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3.68 AVERAGE
3.68 AVERAGE
Muy bonito el libro, tanto la versión original como la traducida. El autor crea imágenes muy bellas y nos da una visión de una infancia que está marcada por las luchas de poder entre las tres lenguas con las que tiene que convivir.
This book was so touching, it gave me an interesting, sad and happy insight into the authors life.. It felt real & untouched like it was all happening today. I liked that it was very serious & had a lot of worldly issues but written in such a way that it felt easy to hear them all. I loved it
Well-written and moving account of childhood and national identity
emotional
sad
medium-paced
The last three chapters were really compelling and wonderful. I struggled through the rest.
Fantastic book written in such an interesting style. Maybe it's a common thing but I've never read a book written from a child's perspective before, not an adult book anyway, and so convincingly at that. It was interesting to read about Ireland after the separation from Britain and about Germany after WWII. A really good read.
If Goodreads had a half star rating, I'd put this closer to 3.5 than a four. This is, at times, a beautiful recreation of Hugo's experiences as a boy living with his German mother and an Irish, nationalistic, father set amongst the backdrop of 1950's/60's Ireland. Though both parents clearly have different parenting styles, they are both united by nostalgia and a longing for a return to the good old days. The father yearns for an Ireland he imagines so much that he forces his children to only speak in Irish. The mother speaks about her own desire for Germany to return to where it was before the Nazi's occupation. It is this thematic strand that is captured pretty well.
Unfortunately, the scattered nature of the writing style is a bit of a downer. In every chapter I found, there was a tendency to go from subject to subject. For example, there are two chapters one after the other that discuss his father's friend, school experiences and relatives. I would have preferred a less is more approach here.
Unfortunately, the scattered nature of the writing style is a bit of a downer. In every chapter I found, there was a tendency to go from subject to subject. For example, there are two chapters one after the other that discuss his father's friend, school experiences and relatives. I would have preferred a less is more approach here.
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
‘When you’re small you can inherit a secret without knowing what it is.’
In ‘The Speckled People’, Hugo Hamilton writes, from a child’s perspective, of his Irish childhood. He writes of growing up in a home where the languages spoken were the Irish of his nationalist father and the German of his mother. English was forbidden by his father, who was so obsessed with trying to hold onto his linguistic and cultural heritage that he would not do business with anyone who could not pronounce his Irish name (Ó hUrmoltaigh) correctly.
‘Everybody else was in the wrong country and couldn’t rescue us.’
Hamilton and his siblings grew up in Dublin during the 1950s and 1960s. His mother, Irmgard Kaiser, left Germany after World War II to go on a pilgrimage to Ireland. She stayed in Ireland, and married Jack Hamilton (who had renamed himself Sean Ó hUrmoltaigh). Jack Hamilton dedicated his life to the anti-British, nationalist cause and particularly to the rehabilitation of the Irish language. His father, who had served and died in the British Navy, was largely (but not entirely) removed from the family record.
The children who mostly dominate the story are Franz, Johannes and Maria, although other siblings are mentioned. It is Johannes who tells this story, and while he signals a future name change, the actual change is not discussed.
‘When I grow up I'll run away from my story, too. I have things I want to forget, so I'll change my name and never come back. ‘
Writing an account from a child’s perspective must be challenging for any adult: reading an account written from a child’s perspective has advantages and disadvantages. A child can recount what is seen, observed and experienced without necessarily understanding and interpreting the context. A child’s account is immediate, whereas distance and age often provide interpretational filters. So, while I enjoyed reading Hugo’s account of his childhood, I wanted at times to read his adult interpretation of events. But, it’s a memoir rather than a biography and the child Hugo’s perspective of the issues of identity and belonging, and the baggage of culture and language are worth reading and thinking about.
‘The Speckled People’ is a careful return to a complex childhood full of challenges and secrets, overshadowed by present and past personal, national and international conflict. And of all the images in this book, the ones that come first to mind involve the dog that barks at the waves. For me it’s a powerful image.
‘Maybe your country is only a place that you make up in your own mind.’
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
In ‘The Speckled People’, Hugo Hamilton writes, from a child’s perspective, of his Irish childhood. He writes of growing up in a home where the languages spoken were the Irish of his nationalist father and the German of his mother. English was forbidden by his father, who was so obsessed with trying to hold onto his linguistic and cultural heritage that he would not do business with anyone who could not pronounce his Irish name (Ó hUrmoltaigh) correctly.
‘Everybody else was in the wrong country and couldn’t rescue us.’
Hamilton and his siblings grew up in Dublin during the 1950s and 1960s. His mother, Irmgard Kaiser, left Germany after World War II to go on a pilgrimage to Ireland. She stayed in Ireland, and married Jack Hamilton (who had renamed himself Sean Ó hUrmoltaigh). Jack Hamilton dedicated his life to the anti-British, nationalist cause and particularly to the rehabilitation of the Irish language. His father, who had served and died in the British Navy, was largely (but not entirely) removed from the family record.
The children who mostly dominate the story are Franz, Johannes and Maria, although other siblings are mentioned. It is Johannes who tells this story, and while he signals a future name change, the actual change is not discussed.
‘When I grow up I'll run away from my story, too. I have things I want to forget, so I'll change my name and never come back. ‘
Writing an account from a child’s perspective must be challenging for any adult: reading an account written from a child’s perspective has advantages and disadvantages. A child can recount what is seen, observed and experienced without necessarily understanding and interpreting the context. A child’s account is immediate, whereas distance and age often provide interpretational filters. So, while I enjoyed reading Hugo’s account of his childhood, I wanted at times to read his adult interpretation of events. But, it’s a memoir rather than a biography and the child Hugo’s perspective of the issues of identity and belonging, and the baggage of culture and language are worth reading and thinking about.
‘The Speckled People’ is a careful return to a complex childhood full of challenges and secrets, overshadowed by present and past personal, national and international conflict. And of all the images in this book, the ones that come first to mind involve the dog that barks at the waves. For me it’s a powerful image.
‘Maybe your country is only a place that you make up in your own mind.’
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
For a good portion of this memoir I was prepared to give it 2 or 3 stars. I believe I felt this way because for the most part, the book is written in a childish tone from a child's point of view and while at times I will admit I appreciated that, I believe it also elicited impatience. While I valued the unique story being told, I still struggled to see the bigger picture of where the overall piece was working toward. For me, it wasn't until the end that I decided to reward this book with a 4. This is for many reasons but mainly because I think the overall message and goal of this memoir comes off so strong that it can't and should not be ignored. Everything does come full circle. I also feel like I really learned a lot from Hamilton's personal struggles as well as more about the struggles of various people with the historical context of the World Wars still being largely relevant. In the beginning, I was fairly certain I would not be recommending this book to many however, now, I am happy to say that that opinion has changed.
"We are the German-Irish story. We are the English-Irish story, too. My father has one soft foot and one hard foot, one good ear and one bad ear, and we have one Irish foot and one German foot and a right arm in English. We are the brack children. Brack, homemade Irish bread with German raisins. We are the brack people and we don't have just one language and one history. We sleep in German and we dream in Irish. We laugh in Irish and we cry in German. We are silent in German and we speak in English. We are the speckled people." Hugo Hamilton
"We are the German-Irish story. We are the English-Irish story, too. My father has one soft foot and one hard foot, one good ear and one bad ear, and we have one Irish foot and one German foot and a right arm in English. We are the brack children. Brack, homemade Irish bread with German raisins. We are the brack people and we don't have just one language and one history. We sleep in German and we dream in Irish. We laugh in Irish and we cry in German. We are silent in German and we speak in English. We are the speckled people." Hugo Hamilton