Friday, May 6, 2011
The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder
It has been a long time since I have wrote a review about a book I have read. I will start this year with The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder. The novel starts with the 1714 fall of San Luis Rey Bridge in Lima, Peru by which a dozen of people lost their life. This event makes friar Juníper to research the lifes of the victims in order to find a clue giving away the godly reason behind their tragedy. Were they not good enough, religous and so on? But the research of the friar does not tell their true secrets, passions and love. The writer tries to narrate this hidden story. So we read about a nobel women writing in vain passionate letters to her daughter in Spain who does not love her back and she can never let go any controll over her. Her letters did not conquer the heart of her daughter but became a masterpiece of the Spanish literature. We read about the twins Manuel and Esteban whose brotherly love is broken by the love felt towards a woman. We read about the childish uncle Pío and Camilla who we can call his adopted daughter. Juníper could not find the true answer.
His diligence is considered heresy by the Church and ends his life burned on the stake.
What is behind chance, death? One thing is sure death washes all away even any memory relating to us.
One thing is sure we are all going to die. But one who loves does not require to be remembered.
Why did I choose to read this book? Because I gave away this book in my childhood.
One wikipedia about The Bridge of San Luis
"The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1927) tells the story of several unrelated people who happen to be on a bridge in Peru when it collapses, killing them. Philosophically, the book explores the problem of evil, or the question, of why unfortunate events occur to people who seem “innocent” or "undeserving". It won the Pulitzer Prize in 1928, and in 1998 it was selected by the editorial board of the American Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of the twentieth century. The book was quoted by British Prime Minister Tony Blair during the memorial service for victims of the September 11 attacks in 2001. Since then its popularity has grown enormously. The book is the progenitor of the modern disaster epic in literature and film-making, where a single disaster intertwines the victims, whose lives are then explored by means of flashbacks to events before the disaster."
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Skipping Christmas by John Grisham
This is the first novel I have read from John Grisham and it is one of his books which tackles a different genre and not his usual legal thriller. Having around 200 pages in medium format it is soft, entertaining and easy to read especially for a day when you have nothing to do. The title "Skipping Christmas" discloses that the novel has to be some kind of Christmas story. And indeed it is a funny one. Luther and Nora a middle-aged american couple decides that they do not want to celebrate this Christmas also because their daughter Blair have left for South America to teach the indigenous children of Peru. And of course Luther intends to avoid the usual Christmas time spendings: no party, no Christmas tree, no more any useless gifts, no more donations, no shopping, no more any needed house decorating. Luther as an accountant used to crunching numbers estimates that he will spare 6000 of dollars. First he plays with the thought of spending time on the sunny Carribean shores but in the end he chooses a Carribean cruise for the hollidays. His wife is not so entusiast about it but she gives in.
The neighborhood does not undertand and does not accept the out of ordinary decision. They mock Luther and Nora labeling the couple stingy failing to comprehend how can somebody give up Christmas. This book is also a good example on what happens when someone gives up the herd mentality. I stop here with the depicting and if you are interested check out the novel. Skipping Christmas at Amazon.
Because I have read the novel in Hungarian I included the cover of the Hungarian edition titled Elmaradt Karácsony. I still have to mention that in 2003 the book was made into a movie titled Christmas with the Kranks, you can watch online the whole movie at youtube. I have not seen the movie so I can't comment how good or bad it is.
The neighborhood does not undertand and does not accept the out of ordinary decision. They mock Luther and Nora labeling the couple stingy failing to comprehend how can somebody give up Christmas. This book is also a good example on what happens when someone gives up the herd mentality. I stop here with the depicting and if you are interested check out the novel. Skipping Christmas at Amazon.
Because I have read the novel in Hungarian I included the cover of the Hungarian edition titled Elmaradt Karácsony. I still have to mention that in 2003 the book was made into a movie titled Christmas with the Kranks, you can watch online the whole movie at youtube. I have not seen the movie so I can't comment how good or bad it is.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Shannon's way by A. J. Cronin
In this novel Cronin tells again the story of a doctor. It is a tale of love, research, religious views, personal tragedies and betrayel. The writer narrating in first person makes us acquainted with Robert Shannon a young Catholic doctor in the after-war England. He works as an university research physician but in the meantime he does his own study on an epidemy in the laboratory of his own workplace. Soon he has to leave his job because he is in conflict with the leading professor who can't stand him and wants Shannon to focus on the lab's priority. Due to this he has to endure hardships and struggles to find a job. He fells in love with Jean Law, but her parents are against this relationship because he is a Roman Catholic and do not share his view on religion. Shannon sais: "Religion is a private affair. We can't help what creed we're born into. It's quite possibile for two people to be tolerant of each other's belief." But her father denies it saying that "She can never commingle with the waters of Babylon". Cronin's novels shows us a world where personal, family or group interests are the most important. The death of the patient is overlooked. The nurse who caused the death by a stupid mistake keeps his job while Shannon is layed off by a commission just because he did experiments in an unused room thus misusing the taxpayers' money. But there are good people like the marginalized professor Challis who supports him even getting him a doctor job having at his disposal a good lab for his research. Some novels of A. J. Cronin do not have a happy ending, I only disclose for the reader that this book has an open ending with hope in the future. I enjoyed and liked this novel and give it five stars. Found out the ending reading this book!
Check Shannon's Way at Amazon.
Check Shannon's Way at Amazon.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Ambrose Bierce Short stories
Ambrose Bierce (1842 - 1914) is one of the important writers of the american literature. The main theme of his short stories is death with the exception of only two. His stories suprise you with unexpected endings and depict supernatural topics, human weaknesses, wickedness, cruelty, fear, insanity, crime, misfortunes, civil war. Even the fate of Ambrose Bierce baffles you: he disapeared in the revolutionary Mexico of Pancho Villa. I recommend you to read Man and the snake, An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge, One Summer Night, Oil of Dog , Baptism of Dobsho and the Failure of Hope and Wandel which text is included below the trailer videos of Civil War Stories movie. The Complete Short Stories of Ambrose Bierce at Amazon.
