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4.06 AVERAGE
4.06 AVERAGE
reflective
sad
just ran out of steam with this one. should have kept taking it to work and it would have forced me to finish it properly but i just didn't care. the lack of line breaks made it feel like a chore to read
Natalia Ginzburg somehow manages to convey complex worlds and family relationships through the most uncomplicated, unpretentious writing. I found All Our Yesterdays totally immersive to the point where I felt like I was part of the family. What a brilliant book.
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
emotional
informative
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
challenging
dark
funny
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
came for the Sally Rooney recommendation. Stayed for the beautiful prose, critiques of fascism and Italian summers.
Fact: I was reluctant to read this, because, you know, WWII, a (more or less) sprawling scope of mostly young protagonists who get tangled up in the life-changing experience war is, etc. etc. It seemed like some kind of "been there, done that" situation.
BUT The way it's written! Don't get me wrong, "All Our Yesterdays" tells a compelling story. It's a tragic, funny and decidedly political book (mostly leftist, of course, as it should be), and it's first hand, which is important imho, when we talk WWII.
But it's the prose that makes this stand out, its "dense directness", i.e., an extrordinary mix of simplicity, repetitiveness, frequent associations and metaphors, changing viewpoints, without ever getting confusing – unlike other, lesser prose. In fact, I had the impression I was reading a text that was written by (or for) a very young person, dynamic and unconventional, in the very best sense of it. Read this!
Other thoughts If want to continue your journey into WWII from a woman writer's perspective, read Anna Segher's [b:The Seventh Cross|1108425|The Seventh Cross|Anna Seghers|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347744330l/1108425._SX50_.jpg|1767259], another ensemble novel, and a modern German classic, really. Completely different in tone and setting, but also great great great!
BUT The way it's written! Don't get me wrong, "All Our Yesterdays" tells a compelling story. It's a tragic, funny and decidedly political book (mostly leftist, of course, as it should be), and it's first hand, which is important imho, when we talk WWII.
But it's the prose that makes this stand out, its "dense directness", i.e., an extrordinary mix of simplicity, repetitiveness, frequent associations and metaphors, changing viewpoints, without ever getting confusing – unlike other, lesser prose. In fact, I had the impression I was reading a text that was written by (or for) a very young person, dynamic and unconventional, in the very best sense of it. Read this!
Other thoughts If want to continue your journey into WWII from a woman writer's perspective, read Anna Segher's [b:The Seventh Cross|1108425|The Seventh Cross|Anna Seghers|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347744330l/1108425._SX50_.jpg|1767259], another ensemble novel, and a modern German classic, really. Completely different in tone and setting, but also great great great!
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Ah, I have discovered a new author to read more of. All Our Yesterdays is poetic and powerful, a story recounting the years of the Second World War in Italy as well as the beginnings of Fascism under Mussolini before this. We follow Anna and family, first in a town in the North of Italy as Anna is growing up, an impressionable and strikingly normal girl in a family of larger characters; her brother Ippolito, a rebel against Facism, her beautiful sister Concettina with scores of fiancés, and also the family next door, of whom they are close to. Anna, innocent in the way she approaches many things, finds herself pregnant whilst still very young and unmarried, but largely overlooked by her boisterous family, finds herself confiding only in an older family friend, Cenzo Rena. Cenzo decides to rescue Anna by marrying her himself and bringing her to his village in the South, where maybe she will learn to be ‘less like an insect’. Here Anna’s life changes drastically with both the birth of ‘the little girl’ as she is henceforth known, and the beginning of the war. I was impressed by the strong style of the book and also the way it relates a feeling of confusion and uncertainty in the way normal people have to respond to events outside of their control and try and deal with upheaval. Anna is very much portrayed as quite a placid, innocent girl, almost simple in some ways, but this serves to reinforce a point which is how we all feel in the face of large events for which we are unprepared for - Ginzburg here captures something very true and hard to define, and very real and undramatic. Anna, feeling largely like she knows nothing, is often simply an observer, unable to influence that happening around her.