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giovydsb's review against another edition
2.0
È un romanzo dotto, Le api, un romanzo di quelli che insegnano un sacco di cose ai lettori. È istruttivo sia per quanto riguarda la vita quotidiana nell'Estonia seicentesca, sia per quanto riguarda le teorie medico-filosofiche in voga all'epoca. L'autore mira a far ragionare il lettore come un estone del Seicento, riuscendoci piuttosto bene, ma a costo di mettere in bocca ai personaggi spiegazioni di questa o quella teoria in modo un po' artificioso.
Sembra che a Friedenthal interessi soprattutto parlare dei temi che gli sono cari, temi meravigliosi come la melancolia, l'anima o la superstizione, e a questo pieghi storia e personaggi. Per quanto sia lodevole, in questi tempi in cui si rifugge la complessità, lo sforzo di scrivere un romanzo fitto di storia e filosofia, ricco di simboli e, come già detto, estremamente istruttivo, non si può negare che l'impianto narrativo ne risenta troppo: la trama è costruita su scene che mirano a illustrare usanze e credenze dell'epoca. Vorrei essere chiara: non sono tra quelli che non accettano qualche “spiegone”, o tra quelli che aborrono l'uso della narrativa per parlare anche d'altro, ma in questo caso mi è parso che i personaggi stessero in piedi solo come un pretesto per l'espressione di idee e che la storia fosse inconsistente, se privata del sostrato didascalico. Mi dispiace esprimermi in questi termini, perché trovo che l'ambientazione sia interessante, e un autore dotto come Friedenthal avrebbe potuto usare meglio, in senso narrativo, le sue conoscenze in campo storico e filosofico.
Tra le cose positive, la capacità dell'autore di rendere palpabili umidità, putridume, freddo e marciume, in descrizioni che fanno sentire il lettore al fianco dei personaggi in un ambiente malato e ostile. Tolte queste descrizioni efficaci, però, nemmeno lo stile mi ha convinto più di tanto, come se Friedenthal oscillasse tra l'aspirazione a scrivere un romanzo complesso e la volontà di fare il divulgatore e di semplificare lo stile per trasmettere più efficacemente determinate informazioni. Ne esce una scrittura senza gran carattere, un po' scolastica e impersonale (potrebbe anche essere colpa della traduzione, però, perché durante la lettura ho percepito qualche “slittamento”).
Non vorrei essere così inclemente con questo libro, che in fondo è molto (ma molto!) meglio di tante cose che vengono propinate ai lettori; tuttavia c'è un malinteso di fondo, secondo me, che riguarda la buona letteratura: per quanto Le api sia stato scritto da una persona che sa quello che dice, colta e capace di scrivere in modo corretto, non è stato scritto da un grande narratore. Se non si crede profondamente nelle parole e nella loro capacità di dare vita ai personaggi e alle storie, e si parte da un'idea, trattando le parole come semplice mezzo per comunicarla, la magia non riesce.
Sembra che a Friedenthal interessi soprattutto parlare dei temi che gli sono cari, temi meravigliosi come la melancolia, l'anima o la superstizione, e a questo pieghi storia e personaggi. Per quanto sia lodevole, in questi tempi in cui si rifugge la complessità, lo sforzo di scrivere un romanzo fitto di storia e filosofia, ricco di simboli e, come già detto, estremamente istruttivo, non si può negare che l'impianto narrativo ne risenta troppo: la trama è costruita su scene che mirano a illustrare usanze e credenze dell'epoca. Vorrei essere chiara: non sono tra quelli che non accettano qualche “spiegone”, o tra quelli che aborrono l'uso della narrativa per parlare anche d'altro, ma in questo caso mi è parso che i personaggi stessero in piedi solo come un pretesto per l'espressione di idee e che la storia fosse inconsistente, se privata del sostrato didascalico. Mi dispiace esprimermi in questi termini, perché trovo che l'ambientazione sia interessante, e un autore dotto come Friedenthal avrebbe potuto usare meglio, in senso narrativo, le sue conoscenze in campo storico e filosofico.
Tra le cose positive, la capacità dell'autore di rendere palpabili umidità, putridume, freddo e marciume, in descrizioni che fanno sentire il lettore al fianco dei personaggi in un ambiente malato e ostile. Tolte queste descrizioni efficaci, però, nemmeno lo stile mi ha convinto più di tanto, come se Friedenthal oscillasse tra l'aspirazione a scrivere un romanzo complesso e la volontà di fare il divulgatore e di semplificare lo stile per trasmettere più efficacemente determinate informazioni. Ne esce una scrittura senza gran carattere, un po' scolastica e impersonale (potrebbe anche essere colpa della traduzione, però, perché durante la lettura ho percepito qualche “slittamento”).
