the way history was portrayed, their view were a little (or a lot) different from Ken Follett. Compared to American Republicans, most Europeans seem to be communists and that is the most evil of them all.
Well, I enjoyed all three books. A lot. I grew to love the characters, I felt like I was part of their families or at least a close friend of them. All together, I read about 3,000 pages of wonderful storytelling. And I am still in awe of the amount of research Ken Follett must have done for this.
From the back cover:
"Ken Follett’s Century Trilogy follows the fortunes of five intertwined families - American, German, Russian, English, and Welsh - as they make their way through the twentieth century. It has been called 'potent, engrossing' (Publishers Weekly) and 'truly epic' (Huffington Post). USA Today said, 'You actually feel like you’re there.'
Edge of Eternity, the finale, covers one of the most tumultuous eras of all: the 1960s through the 1980s, encompassing civil rights, assassinations, Vietnam, the Berlin Wall, the Cuban Missile Crisis, presidential impeachment, revolution - and rock and roll.
East German teacher Rebecca Hoffman discovers she’s been spied on by the Stasi for years and commits an impulsive act that will affect her family for generations… George Jakes, himself bi-racial, bypasses corporate law to join Robert F. Kennedy’s Justice Department and finds himself in the middle of not only the seminal events of the civil rights battle, but also a much more personal battle… Cameron Dewar, the grandson of a senator, jumps at the chance to do some espionage for a cause he believes in, only to discover that the world is much more dangerous than he’d imagined… Dimka Dvorkin, a young aide to Khrushchev, becomes an agent for good and for ill as the Soviet Union and the United States race to the brink of nuclear war, while his twin sister, Tania, carves out a role that will take her from Moscow to Cuba to Prague to Warsaw - and into history.
These characters and many others find their lives inextricably entangled as they add their personal stories and insight to the most defining events of the 20th century. From the opulent offices of the most powerful world leaders to the shabby apartments of those trying to begin a new empire, from the elite clubs of the wealthy and highborn to the passionate protests of a country’s most marginalized citizens, this is truly a drama for the ages.
With the Century Trilogy, Follett has guided readers through an entire era of history with a master’s touch. His unique ability to tell fascinating, brilliantly researched stories that captivate readers and keep them turning the pages is unparalleled. In this climactic and concluding saga, Follett brings us into a world we thought we knew, but now will never seem the same again."
