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2.77 AVERAGE
2.77 AVERAGE
Reading this felt like I was swimming through her prose only to wind up on a shore with no clear memory or reason for being there - and not in a fun, dreamy, post-modern way. There were a few nice lines, but overall this book really dragged. The last 30 pages kind of picked up, but it was too little too late, and I was annoyed by the ending. I don't mind books where nothing happens, but the writing has to be good enough to sustain my interest. That definitely wasn't the case here.
I really wanted to like this, since I loved elegance of the hedgehog, but I just kept rolling my eyes at some of the descriptions and honestly the whole motif of simple, honest peasants who are good and pure and full of love felt like obnoxious overkill to me. This trope just reminds me of Flannery O'Connor's story "Good Country People", and I image she'd roll over in her grave while reading this.. but to be fair, maybe it's only American country people who are depraved - maybe peasants in the french countryside really are pure of heart.
(To be fair, when I first read elegance of a hedgehog I vehemently hated it - it wasn't until a few years later that I reread it and fell in love.. so maybe that's a common theme with me and Barbery's work, and I just need to revisit this in a few years?)
I really wanted to like this, since I loved elegance of the hedgehog, but I just kept rolling my eyes at some of the descriptions and honestly the whole motif of simple, honest peasants who are good and pure and full of love felt like obnoxious overkill to me. This trope just reminds me of Flannery O'Connor's story "Good Country People", and I image she'd roll over in her grave while reading this.. but to be fair, maybe it's only American country people who are depraved - maybe peasants in the french countryside really are pure of heart.
(To be fair, when I first read elegance of a hedgehog I vehemently hated it - it wasn't until a few years later that I reread it and fell in love.. so maybe that's a common theme with me and Barbery's work, and I just need to revisit this in a few years?)
challenging
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
lighthearted
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
To read this book, you need to have a lot of patience with not knowing what's going on. There is some sort of epic battle going on between elves, their human allies, and another unnamed but evil force. Two little girls with mysterious pasts, Maria in France and Clara in Italy, are key to the outcome of this battle. As the story progresses, we learn a little more about who these girls are and why they are so important, but we don't learn all that much about who the enemy is and what's at stake. It's a testament to the beauty of the writing and characterization that I still cared about the outcome of the story.
I've read that this is the first book of a proposed trilogy. I doubt I'll read the next installment.
I've read that this is the first book of a proposed trilogy. I doubt I'll read the next installment.
Gillade den inte särskilt mycket av någon anledning. Tyckte språket var lite för poetiskt och utsmyckat. Kanske beror det bara på att jag varit lite okoncentrerad under läsningen vilket gjorde det svårt att komma in i det ordentligt.
I tend to love writing with a poetic lilt, but this book just didn't do it for me. It kind of felt like the flourishes in the writing were a bit too much, and I found it really hard to be engaged. I think it would read better in French, though.
adventurous
mysterious
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
I feel like this could have been a good fantasy if the world and characters were built better from the start, it feels like a lot of description in this book is irrelevant and confusing. There are a lot of characters and I don’t feel particularly attached to the main two girls making it quite hard to finish this book. The plot is quite slow and then the end is very quick to wrap everything up.
'No human being had ever managed to touch her soul the way the mountains had, and therefore the snow and the storms lived inside a heart that was still equally open to both happiness and the the sortileges of misfortune. And now, the further they went into the city, the more her heart bled. She was discovering not only a terrain that had surrendered to its interment under stone, but also what had been done to the stones themselves: they now rose to the sky in straight, dull walls, having ceased to breathe beneath the onslaught that had defaced them forever. Thus as night fell upon the joyful crowds drunkenly celebrating the return of the warm breezes, Clara saw only a mass of dead stone and a cemetery where living people went willingly to be buried.'
'You have little, you are people of the earth, you till the soil at dawn, along many furrows, and in hailstorms. You are the soldiers of a noble mission, for you feed others and make them prosper, and you will die beneath the shoots of the vine that will your children a good vintage - as we stand by the grave of the woman who would have me embrace dust and stone, as you would, too, I beg you one last time to take me with you, because this morning I have understood the true intoxication to be found in serving others. And so once we have mourned Eugenie and shared our sorrow, we will look around us at this land that is ours, and which gives us trees and sky, orchards and flowers, and paradise here on earth as surely as this time belongs to us and it is possible to find in it the only consolation to which my heart can aspire to from now on.'
'I have always held my head high in a storm because I loved you and you loved me back, and our love mightn't have been all silk and poetry but we could look at each other and know we'd drown all our woes. Love doesn't save, it raises you up and makes you bigger, it lights you up from inside and carves out that light like wood in the forest. It nestles in the hollows of the empty days, of thankless tasks, of useless hours, it doesn't drift along on golden rafts or sparkling rivers, it doesn't sing or shine and it never proclaims a thing. But ... each of us becomes the well where the other can draw water, and we love each other and learn to love ourselves.'
'You have little, you are people of the earth, you till the soil at dawn, along many furrows, and in hailstorms. You are the soldiers of a noble mission, for you feed others and make them prosper, and you will die beneath the shoots of the vine that will your children a good vintage - as we stand by the grave of the woman who would have me embrace dust and stone, as you would, too, I beg you one last time to take me with you, because this morning I have understood the true intoxication to be found in serving others. And so once we have mourned Eugenie and shared our sorrow, we will look around us at this land that is ours, and which gives us trees and sky, orchards and flowers, and paradise here on earth as surely as this time belongs to us and it is possible to find in it the only consolation to which my heart can aspire to from now on.'
'I have always held my head high in a storm because I loved you and you loved me back, and our love mightn't have been all silk and poetry but we could look at each other and know we'd drown all our woes. Love doesn't save, it raises you up and makes you bigger, it lights you up from inside and carves out that light like wood in the forest. It nestles in the hollows of the empty days, of thankless tasks, of useless hours, it doesn't drift along on golden rafts or sparkling rivers, it doesn't sing or shine and it never proclaims a thing. But ... each of us becomes the well where the other can draw water, and we love each other and learn to love ourselves.'
adventurous
challenging
emotional
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I think this story has the potential to become a compelling fantasy story. However, for almost the entire book I've found it difficult to understand where the plot was going, because I often got lost in descriptions that, in an attempt to be evocative, became needlessly complex. This is the reason why I found that the plot was somewhat confusing until the final part of the book, where some aspects are clarified and where in fact the reading becomes more fluent and pleasant.