Non vorrei essere così inclemente con questo libro, che in fondo è molto (ma molto!) meglio di tante cose che vengono propinate ai lettori; tuttavia c'è un malinteso di fondo, secondo me, che riguarda la buona letteratura: per quanto Le api sia stato scritto da una persona che sa quello che dice, colta e capace di scrivere in modo corretto, non è stato scritto da un grande narratore. Se non si crede profondamente nelle parole e nella loro capacità di dare vita ai personaggi e alle storie, e si parte da un'idea, trattando le parole come semplice mezzo per comunicarla, la magia non riesce.
octavia_cade's review
dark
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
3.0
One of the quotes on the back of this book refers to it as "magical historicism" and I think that's accurate. There are elements of the supernatural here that come out in a very magical realist way, but while I enjoyed them, I'm not sure that they were effectively melded together with the rest of the text. I appreciate that the author is trying to balance science and the supernatural, and that this mix was an inescapable facet of the time - late seventeenth century Europe - but the effect was still disjointed, so much so that the end was pretty ambiguous, and not in a particularly compelling way. I'm strongly inclined to think that the protagonist, Laurentius, was suffering from more than melancholia, and that many of his odd experiences resulted from a creeping onset of insanity.
Certainly The Willow King might be read as a record of his hallucinations, and that could be a valid reading, considering the nightmarish state of the region at the time. Laurentius is a Dutch student, arriving at a distant university in Estonia in order to get away from suspicions of heresy, but he's walking into a powderkeg. There's a severe famine on, and starving people are descending on the university town of Dorpat (currently known as Tartu), and all this seeping misery and conflict is leading to accusations of witchcraft, which are not mitigated at all by local superstitions regarding a willow king. It's all enormously unsettling, and Laurentius - clearly not the most stable person at the best of times - is undermined in all his senses, particularly smell and taste. It's the shifting, nauseating atmosphere that's most successful here, but a little of the repetition and the slow pacing could have been sacrificed for a bit more clarity, I think.
Certainly The Willow King might be read as a record of his hallucinations, and that could be a valid reading, considering the nightmarish state of the region at the time. Laurentius is a Dutch student, arriving at a distant university in Estonia in order to get away from suspicions of heresy, but he's walking into a powderkeg. There's a severe famine on, and starving people are descending on the university town of Dorpat (currently known as Tartu), and all this seeping misery and conflict is leading to accusations of witchcraft, which are not mitigated at all by local superstitions regarding a willow king. It's all enormously unsettling, and Laurentius - clearly not the most stable person at the best of times - is undermined in all his senses, particularly smell and taste. It's the shifting, nauseating atmosphere that's most successful here, but a little of the repetition and the slow pacing could have been sacrificed for a bit more clarity, I think.
withywoods's review
dark
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
juliwi's review
4.0
I am consistently looking for more foreign fiction to read but, since I can only read in three (modern) languages, naturally I have to rely on translations. Thankfully, publishers such as Pushkin Press keep coming to my aid by publishing brilliant fiction in translation. I was first intrigued by The Willow King because of its title and cover, it gave me that fairy tale-tingle down the spine. Also, I miss my university days so I loved going back to that exciting time through Friedenthal's book. Thanks to Pushkin Press and Netgalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
At the heart of The Willow King is the body-soul relationship, something I studied myself at school. For a long time, scientists and philosophers were obsessed with "finding" the soul in the body. If we had a soul, as the Bible clearly tells us, it must be somewhere inside of us. Some of the greatest minds wrote about this, from Aristotle to Decartes, and Friedenthal engages with all of their arguments in The Willow King. His protagonist being a student gives him the perfect setup to discuss these without boring the reader and his quest to find an answer also becomes the reader's. The novel is set in the 17th century, a time we consider modern, yet Friedenthal shows us how this was a period of history in which science and superstition walked hand in hand. Witches and demons are still real, as is the evil eye, and scientists tread a fine line between the factual and the supernatural. Just think of the alchemists and their obsession with making gold. This time in history is fascinating and Friedenthal brings it to life in a very realistic way. For more on this please do check out Joanna Demers' review, she knows a lot more about it than I do.
