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lynnsikora's review against another edition
3.0
This book freaked me out a bit at parts as I celebrated 5 years in Hamburg while reading about the main character having spent 5 years in Berlin. I enjoyed the parts of life in Germany as I could so closely relate; however, at times it was also tedious because I felt like I was reading about parts of my every day life which I try to escape through reading! A lovely little book though though.
bethnellvaccaro's review against another edition
4.0
I'm not quite sure what to make of this book, but I really liked it. Not much happens, but I loved the description of Berlin. I have never been to Berlin and know very little about the city, but I enjoy books where place is as much a character as the people.
nicolephipps's review against another edition
3.0
does "ehhh" count as a review?
It was short; parts were really pretty. But other parts were really boring.
Not-so much happened. And then it ended.
It was short; parts were really pretty. But other parts were really boring.
Not-so much happened. And then it ended.
maggiemoo89's review against another edition
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.5
reillywoehler's review against another edition
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
leerazer's review against another edition
4.0
Essentially a brooding, atmospheric illumination of the city of Berlin. The city is certainly the co-main character of the novel, at least, and it feels here like a dark, dense stain sinking into the fabric of the universe. It is the shadowed spot left on the wall of the empty apartment above the protagonist that is not covered up even when a new tenant arrives to rehabilitate the space. It is the secret underground bowling alley of the Nazis, or the Stasi, it makes little difference which, where the ghosts impatiently wait to reclaim the place.
The tone is brilliantly set from the opening paragraph: "It was an evening when the moral remains of the city bobbed up to the surface and floated like driftwood before sinking back down to the seabed to further splinter and rot." Now there's a sentence to make any city's Chamber of Commerce fall to its knees in pain.
The narrative vehicle for this contemporary analysis of Berlin is the story of Tatiana, a young woman from a Mexican Jewish family, who has lived in Berlin for several years. She muddles along in the post-German reunification haze, working part-time for a historian, transcribing his spoken notes. She has difficulty making any real connection with people or work and bounces along on each path, unable to settle anywhere for long. Berlin's past seems to colonize her imagination, leaving her unbalanced in the present. Ultimately an act of violence (with a resolution from the school of urban magical realism) prompts her to sever ties with the city and return to her family in Mexico.
All in all, a well-written debut novel to be read for its take on the interplay of past and present.
The tone is brilliantly set from the opening paragraph: "It was an evening when the moral remains of the city bobbed up to the surface and floated like driftwood before sinking back down to the seabed to further splinter and rot." Now there's a sentence to make any city's Chamber of Commerce fall to its knees in pain.
The narrative vehicle for this contemporary analysis of Berlin is the story of Tatiana, a young woman from a Mexican Jewish family, who has lived in Berlin for several years. She muddles along in the post-German reunification haze, working part-time for a historian, transcribing his spoken notes. She has difficulty making any real connection with people or work and bounces along on each path, unable to settle anywhere for long. Berlin's past seems to colonize her imagination, leaving her unbalanced in the present. Ultimately an act of violence (with a resolution from the school of urban magical realism) prompts her to sever ties with the city and return to her family in Mexico.
All in all, a well-written debut novel to be read for its take on the interplay of past and present.
rmolnar's review against another edition
4.0
Chloe Aridjis captures perfectly the feelings of being lost and lonely, yet content, in a foreign but familiar city. The weight of the city's history is always present. It is heavy and presses in on the reader, as it does the book's characters. I found Book of Clouds to be simultaneously comforting and unsettling - a real feat, in my opinion - and by the end I felt as disconnected from the world as Tatiana is in the novel.
It isn't a particularly plot-driven novel, but a meandering exploration of home, self and history. I thoroughly enjoyed that exploration even if, in the end, it resulted in much self-reflection.
It isn't a particularly plot-driven novel, but a meandering exploration of home, self and history. I thoroughly enjoyed that exploration even if, in the end, it resulted in much self-reflection.
alyx_cullen's review
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
leda's review
4.0
Berlin: A city that ran on its chronometric scale on a Book of Clouds
While I was in Paris, I went to a book reading at the bookstore Shakespeare & Company. The place was completely packed with books and people and the atmosphere was warm and friendly. The magical environment of Shakespeare & Co., and the good wine certainly contributed to the success of this enjoyable evening.
The author Chloe Aridjis read from her debut novel “Book of Clouds.” I bought the book the same evening and I read it few weeks later. At the beginning I was captivated by the words. And then by the story, a complex, multi-layered story, and poetically almost magically, weaved .
