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Reviews tagging 'Pregnancy'
Eden Undone: A True Story of Sex, Murder, and Utopia at the Dawn of World War II by Abbott Kahler
5 reviews
The author’s reliance on primary sources creates a vividness in the telling; you can see what the people are doing, how they are thinking, and, more importantly, how they are obfuscating, all in their own words. The reason these disappearances remain unsolved is the apparent inability of anyone to tell a straight story.
Most of the internecine hatred appears warranted. Some is resentment born of feelings of territoriality. Some is due to outright provocation. Overall it’s a sad tale of antisocial people who really would have been happier if they’d been able to stay alone.
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Bullying, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Domestic abuse, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Murder, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Classism
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Chronic illness, Death, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Domestic abuse, Gun violence, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexism, Pregnancy
Minor: Antisemitism, War
Graphic: Animal death, Death, Violence, Medical trauma, Murder, Pregnancy
"As I turned and went back to our guests," she wrote, "I knew that dire events were on the way, violence and death—and for the first time vague and ominous presentiments which I had felt before crystallized into a feeling of murder."
After World War I, a German couple searches for Utopia and enlightenment, for a return to the primitive way of living thinking that modern conveniences have made the world a worst place. Him: a war veteran and doctor, her: his former patient, together they packed up their bags and took off to a remote place where they could be alone with nature. This place? Floreana, an island in the Galápagos archipelago. This eccentric way of living, of thinking draws attention to their little heaven on earth and soon they will be joined by another couple and their children, and a disruptive violent baroness with her two lovers. Mistrust, jealousy, hatred, and violence soon ensue and the story of utopia ends with death.
A book that proves the reality is weirder and wilder than fiction. Engrossing and well narrated, Kahler put a lot of work into the research and it shows. There was a lot of material available that allowed the reader to get to know the psyche and inner thoughts of these persons, elevating them from mere words on the page to the actual flesh and blood human beings they were. The short, sharp, exciting chapters made this a quick read, a page turner for sure. I wouldn't want to spoil this at all, that's how strange it gets, so I'll only make some observations.
I think it's so interesting how life in Floreana ended up becoming a microcosm of Europe in this era and the events that led to WWI and WWII. You have these entitled foreigners taking over a piece of land because they think they know better than the locals, deriving some sort of benefit from this endeavor (in this case fame really if you think about it), which in turn drives others to come do the same. Once you have multiple factions, there starts a fight for resources: water, land, food, presents and attention from the Americans. And this all leads to an explosion of violence.
Entitlement is the word I would use to describe everyone we met in this tale. The two German couples who just moved and decided to live there, the baroness and her men expecting everything to work out their way, the Americans and their "scientific exploration" trips which were more like plundering and kidnapping of fauna. As a South American this is what was more insidious about everyone's actions, the sheer disregard for anything that didn't fit their ideas of the world.
As cliché as it sounds, this books proves that hell is other people and wherever you go there you are.
Graphic: Death, Sexism
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Pregnancy
Moderate: Ableism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Bullying, Chronic illness, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual content, Slavery, Toxic relationship, Violence, Stalking, Murder, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Colonisation, Classism