Meelis Friedenthal's writing is incredibly descriptive, in an atmospheric way. The constant rain, the threat of hunger that lingers at the edges of Dorpat, Laurentius' melancholy, it all feels credible and real. Friedenthal really manages to put the reader into Laurentius' mind, switching to first person to show us his dreams and relaying to us all his thoughts and worries. As such, it's not necessarily a very uplifting novel, but it is stunning. It borrows from a lot of different genres, horror, suspense, fantasy, but never truly commits to any. This could have gone spectacularly wrong, but it works for The Willow King. As I said above, it took me a while to get into this book but it enormously picked up for me towards the end. Strangely, things started coming together for me when they did for Laurentius as well, a sign that Friedenthal knows exactly what he is doing. Despite the relative heaviness of its topic, The Willow King is a quick read. As Friedenthal constantly keeps his readers questioning whether the supernatural events are truly happening or not, he spurs them on and makes them as desperate to find an answer as Laurentius. Matthew Hyde does an excellent job at translating Friedenthal's prose and capturing the atmosphere he tries to create.
Although The Willow King left me at times confused, by the end Friedenthal truly had me in her grasp. The novel will leave you with a great many questions to ask of our world, which is not a bad thing. I'd recommend this to those interested in philosophy and history.
For full review: http://universeinwords.blogspot.com/2017/08/review-willow-king-by-meelis.html
At the heart of The Willow King is the body-soul relationship, something I studied myself at school. For a long time, scientists and philosophers were obsessed with "finding" the soul in the body. If we had a soul, as the Bible clearly tells us, it must be somewhere inside of us. Some of the greatest minds wrote about this, from Aristotle to Decartes, and Friedenthal engages with all of their arguments in The Willow King. His protagonist being a student gives him the perfect setup to discuss these without boring the reader and his quest to find an answer also becomes the reader's. The novel is set in the 17th century, a time we consider modern, yet Friedenthal shows us how this was a period of history in which science and superstition walked hand in hand. Witches and demons are still real, as is the evil eye, and scientists tread a fine line between the factual and the supernatural. Just think of the alchemists and their obsession with making gold. This time in history is fascinating and Friedenthal brings it to life in a very realistic way. For more on this please do check out Joanna Demers' review, she knows a lot more about it than I do.
Meelis Friedenthal's writing is incredibly descriptive, in an atmospheric way. The constant rain, the threat of hunger that lingers at the edges of Dorpat, Laurentius' melancholy, it all feels credible and real. Friedenthal really manages to put the reader into Laurentius' mind, switching to first person to show us his dreams and relaying to us all his thoughts and worries. As such, it's not necessarily a very uplifting novel, but it is stunning. It borrows from a lot of different genres, horror, suspense, fantasy, but never truly commits to any. This could have gone spectacularly wrong, but it works for The Willow King. As I said above, it took me a while to get into this book but it enormously picked up for me towards the end. Strangely, things started coming together for me when they did for Laurentius as well, a sign that Friedenthal knows exactly what he is doing. Despite the relative heaviness of its topic, The Willow King is a quick read. As Friedenthal constantly keeps his readers questioning whether the supernatural events are truly happening or not, he spurs them on and makes them as desperate to find an answer as Laurentius. Matthew Hyde does an excellent job at translating Friedenthal's prose and capturing the atmosphere he tries to create.
Although The Willow King left me at times confused, by the end Friedenthal truly had me in her grasp. The novel will leave you with a great many questions to ask of our world, which is not a bad thing. I'd recommend this to those interested in philosophy and history.
For full review: http://universeinwords.blogspot.com/2017/08/review-willow-king-by-meelis.html
richard_howlett's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
artine's review
challenging
emotional
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
laura_trap's review
3.0
This was a solid book. It was an interesting story, in that it kept me moderately engaged and I was curious as to how the story was going to play out. But the entire story was anticlimactic which was disappointing. We have our main character, Laurentius, who has 'melancholia' or some sort of mental illness. He's manic and depressed and is convinced that he has the power of the evil eye, which is if he looks at someone in the eyes, they'll die or become ill. And as we go through the story, there are allusions to something awful that happened earlier in his childhood and some scandal when he studied in Lieden. None of these are fully fleshed out in the story. The action is in spurts doesn't lead to anything one climatic moment in particular and the book just putters out and ends. There wasn't a solution, but then again there wasn't really a conflict to be solved anyway, other than Laurentius knowing he is sick and unable to make himself better. There is also Clodia, a woman he meets and gives him food, but it is also uncertain, even up to the conclusion, if she is real or a hallucination on his part. Overall, just a solid book. I did appreciate the the detail historical accuracy which did a great deal to set the tone for the book and a perfect setting for the uneasiness of both our narrator and his place of residence.
joecam79's review
4.0
The 16th and 17th Centuries were an important period for the development of science as we know it. Unfortunately, the history we’re generally fed is a black-and-white narrative made of heroes and villians, with brave, progressive scientists forging ahead despite the supernatural trammels of religion (and, more specifically, the censorship of the Roman Catholic Church and its nefarious Inquisition).
