Eva
I wanted Sally Rooney to evolve her style and her stories, but this was not it. Her characters are usually pretty annoying in a fun way, but I never wished to read their chapter-long email converstations full with hipster anxieties about the world. I also didn't need Rooney to insert herself in the novel to tell us how much she hated the whole attention her success has brought her. In between those two things there was a rather typical story about insecure young adults talking about their insecurities while having a lof of sex.
L'histoire d'une garde-cimetière qui veille empathiquement sur les tombes, les fleures et l'ames de son cimetiere, et aussi sur les visiteurs qui ont besoin d'une oreille ou d'une boisson forte. C'est un conte charmant et sentimental d'une femme avec un passe cache, une histoire de drama, d'amour, de deuil, qui se lentement deroulet dans un mystere.
J'ai l'impression que peut-etre ce livre aurais ete trop sentimental pour mois si je l'avais lu en anglais, mais je l'ai apprecie en francais, et je aussi apprecie la facon dont l'histoire ne cessait de s'etendre.
Leave it up to Sigrid Undset to pull me back into the story of Olav and Ingunn within the last few pages, after boring me somewhat with the rest of the book which in hindsight seems like a very long and detailed-oriented prologue. The procedures of medieval Norway's Christian and cultural traditions on how to untangle the complicated mess that is Olav and Ingunn's overhasty steps into marriage, did not make for an exciting plot. But I'm full of hope for the next part!
An elegantly written psychological portrait of two light-skinned black women who pass for white in New York's upper middle class in the 1920s. The novella is full of tension, and keeps building and building like a psychological thriller, with a focus on moments and conversations that reminds of a stage play. I really like the ambiguity of the ending.
The audiobook narration was excellent.
Returning to the Austrian mountains so soon after [b:Verschüttete Milch 44560918 Verschüttete Milch Barbara Frischmuth https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1553170486l/44560918.SY75.jpg 69156847] and I enjoyed this autobiographically inspired tale as well. Helfer reconstructs the life of her grandparents and aunts and uncles, as they live through simpler harsher times during WWI. They are the outcasts at the edge of the village - the ‘bagage' - a stigma handed down from previous generations. Yet the beautiful Maria is also the source of a lot of jealousy and gossip in the village. As her husband Josef leaves for the war, she and her children need to not only fight hunger but also overeager protectors. What subsequently happens, changes the family forever. I loved the way how both [b:Verschüttete Milch 44560918 Verschüttete Milch Barbara Frischmuth https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1553170486l/44560918.SY75.jpg 69156847] and Die Bagage let you experience what happens through the eyes of children and through the stories that have been handed down. The children and especially wise-beyond-his-age Lorenz were very memorable. The audiobook was read by the author herself, her husky voice needed some getting used to at the beginning, but turned out to be perfect for this book, as it's a very personal family history dealing with the stories we tell and those we keep.
About reinventing, escaping, seeking freedom and being locked-in. Minimal and slightly melancholy, a string of moments and memories, encounters, attachments. There's a nice flow to Hermann's prose, and she also does a good job narrating her own audio-book. I enjoyed how she intonated and gave a rhythm to the conversations in the book. At the end she ties together some of the knots of the story, manifesting the theme, that's as dark as the narration sometimes feels light in contrast. I liked it, while also never fully engaging.
After WWII a French woman marries a Moroccan soldier and moves to his homeland. The clash of cultures, the struggle of women in a strict muslim society, and a nation that seeks independence from its colonizers. There's a lot of interesting stuff going on, but the storytelling felt a bit uneven. I was happiest when the narrative stayed with Mathilde and her daughter Aïsha.
My first Slimani that I didn't read in French, and possibly also her first one with a historical setting? Unsure if those are the reasons I liked this one less, but possibly.
