Fermor, Patrick Leigh "Between the Woods and the Water"

Fermor, Patrick Leigh "Between the Woods and the Water: On Foot to Constantinople from the Hook of Holland" - 1986

This travel book was recommended to me by a book club member, she loved it and since we often like the same books, I was willing to read it. This is the second part in a trilogy, the first one being "A Time of Gifts: On Foot to Constantinople: from the Hook of Holland to the Middle Danube", the last one "The Broken Road: From the Iron Gates to Mount Athos".  Maybe I should have read the first one first as that has the better reviews but this is the book that was lent to me with the remark, it doesn't matter in which order you read them.

I love travel books and this trip from Hungary through Romania to the Bulgarian border seemed interesting. Written before the faschists took over in Europe, it was alos an interesting time-frame.

However, I did not care much for the writing. It seemed more like the diary of a teenager written for himself, and that's probably what it was since the author was only 18 when he made this journey.

I liked the historical parts that he probably added later but as a travel book, it was far too boring. He does mention the people he meets and tells a few stories but one does not have the feeling that we are there, that we travel with him.

He might have improved in later years as he received a knighthood but I doubt I will pick up one of his books soon again.

From the back cover:

"The acclaimed travel writer's youthful journey - as an 18-year-old - across 1930s Europe by foot began in A Time of Gifts, which covered the author's exacting journey from the Lowlands as far as Hungary. Picking up from the very spot on a bridge across the Danube where his readers last saw him, we travel on with him across the great Hungarian Plain on horseback, and over the Romanian border to Transylvania. The trip was an exploration of a continent which was already showing signs of the holocaust which was to come. Although frequently praised for his lyrical writing, Fermor's account also provides a coherent understanding of the dramatic events then unfolding in Middle Europe. But the delight remains, 20 years after first publication, in travelling with him in his picaresque journey past remote castles, mountain villages, monasteries and towering ranges."

Stoker, Bram "Dracula"

Stoker, Bram "Dracula" - 1897

I am neither a fan of fantasy nor of horror. But the subject for our Xanadu reading challenge in November was "Classics: any adult or children’s classic in any genre that you have never read before". There aren't really any genres I never read, I have tried everything, some I like a lot more than others, so I chose one that I rarely read. My son still had "Dracula" at home, so I thought this is the best time to finally read it.

Of course, there is no way I didn't know the Dracula story even though I never even watched a snippet of one of the many films they made out of this classic. So, the story wasn't a surprise. I also wasn't shocked or frightened, that is not the reason I don't read horror stories, they usually just bore me.

I am glad I read the novel because it is always talked about so much. But I don't believe in vampires and I wouldn't say I was excited about the story. Still, as it is one of the classics, it was an alright read even for such a truth lover like me.

From the back cover:

"A true masterwork of storytelling, Dracula has transcended generation, language, and culture to become one of the most popular novels ever written. It is a quintessential tale of suspense and horror, boasting one of the most terrifying characters ever born in literature: Count Dracula, a tragic, night-dwelling specter who feeds upon the blood of the living, and whose diabolical passions prey upon the innocent, the helpless, and the beautiful. But Dracula also stands as a bleak allegorical saga of an eternally cursed being whose nocturnal atrocities reflect the dark underside of the supremely moralistic age in which it was originally written - and the corrupt desires that continue to plague the modern human condition."

Emcke, Carolin "Echoes of Violence"

Emcke, Carolin "Echoes of Violence: Letters from a War Reporter" (German: Von den Kriegen. Briefe an Freunde) - 2004

I learned about Carolin Emcke when she was awarded the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade and I wanted to read one of her books every since. Now I found one and am happy to say, it was worth the wait.

The author is a journalist, covering mainly war areas and she has written e-mails to her friend every time she returned from one of her journeys. Here, she published them. She visited Afghanistan, Columbia, Iraq, Kosovo, Lebanon, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Romania and the USA (before and after September 11th), and reports about her meetings with affected people. A brilliant account of what war can do to a people. If we didn't know it before, we should certainly learn it from this book. War is stupid! War is terrible! War should not be allowed! For any reason. Put the leaders in one room and let them fight about their problems themselves.

