Haushofer, Marlen "The Wall"

Haushofer, Marlen "The Wall" (German: Die Wand) - 1962

I know this is a book I will never forget. One of the few German books that have been translated into English, it truly deserves this. The author died in 1970 at the age of fifty.

The novel is about a woman who wakes up one morning only to find out there is an invisible wall around the house in the mountains where she has spent the night. Her friends have not returned from a visit to the village, so she starts investigating the area left to her. Something terrible must have happened, all life - except hers and her animals - seems to have vanished. The woman describes her hunt for food, her fight for life on scraps of paper.

The author has a great way of describing the life of this isolated woman. Even though we are not in this situation and we don't even get to know why she did, the heroine sends us a message about the meaning of life. A very good read.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2024.

From the back cover:

"'I can allow myself to write the truth; all the people for whom I have lied throughout my life are dead…' writes the heroine of Marlen Haushofer’s The Wall, a quite ordinary, unnamed middle-aged woman who awakens to find she is the last living human being. Surmising her solitude is the result of a too successful military experiment, she begins the terrifying work of not only survival, but self-renewal. The Wall is at once a simple and moving talk - of potatoes and beans, of hoping for a calf, of counting matches, of forgetting the taste of sugar and the use of one’s name - and a disturbing meditation on 20th century history."

Forster, E. M. "A Passage to India"

Forster, E. M. (Edward Morgan) "A Passage to India" - 1924

This novel takes us both to a different time and a different area, India in die 1920s. Of course, the protagonists are British who live in the time of the Indian independence movement but the main character is a young Indian who gets into trouble just through the carelessness of the English. The book talks about friendship, colonialism, the wish of all human beings to be independent.

Since I love classic British literature, I was not surprised to love this one. I love the language E.M. Forster uses, the way he describes both the characters and the scenes, he takes us to a place far far away that seems almost magical but is still very realistic and vulnerable.

Great read.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2024.

From the back cover:

"When Adela Quested and her elderly companion Mrs Moore arrive in the Indian town of Chandrapore, they quickly feel trapped by its insular and prejudiced 'Anglo-Indian' community. Determined to escape the parochial English enclave and explore the 'real India', they seek the guidance of the charming and mercurial Dr Aziz, a cultivated Indian Muslim. But a mysterious incident occurs while they are exploring the Marabar caves with Aziz, and the well-respected doctor soon finds himself at the centre of a scandal that rouses violent passions among both the British and their Indian subjects. A masterly portrait of a society in the grip of imperialism, A Passage to India compellingly depicts the fate of individuals caught between the great political and cultural conflicts of the modern world.

In his introduction, Pankaj Mishra outlines Forster's complex engagement with Indian society and culture. This edition reproduces the Abinger text and notes, and also includes four of Forster's essays on India, a chronology and further reading."

In the meantime, I also read "Howards End" by the same author.

Adams, Richard "Watership Down"

Adams, Richard "Watership Down" - 1972

When I looked up the year this was published, I could hardly believe it. Almost forty years ago. Seems like yesterday.

I saw this story as a sign how careless we are with Mother Nature, how easily we destroy our home planet, how little we consider our fellow human and animal beings. A very sad story.

Apparently, the author based this tale on his own war experiences. No wonder it is so gloomy, yet real, and - therefore - fantastic. It is full of symbolism, retells stories of old, and thus turns into a timeless philosophical account.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2024.

Everybody should read this.

From the back cover:

"Watership Down is one of the most beloved novels of our time. Sandleford Warren is in danger. Hazel's younger brother Fiver is convinced that a great evil is about to befall the land, but no one will listen. And why would they when it is Spring and the grass is fat and succulent? So together Hazel and Fiver and a few other brave rabbits secretly leave behind the safety and strictures of the warren and hop tentatively out into a vast and strange world. Chased by their former friends, hunted by dogs and foxes, avoiding farms and other human threats, but making new friends, Hazel and his fellow rabbits dream of a new life in the emerald embrace of Watership Down."

Smith, Zadie "On Beauty"

Smith, Zadie "On Beauty" - 2005

After having read and liked "White Teeth". I found this in the library and definitely wanted to read it. A different kind of novel to her first  one, though it also describes a mixed-race family situation.

Again, I quite liked her style, the way she portrays the different characters. Apparently, an homage to E. M. Forster's "Howards End". The fact that she manages to make this into a very modern story shows how timeless a writer she is.

Zadie Smith was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for "On Beauty" in 2005. 

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2024.

From the back cover:

"Set in New England mainly and London partly, On Beauty concerns a pair of feuding families - the Belseys and the Kippses - and a clutch of doomed affairs. It puts low morals among high ideals and asks some searching questions about what life does to love. For the Belseys and the Kippses, the confusions - both personal and political - of our uncertain age are about to be brought close to home: right to the heart of family."

Smith, Zadie "White Teeth"

Smith, Zadie "White Teeth" - 1999

I read this book a couple of years ago with my Dutch book group. When I picked it up at the book shop, I thought I wouldn't enjoy it, it looked just like one of those "chick" books that are always the same and you know the end before it has even started. The colours just really threw me.

So, I was pleasantly surprised to find it was a great book with interesting plots, good descriptions, good language. She even was a "Whitbread" runner up. Since some of our members didn't like this one, they suggested we read the "winner" ("English Passengers" by Matthew Kneale). I remember not liking that one very much.

