Two weeks ago in Vietnam, where Jaap was working, I finally got to read this book: ' Night Train to Lisbon' by Pascal Mercier. It has been on my bookshelf for a while. I bought it shortly after reading Carlos Ruiz Zafon's 'The Shadow of the Wind', because someone said: If you enjoyed the Shadow of the Wind, you will enjoy this book as well.
And I did. A lot.
It is so nice to get sucked into a story that takes your mind off of everything else and you just want to keep on reading. It takes you into another world.
I'm not going to write a review of the book. One, because I'm not good at bookreviews. Hated it in hightschool already. Love the reading, don't like to write about it. Two, because other people already did, for example, here.
But it doesn't happen a lot that a story sticks to your mind for a while, because its so different, different from the things I usually read. It triggers thinking beyond what's written, it creates an atmosphere that sticks - you can't help but like Mundus, the main character, and sympathise with the feelings he encounters when he, a very 'plain' man, finds himself, almost beyond and in spite of himself, doing things he never expected.
I enjoyed it. And can recommend it. Not for a 'ten minutes a day'-read, but for a relaxing weekend or holiday. Take your time. Make tea, get the biscuits, sit down. And enjoy.
P.S. My enjoying the book, in this case, had nothing to do with the swimmingpool-where-they-spontaniously-serve-icecreams-environment. Though I did enjoy that as well. Thoroughly.
I bought a copy, you and the readers at Amazon convinced me. I've become SO sensitive to terror/torture descriptions (because of real life, not just stories!) that novels about world conflict are often unreadable for me. (Anybody else squeamish like this?) This book sounds a little political, "cold war" (?) but I'll try it!
BeantwoordenVerwijderenI am just finishing "Under My Skin" by Doris Lessing. She writes fiction, but this is her autobiography. A childhood in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in the 1930s, 1940s--
not exactly how I grew up, so I read with interest!
Rosemary, I think it depends on where you focus on in a book. Maybe it's me, but the whirlwind of the main characters mind and feelings to me was much stronger than the political ' thing'. Which is there - oh yes, it's in the book. But since my focus and attraction lay somewhere else it didn't 'get' to me. Perhaps it's the way you read the book, the way you want to read the story. That's the beauty of books, it does give you that freedom. I'm sure if ten people read it, ten people will have a different feeling about it and have read different things in the same book. I have to admit that sometimes I skipped part of the ' booktranslations'.
BeantwoordenVerwijderenEnjoy. And no need to be squeamish. Focus on Mundus!