I have to include one quote from the book:
"History is the object of a construction whose place is formed not in homogenous and empty time, but in that which is fulfilled by the here-and-now." Walter Benjamin

From the back cover:

"Echoes of Violence is an award-winning collection of personal letters to friends from a foreign correspondent who is trying to understand what she witnessed during the iconic human disasters of our time--in Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan, and New York City on September 11th, among many other places. Originally addressing only a small group of friends, Carolin Emcke started the first letter after returning from Kosovo, where she saw the aftermath of ethnic cleansing in 1999. She began writing to overcome her speechlessness about the horrors of war and her own sense of failure as a reporter. Eventually, writing a letter became a ritual Emcke performed following her return from each nightmare she experienced. First published in 2004 to great acclaim, Echoes of Violence in 2005 was named German political book of the year and was a finalist for the international Lettre-Ulysses award for the art of reportage.

Combining narrative with philosophic reflection, Emcke describes wars and human rights abuses around the world--the suffering of civilians caught between warring factions in Colombia, the heartbreaking plight of homeless orphans in Romania, and the near-slavery of garment workers in Nicaragua. Freed in the letters from journalistic conventions that would obscure her presence as a witness, Emcke probes the abyss of violence and explores the scars it leaves on landscapes external and internal."

Carolin Emcke received the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade (Friedenspreis) in 2016.

Eliade, Mircea "Marriage in Heaven"

Eliade, Mircea "Marriage in Heaven" (Romanian: Nuntă în cer) - 1938

An interesting novel. Quite philosophical. Two men reminisce about their lives and their encounter with a special woman, both have different kind of fantasies, different kind of attitudes but both are unlucky in love and pour out their hearts to each other. Whether this conversation could happen in real life, I have no idea. Maybe between two strangers who feel they have made a similar experience. Anyway, it was very interesting listening to these two guys and their perception of a relationship. If you can find an English copy, give it a go. It's worth it. I absolutely loved it.

The author was a Romanian historian of religion, philosopher, and fiction writer. His background certainly had an influence on his writing.

From Wikipedia:

"The novel Marriage in Heaven depicts the correspondence between two male friends, an artist and a common man, who complain to each other about their failures in love: the former complains about a lover who wanted his children when he did not, while the other recalls being abandoned by a woman who, despite his intentions, did not want to become pregnant by him. Eliade lets the reader understand that they are in fact talking about the same woman."

Kostova, Elizabeth "The Historian"

Kostova, Elizabeth "The Historian" - 2005

I really like this book. I'm not into fantasy and this is a little borderline but there is also quite some history involved, some travelling and the story itself is quite interesting. Okay, some things were predictable and might have been either left out or been disguised a little better. But it didn't matter.

Overall, this is a very nice novel.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2024.

From the back cover:

"Late one night, exploring her father's library, a young woman finds an ancient book and a cache of yellowing letters addressed ominously to 'My dear and unfortunate successor'. Her discovery plunges her into a world she never dreamed of - a labyrinth where the secrets of her father's past and her mother's mysterious fate connect to an evil hidden in the depths of history.

In those few quiet moments, she unwittingly assumes a quest she will discover is her birthright - a hunt for the truth about Vlad the Impaler, the medieval ruler whose barbarous reign formed the basis of the Dracula myth. Deciphering obscure signs and hidden texts, reading codes worked into the fabric of medieval monastic traditions, and evading terrifying adversaries, one woman comes ever closer to the secret of her own past and a confrontation with the very definition of evil.

Elizabeth Kostova's debut novel is an adventure of monumental proportions - a captivating tale that blends fact and fantasy, history and the present with an assurance that is almost unbearably suspenseful - and utterly unforgettable." 

 

I read The Swan Thieves and enjoyed it just as much as her first novel.

