Scan barcode
A review by 2shainz
Ashes in My Mouth, Sand in My Shoes: Stories by Per Petterson
4.0
Original review here: http://www.shainareads.com/2015/05/what-im-reading-lately-readathon-reviews.html
Ashes in My Mouth, Sand in My Shoes is a teeny-tiny collection of short stories about a Norwegian boy named Arvid Jansen coming of age in the 1960s. The prose is spare and serious, much like Arvid himself, and it meanders through his memories of his grandfather's death, the night terrors and bedwetting that haunt him into his pre-adolescence, and the quiet, desperate horror of the Cold War. Arvid leaves school early one day after his teacher warns of impending nuclear war:
If we're being honest, I'm flipping through its 120 pages right now looking for sentences that jog my memory about the larger stories within. I blame this not on Per Petterson's ability as a writer and more on my failure to take notes. This was my first read on Readathon day, and there have been five or six books on my mind since then. Regardless, I remember enjoying the collection at large, and it is absolutely worth reading for passages like these:
Ashes in My Mouth, Sand in My Shoes is a teeny-tiny collection of short stories about a Norwegian boy named Arvid Jansen coming of age in the 1960s. The prose is spare and serious, much like Arvid himself, and it meanders through his memories of his grandfather's death, the night terrors and bedwetting that haunt him into his pre-adolescence, and the quiet, desperate horror of the Cold War. Arvid leaves school early one day after his teacher warns of impending nuclear war:
"He wasn't frightened, his body was just so suddenly tired that he had to concentrate on every step he took, and the tiredness grew and grew until it lay like lumps beneath his skin, he could almost feel them with his fingers, and his boots were heavy, as if filled with blue clay. He didn't cry because he and his dad agreed he would not do that so often now, but his face felt as dry as old cardboard and just blinking was an effort of will.
When he got home so early, his mother gave him a puzzled look but said nothing, and he thought that was fine, for when you'e about to die there's nothing really to discuss." — pg. 97, Ashes in My Mouth, Sand in My Shoes
If we're being honest, I'm flipping through its 120 pages right now looking for sentences that jog my memory about the larger stories within. I blame this not on Per Petterson's ability as a writer and more on my failure to take notes. This was my first read on Readathon day, and there have been five or six books on my mind since then. Regardless, I remember enjoying the collection at large, and it is absolutely worth reading for passages like these:
"[His mother] looked the way she always had for as far back as he could remember, and she still did right up until the day he happened to see a photograph of her from before he was born, and the difference floored him. He tried to work out what could have happened to her, and then he realised it was time that had happened and it was happening to him too, every second of the day. He held his hands to his face as if to keep his skin in place and for many nights he lay clutching his body, feeling time sweeping through it like little explosions. The palms of his hands were quivering and he tried to resist time and hold it back. But nothing helped, and with every pop he felt himself getting older." - pg. 43-44, ibid.