Thanks, Inksplasher for hosting this challenge. My favorites were Silence, Cat’s Eye, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, Anne of Green Gables, and The Only Road North. All of them were new authors except for Mary Doria Russell and Margaret Atwood. Although I liked all the books, my least favorites (all were rated 3.5/5) were Dreamers of the Day, Sitting Practice, and Embers. Here are the twelve books I read:
Embers by Sandor Marai is a novel about Henrik and Konrad, two men who share a deep friendship from childhood. The novel opens with Konrad visiting Henrik for the first time in 41 years. The reasons why the pair were separated for so long are unraveled throughout the book.
Henrik comes from a privileged, wealthy background while Konrad is from poorer stock. They both attend a military training academy as youngsters, but Henrik is much more suited to the military life, while Konrad wishes to pursue the finer arts such as music. When Henrik’s father (a military man himself) meets Konrad for the first time, he states to his son that his friend will never be suited to the military because he is a ‘different sort of man.’
As they meet at Henrik’s castle for the first time in four decades, they discuss at first what they have been doing during that time, and then come to the reasons why these two friends have not seen each other for so long. The background to the story involves the first 80 or so pages, and then a dinner party discussion between the two goes on for the remaining part of the novel. Most of this discussion is a one-sided monologue by Henrik. In fact, Henrik goes on speaking about the pair’s past for almost the entire last 70 pages. While Henrik’s monologue goes on much too long, some of the passages were beautifully written:
The feeling that bound me to my mother and to you and to Krisztina was always the same, a longing, a hope in search of something, a helpless, sad yearning. For we always love the ‘other,’ we always seek it out, no matter what the circumstances and sudden changes in our lives….The greatest secret and the greatest gift any of us can be offered is the chance for two ‘similar’ people to meet. It happens so rarely — it must be because nature uses all its force and cunning to prevent such harmony — perhaps it’s that creation and the renewal of life need the tension that is generated between two people of opposite temperaments who seek each other out. Like an alternating current. . . an exchange of energy between positive and negative poles, think of all the despair and the blind hope that lie behind this duality.
The book has quite a bit of suspense to it. I was definitely interested and engaged and wanted to know the pair’s secret, but at the end, it just didn’t quite satisfy. I would like to re-read this someday as a translation from the Hungarian to English. This translation was in English from the German translation of the original Hungarian, which doesn’t seem like it would quite work. In fact, I noticed in a few spots that the same words or phrases were repeated too close together. In one instance, ‘prettified’ was a word used twice in close proximity, and it just didn’t fit. I would read more by this author, though, if there were direct translations available.
1942, 213 pp.
Rating: 3.5
I’ve been lax in posting lately, to be sure, but I have been reading. I’ve finished up Cat’s Eye and Anne of Green Gables, and I should be finished with Embers by Sandor Marai and Transformations by Anne Sexton by Tuesday or so. I’d been halfway through Cat’s Eye since January and just had to put other books ahead of it, but I loved it — maybe even more than The Handmaid’s Tale. It’s at least a tie between those two books. I also really loved Anne of Green Gables, and I’m planning on reading the entire series at some point.
Right now I’m trying to finish up the Winter Reading Challenge — I only have one more book for that, The Only Road North. Then, I have quite a few ARCs that I need to read for publishers or LibraryThing. It’s been totally unexpected obtaining these, but I have been enjoying it. I just need to adjust my challenges a bit and may possibly have to drop some, but we’ll see.
It rained today, rather than snowed, and although I enjoy winter more than most, I am extremely ready for spring!
I am probably the last adult female in the world to fall in love with Anne Shirley, but it’s finally happened. Her sweet, spunky, imaginative spirit is impossible not to fall in love with.
Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery is a book I wish I’d read in childhood. I know I would have gobbled up this series just like I did the Little House books. While as a child I could relate to Laura’s tomboyishness and her location on the prairie, I now see in Anne a competitive spirit that I could have also related to, particularly with academics. It also would have been nice to have the American/Canadian contrast while I was a young girl, but at least now I know what I’ve been missing. Just as those around her were spellbound by Anne, so was I. I can’t wait to read more of the series.
Raidergirl, I thought about you often during the reading of this book. I’d love to visit you in PEI someday!
I loved this book, perhaps even more than The Handmaid’s Tale, which I also rated 4.5. Whereas The Handmaid’s Tale was mostly a cautionary tale about men’s subjugation of women, Cat’s Eye is about girls subjugating and intimidating other girls. Elaine Risley as an adult is a successful artist, but as a little girl she was bullied by her friends and their ringleader, Cordelia. What makes little girls (and big ones!) do this, and why do the ones being tormented let them do it?
In an interview in the back of the book, Atwood states this is her most autobiographical novel, and she states the theme of the book as follows:
Cat’s Eye is about how girlhood traumas continue into adult life. Girls have a culture marked by secrets and shifting alliances, and these can cause a lot of distress. The girl who was your friend yesterday is not your friend today, but you don’t know why. These childhood power struggles color friendships between women. I’ve asked women if they fear criticism more from men or from other women. The overwhelming answer was: “From women.”
In typical Atwood fashion, there were also themes concerning male-female relationships. In one painting of Elaine’s, called Falling Women, she describes what was meant in the artwork:
There were no men in this painting, but it was about men, the kind who caused women to fall. I did not ascribe any intentions to these men. They were like the weather, they didn’t have a mind. They merely drenched you or struck you like lightning and moved on, mindless as blizzards. Or they were like rocks, a line of sharp slippery rocks with jagged edges. You could walk with care along between the rocks, picking your steps and if you slipped you’d fall and cut yourself, but it was no use blaming the rocks.
That must be what was meant by fallen women. Fallen women were women who had fallen onto men and hurt themselves. There was some suggestion of downward motion, against one’s will and not with the will of anyone else. Fallen women were not pulled-down women or pushed women, merely fallen.
Definitely one to read if you’ve enjoyed other Atwood novels.
For the LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly. (Psalm 84:11, ESV)
Thanks, Inksplasher for hosting this challenge. My favorites were Silence, Cat’s Eye, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, Anne of Green Gables, and The Only Road North. All of them were new authors except for Mary Doria Russell and Margaret Atwood. Although I liked all the books, my least favorites (all were rated 3.5/5) were Dreamers of the Day, Sitting Practice, and Embers. Here are the twelve books I read:
Embers by Sandor Marai is a novel about Henrik and Konrad, two men who share a deep friendship from childhood. The novel opens with Konrad visiting Henrik for the first time in 41 years. The reasons why the pair were separated for so long are unraveled throughout the book.
I’ve been lax in posting lately, to be sure, but I have been reading. I’ve finished up Cat’s Eye and Anne of Green Gables, and I should be finished with Embers by Sandor Marai and Transformations by Anne Sexton by Tuesday or so. I’d been halfway through Cat’s Eye since January and just had to put other books ahead of it, but I loved it — maybe even more than The Handmaid’s Tale. It’s at least a tie between those two books. I also really loved Anne of Green Gables, and I’m planning on reading the entire series at some point.