Tatiana, a young Mexican Jew woman, settles in Berlin in the early part of the twenty-first century, and cultivates a solitude life, she finds herself “needing other people less and less.” She has a part-time job as a transcriber for an elderly historian named Doktor Weiss, but was she has really become is “a professional in lost time” in a city which “ran on its own chronometric scale.”
Through the historian he meets Jonas, a meteorologist, who as a child in the East Germany found that the shape shifting and ever gone clouds offered him a sense of freedom.
Their paths intersect, the past merges with the present, and while city unfolds its secrets, dreams fuse with reality, violence takes the shape of a senseless, cloudy dream bringing change in their lives.
I liked this book. I liked the melancholic, wistful and lyrical tone, the atmospheric description of Berlin, the development of the characters.
I quote a passage from the book. I like it because it shows very convincingly and in a theatrical way why I find difficult, or rather unpleasant to work in a public library. Like the narrator, I prefer the solitude of a room.
“Apart from the delight of listening for hours to a mesmeric voice, it was a blessing to work at my own desk in an empty room in Weiss’s apartment, infinitely more pleasing than working at the library, which I’d had to do an occasion in the past, as recently as for my last job at the psychology magazine, and though libraries were fine places, actually, I always found it impossible to complete the tasks I had been assigned for the simple reason that the more often I went there the more aware I became of the other readers, and the more aware I became of the other readers the more I noticed the profusion of nervous tics and compulsive behaviour which seemed to flourish in these places. Pretty soon it was impossible to concentrate on anything, what with the girl to my right chewing her nails and the girl to my left digging at her head, and it did not take long to realize that most people are fidgeters, as is synaptic activity were encouraged by endless scratching and fidgeting, and before long I had the impression I was in a room with eighty scholarly monkeys, busily delousing as they sat reading their books or typing at their computers, and at those rare moments when I looked up and no one was doing anything I felt as if a truce had been called or an angel were flying overhead and, out of deference, the monkeys had removed their paws from their faces and hair.”
While I was in Paris, I went to a book reading at the bookstore Shakespeare & Company. The place was completely packed with books and people and the atmosphere was warm and friendly. The magical environment of Shakespeare & Co., and the good wine certainly contributed to the success of this enjoyable evening.
The author Chloe Aridjis read from her debut novel “Book of Clouds.” I bought the book the same evening and I read it few weeks later. At the beginning I was captivated by the words. And then by the story, a complex, multi-layered story, and poetically almost magically, weaved .
Tatiana, a young Mexican Jew woman, settles in Berlin in the early part of the twenty-first century, and cultivates a solitude life, she finds herself “needing other people less and less.” She has a part-time job as a transcriber for an elderly historian named Doktor Weiss, but was she has really become is “a professional in lost time” in a city which “ran on its own chronometric scale.”
Through the historian he meets Jonas, a meteorologist, who as a child in the East Germany found that the shape shifting and ever gone clouds offered him a sense of freedom.
Their paths intersect, the past merges with the present, and while city unfolds its secrets, dreams fuse with reality, violence takes the shape of a senseless, cloudy dream bringing change in their lives.
I liked this book. I liked the melancholic, wistful and lyrical tone, the atmospheric description of Berlin, the development of the characters.
I quote a passage from the book. I like it because it shows very convincingly and in a theatrical way why I find difficult, or rather unpleasant to work in a public library. Like the narrator, I prefer the solitude of a room.
“Apart from the delight of listening for hours to a mesmeric voice, it was a blessing to work at my own desk in an empty room in Weiss’s apartment, infinitely more pleasing than working at the library, which I’d had to do an occasion in the past, as recently as for my last job at the psychology magazine, and though libraries were fine places, actually, I always found it impossible to complete the tasks I had been assigned for the simple reason that the more often I went there the more aware I became of the other readers, and the more aware I became of the other readers the more I noticed the profusion of nervous tics and compulsive behaviour which seemed to flourish in these places. Pretty soon it was impossible to concentrate on anything, what with the girl to my right chewing her nails and the girl to my left digging at her head, and it did not take long to realize that most people are fidgeters, as is synaptic activity were encouraged by endless scratching and fidgeting, and before long I had the impression I was in a room with eighty scholarly monkeys, busily delousing as they sat reading their books or typing at their computers, and at those rare moments when I looked up and no one was doing anything I felt as if a truce had been called or an angel were flying overhead and, out of deference, the monkeys had removed their paws from their faces and hair.”