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pipmonk's review
emotional
hopeful
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
ocurtsinger's review
Every time I pick up a John Berger novel, I think that I'll love it, but every time I try to read a John Berger novel, I can never finish; I get lost and confused by the seemingly irrelevant snippets of images that bubble up. Adding to that is the feeling that the narrative style is so soft that it doesn't drive with a serious plea for the reader to try and make sense of any of those images. The result is that certain elements and images will pass by unnoticed until I've realized that I've read six pages without really being able to recall what's happened.
I really want to like his novels, and I know I could if I was in the right mindset, and I've tried several times with his "most accessible" novels, but the magic hasn't happened yet.
I really want to like his novels, and I know I could if I was in the right mindset, and I've tried several times with his "most accessible" novels, but the magic hasn't happened yet.
roisin_prendergast's review against another edition
2.0
2.5 stars - not as I’d hoped. Too fragmented and obscure for me.
natashie_f's review against another edition
5.0
If I tell you this book revolves around the wedding of a woman who has AIDS.
If I invite you to imagine her.
Do you think about the woman or the virus?
Do you give her hopes, dreams, and aspirations? Do you ask when and where and why she wants to be married? Do you ask how she plans to style her hair? Do you ask how she will dance? Or do you inquire as to how she contracted the virus. Do you ask how long she has known. Do you ask how long she has left. Do you wonder about who she has told.
This book tells us that we do not, contrary to what we may otherwise claim, know what we are doing. We create memories of what we did, we pretend to know what we will do, and in the process neglect to examine what we are doing now, right now. We are deaf and we are blind to the stormy reality around us.
Fact: In 2015, 2.1 million people contracted HIV. Fact: In 2015, there were 36.7 million people living with AIDS, 1.8 million of them children, sons and daughters, daughters who were dreaming up white wedding dresses and fairy-tale weddings. Fact: Knowing the facts and being aware of the statistics is not enough.
Big, abstract, inconceivable numbers are not human. Laughter is human. Love is human. Hope is human. Human is making a mistake but only realising it years after. Human is blaming yourself and being led to forgiveness by being forgiven. Human is every reader of this novel effortlessly slipping into the role of the blind narrator – the use of the first person pronoun ‘I’ becoming a skin anyone can wear.
But pain is human too, pain which cuts off, isolates and paralyses. And so even though the narrator is you, you are not the narrator because he is blind and has tattoos from listening to rembetika and he is the Other.
Berger’s lyrical prose – the word lyrical invoking music, sounds, voices – tells us that this story comes from far away, as all voices do. It comes from the mountains, from a little European town where the water connects the earth and the sky who were unwillingly separated by the gods during creation. It comes from an Italy with vibrant market stalls, a town square with mosaics on the floor.
It is a story that reads like scattered leaves in autumn winds. It’s orange like sunset-endings-death, orange like sunrise-beginnings-weddings. It’s gold like the Greek necklace a desperate father wants to steal to buy to give to his daughter to have. It's red like blood on guitar strings, red like the blood that rushes through your veins when you know you’re in love and this is your eternity now.
Michael Ondaatje said that “wherever I live in the world, I will have this book with me.” Although there is reassurance and respect in this statement, there is no hope and there is no love. I hope that wherever I go in the world, I will see this story around me. I hope that wherever I go in the world, I will carry the love of this story with me – the kind of love that reaches out, the love that forgives.
The love of a traveller says Venice is a sinking city, but I hope that people still see its beauty. The love of a father says I am mourning, but I will buy perfume for my daughter and I hope she feels like a queen. The love of a bride with AIDS says I am dying, but I am going to dance, and I hope you will join me. Love of life says death is coming. But he is not here yet. So hope.
If I invite you to imagine her.
Do you think about the woman or the virus?
Do you give her hopes, dreams, and aspirations? Do you ask when and where and why she wants to be married? Do you ask how she plans to style her hair? Do you ask how she will dance? Or do you inquire as to how she contracted the virus. Do you ask how long she has known. Do you ask how long she has left. Do you wonder about who she has told.
This book tells us that we do not, contrary to what we may otherwise claim, know what we are doing. We create memories of what we did, we pretend to know what we will do, and in the process neglect to examine what we are doing now, right now. We are deaf and we are blind to the stormy reality around us.
Fact: In 2015, 2.1 million people contracted HIV. Fact: In 2015, there were 36.7 million people living with AIDS, 1.8 million of them children, sons and daughters, daughters who were dreaming up white wedding dresses and fairy-tale weddings. Fact: Knowing the facts and being aware of the statistics is not enough.
Big, abstract, inconceivable numbers are not human. Laughter is human. Love is human. Hope is human. Human is making a mistake but only realising it years after. Human is blaming yourself and being led to forgiveness by being forgiven. Human is every reader of this novel effortlessly slipping into the role of the blind narrator – the use of the first person pronoun ‘I’ becoming a skin anyone can wear.
But pain is human too, pain which cuts off, isolates and paralyses. And so even though the narrator is you, you are not the narrator because he is blind and has tattoos from listening to rembetika and he is the Other.
Berger’s lyrical prose – the word lyrical invoking music, sounds, voices – tells us that this story comes from far away, as all voices do. It comes from the mountains, from a little European town where the water connects the earth and the sky who were unwillingly separated by the gods during creation. It comes from an Italy with vibrant market stalls, a town square with mosaics on the floor.
It is a story that reads like scattered leaves in autumn winds. It’s orange like sunset-endings-death, orange like sunrise-beginnings-weddings. It’s gold like the Greek necklace a desperate father wants to steal to buy to give to his daughter to have. It's red like blood on guitar strings, red like the blood that rushes through your veins when you know you’re in love and this is your eternity now.
Michael Ondaatje said that “wherever I live in the world, I will have this book with me.” Although there is reassurance and respect in this statement, there is no hope and there is no love. I hope that wherever I go in the world, I will see this story around me. I hope that wherever I go in the world, I will carry the love of this story with me – the kind of love that reaches out, the love that forgives.
The love of a traveller says Venice is a sinking city, but I hope that people still see its beauty. The love of a father says I am mourning, but I will buy perfume for my daughter and I hope she feels like a queen. The love of a bride with AIDS says I am dying, but I am going to dance, and I hope you will join me. Love of life says death is coming. But he is not here yet. So hope.
letsreadmorebooks's review
3.0
fun to read concurrently with slaughterhouse five. unexpected similarities between the two-both are non-linear tales, both are told by someone other than the main character, both take place in the same part of the world. but they're entirely different in tone. to the wedding read more like poetry.
raviola_reads's review against another edition
emotional
inspiring
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0