Excellent. Some stories are funny, but even those are touched with poignancy. Some are heartbreaking. All are enlightening, fascinating, well worth reading. I do highly recommend this book and just wish I'd been able to do so when it was first released.
Of course it's not too late. Go get it now!
I appreciate that many of the stories are interlinked, referencing towns,
events, and even characters from others. But even with those additional clues
I'm not sure I understood the author's intent in all the stories.
For example, I wonder about the Roma mother, and whether she'll actually ever
get around to helping her daughter to find a way to a better life. The ending
seems intentionally ambiguous....
The story about brothers definitely made an impact on me. The ending, gosh. But
before that, I loved this bit: "I lived in his shadow for years, never
meeting his expectations. Anton always looked down at me, I thought. This
bothered me greatly, more now than before." What an intelligent, and
valuable, insight, that children can overlook slights & other hardships,
but adults can remember them with pain. Think about that.
A character says: "Today, antisemitism is virtually absent in the country,
and most Bulgarians have a very favorable opinion of Israel." I wonder if
that's still true, as the far-right takes over many European offices, and as
the war expands past Gaza on its first anniversary.
I hope to share this marvelous book with some of the members of my book
club.
Review posted on Goodreads
No comments:
Post a Comment