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andrew61 's review for:
The Mussel Feast
by Birgit Vanderbeke
This small novella is a remarkable read on two levels, a domestic story about the tyrany of a brutal patriarch, but also as a metaphor for the German experience.
The story is about a mother and her two children, narrated by the older daughter, they wait expectantly for the return of their father and the announcement of his promotion. The mother is cooking a meal of mussels and fried potatoes, the mussels are both a feast but also in their preparation a horror.
As the family sit around the table their father fails to arrive and in their chatter we slowly find out what hides behind the closed doors and apparent respectability.
I devoured this book and put it down as if having feasted on the wonderfully told story but similarly disgusted by looking under the stone of hidden domestic abuse and for a book written pre fall of the wall the image of a paternalistic and oppressive state.
The story is about a mother and her two children, narrated by the older daughter, they wait expectantly for the return of their father and the announcement of his promotion. The mother is cooking a meal of mussels and fried potatoes, the mussels are both a feast but also in their preparation a horror.
As the family sit around the table their father fails to arrive and in their chatter we slowly find out what hides behind the closed doors and apparent respectability.
I devoured this book and put it down as if having feasted on the wonderfully told story but similarly disgusted by looking under the stone of hidden domestic abuse and for a book written pre fall of the wall the image of a paternalistic and oppressive state.