Lukas, Michael David "The Oracle of Stamboul"

Lukas, Michael David "The Oracle of Stamboul" - 2011

Istanbul, or rather Stamboul, at the end of the 19th century. A young Jewish girl is born in what now is Romania, her mother dies in childbirth and the girl ends up in Muslim Istanbul. She is extremely intelligent and  has extraordinary gifts which is not overlooked by important people in the town.

An amazing story like from 1001 Nights, it makes you dream of faraway shores and days gone by. The times are not better, on the contrary, but the life, oh, the life seems so much more exciting.

Fantastic read.

From the back cover:

"A magical historical novel about an astonishing eight year old girl in the last days of the Ottoman Empire. 

It is 1877, on the shores of the Black Sea, and the omens for the newborn Eleanora Cohen are hardly promising. Not only does her mother die in childbirth, but her village is being attacked by the Tsar's Royal Cavalry. However, despite this bad beginning, a sour stepmother and a traumatic journey in the hold of a ship, young Eleanora grows into a remarkably clever but very engaging child. And when a heartbreaking tragedy leaves her marooned in Istanbul, where spies and boarded-up harems and sudden death are as much a part of life as delicious spices, Paris fashions and rosewater, it is Eleanora's extraordinary courage and character which lead her straight to the Sultan’s court, and to her salvation."

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2024.

Wiesel, Elie "Night"

Wiesel, Elie (Eliezer Vizl) "Night" (French: La Nuit/Yiddish: Un di Velt Hot Geshvign)  - 1958

Elie Wiesel wrote this novel as a report about his life in the concentration camps Buchenwald and Auschwitz/Oswiecim.

Seldom did we agree more on a book than this time. We thought it was shocking and unbelievable. The enormity, the plans, everything was so calculated. Horrifying to see what people are able to do. We could understand that people wouldn't believe it at the time because it is hard to believe even now.

There was a lot of denial going on but also misinformation. The concentration camp Terezín (Theresienstadt) in the Czech Republic was a showcase where they were demonstrating that they only got the Jews together.

We were not sure what to think about these people's beliefs. Some of them praying to the bitter end, others, like the author, believing God is dead.

We noticed that people who are degraded to animals loose their human touch. The thing they could do to your mind, how people can accept cruelty as a fact and accept this.

We also agreed that we have to keep reading this so we can believe it. This is especially important now, we have to keep the story going because a lot of the witnesses keep dying.

Another subject: elections. If the ordinary voter doesn't take up his right, the extreme parties will gain more percentage. We cannot let this happen. We blame the media for bad information, but other than in the thirties of the last century, we can get the information, but we often choose not to.

We didn't agree, though, that twelve year olds should read it in school. That might be a little too early both to understand the whole background and to get to terms with the impact such a book has on someone.

We also talked about the fact that religion is often used as an excuse for conflicts that usually have quite another reason, often money and power.

Does Elie Wiesel still believe in God? Only he can answer that question and we couldn't find that he did that anywhere. He said in his speech that we are all orphans. Is that because God is dead?

I have read quite a few accounts of survivors of the Nazi time and some of them of victims from the concentration camps. I think he really deserves the Nobel Peace Prize he was awarded in 1986 since he tries to remind people about what happened without just throwing the other stone. He doesn't excuse his tormentors (why should he?) but he doesn't blame it all on everybody either. (If you don't have good nerves, you probably shouldn't read this as every account of any Jew from WWII has to be horrible).

Some of the concentration camps were also used for "medical research". You cannot understand how you can put people on different levels, treat them like they were even less than animals. Someone mentioned a "study" done in Tuskegee, Alabama. You can read more about that here.
In this connection, a famous sentence was brought up:
"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others" from the novel "Animal Farm" by George Orwell.
But this was not the first time this existed. Any kind of slavery does this, you can only treat a human being as your possession if you don't treat them like a human being. I had just found an interesting site about 200 years of slavery, looks like a series that was broadcast in the States, but the website * is rather interesting, too.
There seems to be a series on PBS, looks very interesting, maybe they'll show it here, one day, or not …
The Terrible Transformation 1450-1750
Revolution 1750-1805
Brotherly Love 179-1831 
Judgment Day 1831-1865

Then there is the "famous" (infamous) Lebensborn (fount of life) which officially encouraged SS officers to have more children. But they also had camps where "Aryan" women had children with "Aryan" soldiers, so it was a real breeding programme. Read more about it here.