Sweet Days of Discipline is a poetic, detached and gloomy portrait of what it means to grow up in boarding schools in the middle of the last century. The complications of adolescence, friendships and infatuations, remote parents, in the rigid structure of education and discipline. Detachments are formed and ripped apart, what stays is a cold and melancholy feeling. The further it went along the more the prose just fluttered apart. I wanted more narrative structure.
If I didn't know this was part of a trilogy, I would probably complain that this lyrical and concise novella/memoir was too slim and that I wanted to spent more time with little Tove, who's too wise for her age and learns too fast that her dreams don't fit into this world. She grows up in a Copenhagen that's still hurting and impoverished after WWI and the Spanish flu. Her mother is very cold towards her, and while her father shows her the occasional kindness he laughs at her when she proclaims that she wants to become a female poet. So she learns to hide herself and her aspirations, and only finds solace in the magic of words.
This book and it's main character Jmiaa are just full of energy and you can't help not root for her. So this was a fun ride. A peek into someone's world who's been knocked down by life yet refuses to succumb. The writing style has the main character talk to you, casually, and it's smooth and fast paced like a conversation with someone who just loves to talk loudly and tell stories. It worked wonderfully.
“You you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you!”
One of Hungary's most loved novels, and I can understand why. It has the same fantastic writing as [b:The Door 497499 The Door Magda Szabó https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1175252169l/497499.SY75.jpg 485644], but while there the character observations are bordering on disturbing, Abigail is gentle. The fact that this is a coming-of-age tale also makes it easier to like. Who doesn't like a story of a spoiled and stubborn girl, that needs to learn life lessons in order to grow up. Our heroine Gina is sent to a strict religious boarding school far from her beloved Budapest and her beloved father. She rebels and soon finds herself ostracized by the rest of the pupils. Disheartened and lonely, she plots to escape. Yet a conflicted Hungary is about to join Germany in the war, and an underground rebellion is on the rise.
China has a rural vitalization plan. To bridge the socio-economic divide and to stop/reverse the rural flight. Alibaba & co are active participants in transforming farmers into tech-savvy and successful entrepreneurs, as a healthy agricultural society will have money to spend on online shopping. Wang goes on several trips to the Chinese countryside to learn about the application of blockchain technology to counter food-safety scandals, the use of drones to map hard-to-access farmland, and the use of AI-software to track the health of pigs at pig farms. They visit Taobao villages (whole rural villages dedicated to producing/selling on e-commerce platforms) and local police departments tracking ‘urban villages' (low-income neighborhoods on the outskirts of big cities, filled with the migrants workers).
Super fascinating book, not just full of stories about China's collide of technology and countryside, but also of thought-provoking musings on the evolution of technology and where it takes us.
Hekla is named after a volcano. You'd expect her to erupt and spit fire at any point, given the misogny and inequalities she experiences in her daily life. Yet this novel is set in Iceland in the 1960s, and therefore Hekla needs to keep quiet, hide her profession as aspiring novelist, and disregard all the hidden insults she receives from publishers and even her boyfriend. She sustains herself with a deep belief in herself and in her craft, and through the support and love she receives from her gay best friend Jon John, who equally struggles in a world that's not ready for him yet.
There's a lovely melancholy and levity in the sparse prose. While you feel removed from the anger and sadness the protagonists must feel, the book still packs gutpunches, they just come in the sparsest of fleeting sentences. I hope Hekla and Jon John are happy on their travels.
Given that I read this for WITmonth, I loved that Hekla herself is constantly in search of books by female writers, local and foreign.
This book and its heroine - “Die Kleine”/Juli/Juliane - effortlessly charmed its way into my heart. A childhood in the Austrian mountains during and after WWII. Despite the influx of evacuees and a general scarcity of food and money, it is still a childhood full of wonder, adventures and shenanigans. Juliane's story from birth to early adolescence, the revolving door of nannies, her loyal animal friends, the complexities of a large hotelier family, supply the content for a flow of memories and little vignettes (occasionally reminding me of [b:The Summer Book 79550 The Summer Book Tove Jansson https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1390613592l/79550.SY75.jpg 76813]). Throughout it all, Frischmuth sprinkles amusing nods at the local dialect.