Anyway, "White Teeth" was good and they made a series out of it. Unfortunately, we had moved away from the UK at the time and I didn't get to see it. Anyone here who did?

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2024.

From the back cover:

"On New Year's morning, 1975, Archie Jones sits in his car on a London road and waits for the exhaust fumes to fill his Cavalier Musketeer station wagon. Archie - working-class, ordinary, a failed marriage under his belt - is calling it quits, the deciding factor being the flip of a 20-pence coin. When the owner of a nearby halal butcher shop (annoyed that Archie's car is blocking his delivery area) comes out and bangs on the window, he gives Archie another chance at life and sets in motion this richly imagined, uproariously funny novel.

Epic and intimate, hilarious and poignant, White Teeth is the story of two North London families - one headed by Archie, the other by Archie's best friend, a Muslim Bengali named Samad Iqbal. Pals since they served together in World War II, Archie and Samad are a decidedly unlikely pair. Plodding Archie is typical in every way until he marries Clara, a beautiful, toothless Jamaican woman half his age, and the couple have a daughter named Irie (the Jamaican word for "no problem"). Samad - devoutly Muslim, hopelessly 'foreign' - weds the feisty and always suspicious Alsana in a prearranged union. They have twin sons named Millat and Magid, one a pot-smoking punk-cum-militant Muslim and the other an insufferable science nerd. The riotous and tortured histories of the Joneses and the Iqbals are fundamentally intertwined, capturing an empire's worth of cultural identity, history, and hope.

Zadie Smith's dazzling first novel plays out its bounding, vibrant course in a Jamaican hair salon in North London, an Indian restaurant in Leicester Square, an Irish poolroom turned immigrant café, a liberal public school, a sleek science institute. A winning debut in every respect, White Teeth marks the arrival of a wondrously talented writer who takes on the big themes - faith, race, gender, history, and culture - and triumphs."

We read this in our Dutch International Women's Book Club in 2000/2001.

I also read Zadie Smith's novel "On Beauty".

Dirie, Waris "Desert Flower"

Dirie, Waris "Desert Flower: The Extraordinary Journey of a Desert Nomad" - 1998

I remember hearing about female genital mutilation but I think this was the first time I read about it in detail. I think I was so shocked, couldn't believe that anyone would do such a thing ton an innocent young girl, the book has never left me. Not what you expect from the autobiography of a famous model.

Of course, Waris' story has sort of a happy end, she was discovered and lived the life of a glamorous model, even appeared in a Bond movie in the meantime. But what if she hadn't been clever enough to escape an arranged marriage and beautiful enough to be a model? We certainly wouldn't have heard about her tragic story, and there are millions of women around who suffer the same destiny.

I have read many books covering this subject since, i.a. "Infidel" and "Nomad" of her fellow Somalian feminist Ayaan Hirsi Ali, or "Half the Sky" by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. I admire anyone who fights for women all over the world.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2024.

From the back cover:

"Waris Dirie, whose name means desert flower, was born in Somalia of nomadic parents. She underwent extreme female circumcision at the age of five, and when she was 13 her father sold her into marriage with a 60-year-old for five camels, at which time she ran away. She was discovered by a fashion photographer in the United States whilst working as a janitor at McDonald's, and became a model who has been used to promote Revlon skin-care products. She also speaks on women's rights in Africa and travels the world to give lectures on behalf of the UN. This is her autobiography."

Hamilton, Jane "A Map of the World"

Hamilton, Jane "A Map of the World" - 1994

"Happiness is an Illusion, Pain is Reality" - Alice Goodwin, the main character of this novel, receives this as her fortune cookie when visiting a Chinese restaurant with her husband. She doesn't think this sounds like a reality but is reminded of it shortly afterwards when her life changes so much, nothing will ever be the same again.

This story has so many themes, it is gripping from the first page, gets more and more interesting, you feel for every single person. A very sad story, a tragic story, one about loss and betrayal, death, desperation, parenthood, partnership, marriage, endless, endless topics wrapped into one big story, told in a fascinating way.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2024.

From the back cover:

"One unremarkable June morning, Alice Goodwin is, as usual, trying to keep in check both her temper and her tendency to blame herself for her family's shortcomings. When the Goodwins took over the last dairy farm in the small Midwestern town of Prairie Center, they envisioned their home a self-made paradise. But these days, as Alice is all too aware, her elder daughter Emma is prone to inexplicable fits of rage, her husband Howard distrusts her maternal competence, and Prairie Center's tight-knit suburban community shows no signs of warming to 'those hippies who think they can run a farm.'

A loner by nature, Alice is torn between a yearning for solitude coupled with a deep need to be at the center of a perfect family. On this particular day, Emma has started the morning with a violent tantrum, her little sister Claire is eating pennies, and it is Alice's turn to watch her neighbor's two small girls as well as her own. She absentmindedly steals a minute alone that quickly becomes ten: time enough for a devastating accident to occur. Her neighbor's daughter Lizzy drowns in the farm's pond, and Alice - whose own volatility and unmasked directness keep her on the outskirts of acceptance - becomes the perfect scapegoat. At the same time, a seemingly trivial incident from Alice's past resurfaces and takes on gigantic proportions, leading the Goodwins far from Lizzy's death into a maze of guilt and doubt culminating in a harrowing court trial and the family's shattering downfall."

I definitely want to read Laura Hamilton's second book "The Book of Ruth", don't know why it took me so long to read this one.