171 reviews for:

Malina

Ingeborg Bachmann

4.04 AVERAGE


3.78

I don't think I was in the headspace required to really sink into the morass. Or maybe I did sink, but the mud muffled my response. I, too, have a crack in the wall, about fifteen inches from where I now sit. It keeps reasserting itself beneath the layers of paint I hastily reapply. But the crack is not big enough for me to crawl into. Not yet, anyway.
lichtwelle's profile picture

lichtwelle's review

4.25
challenging dark reflective medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Loveable characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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slhall524's review

4.25
challenging dark medium-paced
challenging dark mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

ABSOLUTAMENTE NINGUNA IDEA DE QUÉ ACABO DE LEER. 

Así que algunos de mis pasajes favoritos porque en este momento no he procesado suficiente a Malina como para escribir una reseña que le haga justicia. Quizás me tome un par de releídas. 


“A good, easy basis, whatever falls on my ground thrives, I propagate myself with words and also propagate Ivan, I beget a new lineage, my union with Ivan brings that which is willed by God into the world. Firebirds 
Azurite 
Plunging flames 
Drops of jade”

“Ivan and I: the world converging. Malina and I, since we are one: the world diverging.”

“Are Ivan and I a dark story? No, he isn’t, I alone am a dark story.”

“I have returned to my own land which is also absent, my greathearted country, where I can make my bed.”

“This is the cemetery of the murdered daughters. He shouldn’t have said that to me, and I weep bitterly.”

“Me: How am I ever supposed to find peace. I want peace. Malina: It’s war. All you can have is this little intermission, nothing more.”

“And with a handful of sand that is my knowledge, I walk across the water, and my father cannot follow me.”

“It’s the middle of winter, more and more snow is falling on us, and my bookcases are collapsing underneath the snow, the snow is burying them slowly, while we all await deportation, and the photographs on the bookshelf are getting wet, pictures of all the people I have loved, and I wipe away the snow and shake the photographs, but the snow keeps falling, my fingers are already numb, I have to let the snow bury the photos.”

“Vivere ardendo e non sentire il male. Where’s that from? Malina: What happened to her? Me: She died in a foreign land. My father is holding my”

“But Vienna doesn’t have much time left, it’s slipping away. (…) Malina says, as I expected: Vienna is burning!”

“Sometimes a person gets lucky, but I’m sure most women are never lucky.”

“Am I a woman or something dimorphic? Am I not entirely female — what am I, anyway?”

“(…) and then I always think to myself: that could be you, that will be you. An unknown woman murdered by some unknown man.”

“Life is reading a page that you have read, or reading over your shoulder, reading with you and not forgetting, because you don’t forget anything. Life is also walking around in this void, which has space for everything.”

“I have lived in Ivan and I die in Malina.”
challenging dark funny mysterious tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
challenging dark tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Bewildering, once I got along for the ride, gratifying
laindarko2's profile picture

laindarko2's review

5.0
challenging dark reflective slow-paced

miruna_bezi16's review

4.0
challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

This book is hard.