The truth is much more nuanced and interesting. For a start, within science itself there were several competing approaches. The “mechanical science” of Kepler and Newton would eventually hold sway, but one should not discount the influence of the “natural philosophers” – early chemists and biologists such as Robert Boyle. Natural philosphers tended to follow theologically suspect pantheistic views (hence their clashes with the Church) but most of them also dabbled in alchemy and magic even whilst trying to study these esoteric subjects “empirically”. Some natural philosophers investigated folk remedies and witches' spells, in the belief that they had a basis in “real” science. Thus we meet, for instance, Jan Baptista van Helmont, a 17th Century scholar from the “Spanish Netherlands” (modern-day Belgium), who published studies on a method for treating gunshot wounds, involving dipping the offending weapon itself in a salve made up of, amongst other dubious ingredients, blood and “moss taken from a skull”. But it would be wrong to draw too clear a line between the “natural” and “mechanical” philosophers and brand the latter as more empirical and secular in approach. Newton dabbled in alchemy too, and Kepler had his quasi-supernatural theories about the “music of the spheres”. On the other hand, Helmont, when not hunting for moss in graveyards, was carrying out groundbreaking experiments which have gained him the epithet of “father of pneumatic chemistry”. In other words, this was an era in which the greatest and most rational of scientific minds held opinions which were, by present-day standards at least, manifestly irrational. (Some books which delve into these matters : [b:Miracles at the Jesus Oak: Histories of the Supernatural in Reformation Europe|1240360|Miracles at the Jesus Oak Histories of the Supernatural in Reformation Europe|Craig Harline|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1182181393s/1240360.jpg|1229031], [b:Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition|230361|Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition|Frances A. Yates|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1172913322s/230361.jpg|223095], [b:God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science|6601976|God's Philosophers How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science|James Hannam|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1347395106s/6601976.jpg|6795846]).
In his novel “The Bees” (renamed as “The Willow King” in [a:Matthew Hyde|520463|Matthew Hyde|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] ’s excellent translation) Meelis Friedenthal takes us back to the late 17th Century and immerses us into the philosophical and scientific debates of the age. His protagonist Laurentius is a scholar who has just arrived to complete his medical studies at Dorpat (modern-day Tartu, Estonia), after having hastily abandoned his course at the University of Leiden under suspicion of heresy. Laurentius embodies the contradictions of his world. Well abreast of the cutting-edge works of Boyle and Descartes, he nonethless clings on to the outmoded views of Aristotle and the medical theories of Galen regarding the body’s “four humours”. Besides, Laurentius appears to be still in thrall to the superstitions of the common people. Over the course of a feverish week spent in a rain-sogged Estonia, where peasants are suffering a terrifying famine and word is spreading of a mysterious and devilish “willow king”, he finds himself taken over by the supernatural dread which marked his boyhood.
This is undoubtedly a quirky work or – if you are feeling ungenerous – a flawed one. Apart from a few chapters, the novel is largely rendered in a third-person narrative which generally follows the interior monologues of Laurentius, interspersed with occasional, pointless exclamations (“Ah!”, “Right!”, “Hopeless!”, “Very well!”) The characters often indulge in learned explanations and debates, providing us (quite unsubtly) with historical context and an overview of current philosophical trends. The plot is initially sketchy and eventually downright confusing.
Yet, despite my reservations, I lapped this novel up, haunted by its dark atmosphere and the author’s uncanny ability to recreate not just the sights and sounds of 17th century Estonia, but also the very thoughts of his characters. Indeed, my take on the novel is that it is a journey into the mindset of the period, and that the more fantastical parts of the plot are meant to represent the (for us) irrational beliefs of the time. Friedenthal moves deftly between genres – this is, nominally, a historical novel but, when Friedenthal pulls out all the stops, it ventures into Gothic and folk-horror territory and becomes deliciously creepy.