If you haven't got enough of reading about the topic of the Nazis, everyone of us seemed to know at least one other book worth reading, so here is a list of that literature.
Corrie Ten Boom "The Hiding Place"
(You can also get a short version in Easy English, maybe for your children: The Secret Room) (De schuilplaats), 1971
Websites:  Wikipedia and amazon.
Lois Lowry "Number the Stars" (youth book, 10-14 yrs) - 1990 (Goodreads)
Set in Nazi-occupied Denmark in 1943, this 1990 Newbery winner tells of a 10-year-old girl who undertakes a dangerous mission to save her best friend.
Websites:  Wikipedia and amazon.
Jurek Becker "Jacob the Liar" (Jacob der Lügner), 1969
Websites: Wikipedia, amazon
Imre Kertész "Fatelessness" (older translation: Fateless) (Sorstalanság), 1975
Websites: Wikipedia, amazon  
Tessa de Loo "The Twins" (De Tweeling) - 2000
Websites: Wikipedia, amazon
Todd Strasser (pen name: Morton Rhue) "The Wave"- 1988
Websites: Wikipedia, amazon
J.N. Stroyar "The Children's War" - 2001 - ONE OF MY FAVOURITE BOOKS EVER
What would have happened had the Nazis won the war. How would we live now? Quite shocking!!!
Website: amazon  
Elizabeth Rosner "The Speed of Life" - 2001 - Another one of my absolute favourites.
How do Holocaust survivors and their children come to terms with their memories.
Websites: Wikipedia, amazon   

We also talked about several movies covering our theme. The first one was about an orchestra that saved Jews who played in it. The only thing I could find was the girl orchestra from Auschwitz/Oswiecim. (here).
Schindler's List
based on the book by Thomas Keneally "Schindler's Ark"
Zwartboek - (The Black Book)
Band of Brothers
The Twins - movie made after the book by Tessa de Loo (which we read in this book club).

Then we mentioned other movies we thought worth seeing, these two on the life of the Germans in East Germany (the movie received the Oscar this year for best foreign picture): "The Lives of Others" (Das Leben der anderen).
And "Goodbye Lenin", a funny, yet thought-provoking movie about a son who has to recreate GDR for his mother who was in a coma while the wall came down and now can't face any changes.

We discussed this in our international book club in March 2007.

From the back cover:

"In Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel's memoir Night, a scholarly, Orthodox teenager is wracked with guilt at having survived the horror of the Holocaust & the genocidal campaign that consumed his family. His memories of the nightmare worlds of Auschwitz-Birkenau & Buchenwald present him with an intolerable question: how can the god he once so fervently believed in have allowed these monstrous events to occur? There are no easy answers in this harrowing book, which probes life's essential riddles with the lucid anguish only great literature achieves. It marks the crucial first step in Wiesel's lifelong project to bear witness for those who died."

Original Yiddish title: Un di Velt Hot Geshvign/And the World Remained Silent

Elie Wiesel received the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1986 as he "has emerged as one of the most important spiritual leaders and guides in an age when violence, repression and racism continue to characterise the world".

I contribute to this page: Read the Nobels and you can find all my blogs about Nobel Prize winning authors and their books here.

* Unfortunately, some websites disappear after a while. Sorry.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2023.

Müller, Herta "The Appointment"

Müller, Herta "The Appointment" (German: Heute wär ich mir lieber nicht begegnet) - 1997

We were lucky to be able to discuss this book with our Romanian book club member who could give us some firsthand information.

In this novel, Herta Müller describes the way of a Romanian woman to an appointment with the "Securitate", the secret police. The whole book takes place in the 90 minutes she needs to get there. While driving on the tram, she reflects on her life and what has happened before.