A charming story with fairytale qualities, set in the 13hundreds in a Swiss village. A coming-of-age story of a boy who encounters cast of diverse lovely, wacky, superstitious characters and figures out his passion in life on the way - storytelling.
It´s a story about storytelling where emotions are not named but presented to you in form of a story. It´s a story about the power of stories and how stories can entertain, can help heal, can instigate trouble and can build legends.
The book has a wonderful flow and was a great companion despite it´s substantial length.
Our economy is stuck on models and graphs that were created ages ago, when straightforward capitalism and endless growth were the only goal we could imagine. But now we know more, we know that excessive growth depletes and destroys our planet´s natural resources, and we know that countries don´t need to experience extreme inequalities to climb towards success. Raworth understands the power these outdated models still have on today´s world of finance and politics, and proposes new models instead that are guidelines on how to rethink, rebuild and escape the social and environmental traps we have landed in. Raworth draws on [a:Donella H. Meadows 307638 Donella H. Meadows https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1592011479p2/307638.jpg]´s system thinking and suggests we should simply reset the goals instead of tweaking the parameters of our economy. GDP is an outdated model of measuring the success of a nation. We need to take human, cultural and environemtal values into account as well. The book ends on a fascinating and divisive debate: Is green growth possible or do we need degrowth in order to stabilize our world, to build an economy with regenerative and distributive principles. What would a society on a growth-plateau look like? Even if we measure growth with non-monetary values, would humanity be satisfied without a constant striving to go higher, achieve more?[a:Mazzucato Mariana 19431854 Mazzucato Mariana https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] is also frequently quoted, and if I had a vote I´d make these women redesign the global economy.
An exquisite collection of science fiction short stories and novellas, written in the 70ies by Alice Sheldon under her male pen name. Her voice and her stories feel so unique, they are blends of melancholy, rage and existentialism. Each ones engages you intellectually and emotionally. Her characters all long for something, for a human connection, for survival, for love, for equality, for enlightenment. Yet they are confronted with violence, the violence of men, the violence of evolution. Sheldon gives them hope only to have darkness waiting around the last corner.
An agonizing lament for human life welled up in him, a last pang that he would carry with him through eternity. But its urgency fell away. Life incorporeal, immortal, was on him now; it had him as it had her. His flesh, his body, was beginning to attenuate, to dematerialize out into the great current of sentience that flowed on its mysterious purposes among the stars.
The more we learn about the workings of this world, the more we cherish the mysteries that remain. The eel - its multiple transformation, its migration patterns, its as-of-yet unobserved reproduction - has been one of those elusive riddles that has obsessed scientists for centuries. Svensson writes a wonderful little book that's part science history, part personal memoir, part musings on the nature of mysteries and death.
Un roman de passage a l'age adulte situe dans une region rurale de France dans les annees 90, ou la fermure d'une usine a laisse une communaute desolee et pauvre. Racontee dans quatre etapes, chacune a deux ans d'intervalle, nous suivons la vie de trois adolescents dont la vie s'intercepte dans la chaleur d'ete. L'ennui, le plaisir, l'amour, les drogues, la violence et des reves d'une avenir, se melent et menent a des recontres breves et intenses. Tout ca se derole avec un coulisse de misere, de differences de classe, de la criminalite, de chomage, d'immigration, d'alcoholism.
J'aime beaucoup ce livre. Il reussit a te mettre dans cet etat d'esprit d'adolescent avec toutes ces emotions. C'etait un etude interessant de l'expression familiare chez les adolescents, et aussi des abreviations culturelles francaises. Une partie d'histoire se deroule dans un ZUP (Zone à urbaniser en priorité), et il'y a aussi du ZAC (Zone d'aménagement concerté).