As my friend Alan suggested in an earlier review of the book, it makes sense to read the author’s afterword before delving into the book. It gives context to the novel without any spoilers and might make the work more intelligible to those who are new to the exciting historical period it portrays.
***
This review has now been uploaded also at https://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/2018/08/literary-folk-horror-willow-king-by.html
The truth is much more nuanced and interesting. For a start, within science itself there were several competing approaches. The “mechanical science” of Kepler and Newton would eventually hold sway, but one should not discount the influence of the “natural philosophers” – early chemists and biologists such as Robert Boyle. Natural philosphers tended to follow theologically suspect pantheistic views (hence their clashes with the Church) but most of them also dabbled in alchemy and magic even whilst trying to study these esoteric subjects “empirically”. Some natural philosophers investigated folk remedies and witches' spells, in the belief that they had a basis in “real” science. Thus we meet, for instance, Jan Baptista van Helmont, a 17th Century scholar from the “Spanish Netherlands” (modern-day Belgium), who published studies on a method for treating gunshot wounds, involving dipping the offending weapon itself in a salve made up of, amongst other dubious ingredients, blood and “moss taken from a skull”. But it would be wrong to draw too clear a line between the “natural” and “mechanical” philosophers and brand the latter as more empirical and secular in approach. Newton dabbled in alchemy too, and Kepler had his quasi-supernatural theories about the “music of the spheres”. On the other hand, Helmont, when not hunting for moss in graveyards, was carrying out groundbreaking experiments which have gained him the epithet of “father of pneumatic chemistry”. In other words, this was an era in which the greatest and most rational of scientific minds held opinions which were, by present-day standards at least, manifestly irrational. (Some books which delve into these matters : [b:Miracles at the Jesus Oak: Histories of the Supernatural in Reformation Europe|1240360|Miracles at the Jesus Oak Histories of the Supernatural in Reformation Europe|Craig Harline|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1182181393s/1240360.jpg|1229031], [b:Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition|230361|Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition|Frances A. Yates|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1172913322s/230361.jpg|223095], [b:God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science|6601976|God's Philosophers How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science|James Hannam|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1347395106s/6601976.jpg|6795846]).
In his novel “The Bees” (renamed as “The Willow King” in [a:Matthew Hyde|520463|Matthew Hyde|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] ’s excellent translation) Meelis Friedenthal takes us back to the late 17th Century and immerses us into the philosophical and scientific debates of the age. His protagonist Laurentius is a scholar who has just arrived to complete his medical studies at Dorpat (modern-day Tartu, Estonia), after having hastily abandoned his course at the University of Leiden under suspicion of heresy. Laurentius embodies the contradictions of his world. Well abreast of the cutting-edge works of Boyle and Descartes, he nonethless clings on to the outmoded views of Aristotle and the medical theories of Galen regarding the body’s “four humours”. Besides, Laurentius appears to be still in thrall to the superstitions of the common people. Over the course of a feverish week spent in a rain-sogged Estonia, where peasants are suffering a terrifying famine and word is spreading of a mysterious and devilish “willow king”, he finds himself taken over by the supernatural dread which marked his boyhood.
This is undoubtedly a quirky work or – if you are feeling ungenerous – a flawed one. Apart from a few chapters, the novel is largely rendered in a third-person narrative which generally follows the interior monologues of Laurentius, interspersed with occasional, pointless exclamations (“Ah!”, “Right!”, “Hopeless!”, “Very well!”) The characters often indulge in learned explanations and debates, providing us (quite unsubtly) with historical context and an overview of current philosophical trends. The plot is initially sketchy and eventually downright confusing.
Yet, despite my reservations, I lapped this novel up, haunted by its dark atmosphere and the author’s uncanny ability to recreate not just the sights and sounds of 17th century Estonia, but also the very thoughts of his characters. Indeed, my take on the novel is that it is a journey into the mindset of the period, and that the more fantastical parts of the plot are meant to represent the (for us) irrational beliefs of the time. Friedenthal moves deftly between genres – this is, nominally, a historical novel but, when Friedenthal pulls out all the stops, it ventures into Gothic and folk-horror territory and becomes deliciously creepy.
As my friend Alan suggested in an earlier review of the book, it makes sense to read the author’s afterword before delving into the book. It gives context to the novel without any spoilers and might make the work more intelligible to those who are new to the exciting historical period it portrays.
***
This review has now been uploaded also at https://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/2018/08/literary-folk-horror-willow-king-by.html