Of course, not everyone in Romania had the same experience, especially the younger generation. Some of the worst parts for everyone was the rationalization of food, waiting in line for basic needs, the dreams about going on trips, censorship. There were mainly classical books to read, or nationalistic ones, everything that was sold was Romanian anyway. Even movies were forbidden. If you were lucky and had a relative or friend who would get around, you might get coffee etc. The "Securitate", the secret police, knew everything. You would be trained to cooperate People would get under pressure a lot. You were made a member of the communist party. There didn't seem to be much of an underground. The files of the secret police were opened 4-5 years ago.

Most of us really wanted to read this book. The message was to love yourself and that is so important.
We liked the style, even though some found it difficult to read, to understand that the whole book was about a short train ride.

Some of our readers' comments: The author sees the world through a kaleidoscope, nothing is connected, there is no national mourning. This is a wonderful exposé about the inhumanity, the irresponsibility of that regime, very powerful. It's little moments.
They were all victims. We thought this was very educational.
The author describes a dark depression, it gives you a lot to think about.
Never read anything with such a sense of hopelessness. There has to be a redeeming quality.
In their lives everything is about self control. It's the compulsive/obsessiveness that is the only control in her life.
This was a perfect way of showing that she became crazy. Very important to write about dictatorship.

From the back cover:

"'I've been summoned, Thursday, ten sharp.' So begins one day in the life of a young clothing-factory worker during Ceausescu’s totalitarian regime. She has been questioned before, but this time she knows it will be worse. Her crime? Sewing notes into the linings of men’s suits bound for Italy. 'Marry me', the notes say, with her name and address. Anything to get out of the country. As she rides the tram to her interrogation, her thoughts stray to her friend Lilli, shot while trying to flee to Hungary; to her grandparents, deported after her first husband informed on them; to Major Albu, her interrogator, who begins each session with a wet kiss on her fingers; and to Paul, her lover and the one person she can trust. In her distraction, she misses her stop and finds herself on an unfamiliar street. And what she discovers there suddenly puts her fear of the appointment into chilling perspective.
Bone-spare and intense, The Appointment is a pitiless rendering of the terrors of a crushing regime."

We discussed this in our international book club in December 2010.

Herta Müller grew up in the German speaking part of Romania. She left for Germany in 1987 but her books were not published in Romania at the time.

Herta Müller "who, with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose, depicts the landscape of the dispossessed" received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2009.

I contribute to this page: Read the Nobels and you can find all my blogs about Nobel Prize winning authors and their books here.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2023.

Müller, Herta "The King Bows and Kills"

Müller, Herta "The King Bows and Kills" (German: Der König verneigt sich und tötet) - 2003

Herta Müller grew up in the German speaking part of Romania. Everything anyone in the German minority owned before World War II was confiscated, her grandfather had been a rich landowner and merchant, her father worked as a truck driver. When Herta Müller started writing about her life and the repressions imposed on the people in Romania, she became a case of the “Securitate”, the secret police. She left for Germany in 1987 where she continued publishing further books which were not translated into Romanian and not available in Romania.

This book is a collection of several essays and it draws a picture of a life in a dictatorship. It is probably the closest to an autobiography that the author has written.

From the back cover:

"Herta Müller is one of the greatest writers and most powerful narrators of contemporary German literature, and books such as 'Herztier' and 'Der Fuchs war damals schon der Jäger' have earned her international fame, too. With 'Der König verneigt sich und tötet', Herta Müller examines the political and historical conditions of her own art. Until she emigrated to Germany, her linguistic and political consciousness was formed in the Romanian dictatorship of Ceaucescu. Language is at the centre of all her reflections: language as a tool for exerting power and suppression but also as a means of resistance and self-assertion against totalitarianism.

Her reflections, however, also include memories of childhood and the family where German was spoken. An impressive, sharply contoured picture of a life under absolute control emerges - to which Herta Müller responded by choosing the freedoms of literature."

Herta Müller "who, with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose, depicts the landscape of the dispossessed" received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2009.

I contribute to this page: Read the Nobels and you can find all my blogs about Nobel Prize winning authors and their books here.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2023.