"Yes, Devil’s Dictionary is in the public domain
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/972"
From Mr. Jabez Hope, in Chicago, to Mr. Pike Wandel, of New Orleans, December 2, 1877.
I will not bore you, my dear fellow, with a narrative of my journey from New Orleans to this polar region. It is cold in Chicago, believe me, and the Southron who comes here, as I did, without a relay of noses and ears will have reason to regret his mistaken economy in arranging his outfit.
To business. Lake Michigan is frozen stiff. Fancy, O child of a torrid clime, a sheet of anybody's ice, three hundred miles long, forty broad, and six feet thick! It sounds like a lie, Pikey dear, but your partner in the firm of Hope & Wandel, Wholesale Boots and Shoes, New Orleans, is never known to fib. My plan is to collar that ice. Wind up the present business and send on the money at once. I'll put up a warehouse as big as the Capitol at Washington, store it full and ship to your orders as the Southern market may require. I can send it in planks for skating floors, in statuettes for the mantel, in shavings for juleps, or in solution for ice cream and general purposes. It is a big thing!
I inclose a thin slip as a sample. Did you ever see such charming ice?
From Mr. Pike Wandel, of New Orleans, to Mr. Jabez Hope, in Chicago, December 24, 1877.
Your letter was so abominably defaced by blotting and blurring that it was entirely illegible. It must have come all the way by water. By the aid of chemicals and photography, however, I have made it out. But you forgot to inclose the sample of ice.
I have sold off everything (at an alarming sacrifice, I am sorry to say) and inclose draft for net amount. Shall begin to spar for orders at once. I trust everything to you--but, I say, has anybody tried to grow ice in this vicinity? There is Lake Ponchartrain, you know.
From Mr. Jabez Hope, in Chicago, to Mr. Pike Wandel, of New Orleans, February 27, 1878.
Wannie dear, it would do you good to see our new warehouse for the ice. Though made of boards, and run up rather hastily, it is as pretty as a picture, and cost a deal of money, though I pay no ground rent. It is about as big as the Capitol at Washington. Do you think it ought to have a steeple? I have it nearly filled--fifty men cutting and storing, day and night--awful cold work! By the way, the ice, which when I wrote you last was ten feet thick, is now thinner. But don't you worry; there is plenty.
Our warehouse is eight or ten miles out of town, so I am not much bothered by visitors, which is a relief. Such a giggling, sniggering lot you never saw!
It seems almost too absurdly incredible, Wannie, but do you know I believe this ice of ours gains in coldness as the warm weather comes on! I do, indeed, and you may mention the fact in the advertisements.
From Mr. Pike Wandel, of New Orleans, to Mr. Jabez Hope, in Chicago, March 7, 1878.
All goes well. I get hundreds of orders. We shall do a roaring trade as "The New Orleans and Chicago Semperfrigid Ice Company." But you have not told me whether the ice is fresh or salt. If it is fresh it won't do for cooking, and if it is salt it will spoil the mint juleps.
Is it as cold in the middle as the outside cuts are?
From Mr. Jebez Hope, from Chicago, to Mr. Pike Wandel, of New Orleans, April 3, 1878.
Navigation on the Lakes is now open, and ships are thick as ducks. I'm afloat, en route for Buffalo, with the assets of the New Orleans and Chicago Semperfrigid Ice Company in my vest pocket. We are busted out, my poor Pikey--we are to fortune and to fame unknown. Arrange a meeting of the creditors and don't attend.
Last night a schooner from Milwaukee was smashed into match-wood on an enormous mass of floating ice--the first berg ever seen in these waters. It is described by the survivors as being about as big as the Capital at Washington. One-half of that iceberg belongs to you, Pikey.
The melancholy fact is, I built our warehouse on an unfavorable site, about a mile out from the shore (on the ice, you understand), and when the thaw came--O my God, Wannie, it was the saddest thing you ever saw in all your life! You will be so glad to know I was not in it at the time.
What a ridiculous question you ask me. My poor partner, you don't seem to know very much about the ice business.
PS – @ Erik: Tried adding this comment to your blog but for some reason it won’t let me :-( Have you come across Ambrose Bierce’s DEVIL’S DICTIONARY?
Mary Murphy http://www.stolenchild66.wordpress.com
"Yes, Devil’s Dictionary is in the public domain
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/972"
THE FAILURE OF HOPE AND WANDEL
by Ambrose Bierce
by Ambrose Bierce
From Mr. Jabez Hope, in Chicago, to Mr. Pike Wandel, of New Orleans, December 2, 1877.
I will not bore you, my dear fellow, with a narrative of my journey from New Orleans to this polar region. It is cold in Chicago, believe me, and the Southron who comes here, as I did, without a relay of noses and ears will have reason to regret his mistaken economy in arranging his outfit.
To business. Lake Michigan is frozen stiff. Fancy, O child of a torrid clime, a sheet of anybody's ice, three hundred miles long, forty broad, and six feet thick! It sounds like a lie, Pikey dear, but your partner in the firm of Hope & Wandel, Wholesale Boots and Shoes, New Orleans, is never known to fib. My plan is to collar that ice. Wind up the present business and send on the money at once. I'll put up a warehouse as big as the Capitol at Washington, store it full and ship to your orders as the Southern market may require. I can send it in planks for skating floors, in statuettes for the mantel, in shavings for juleps, or in solution for ice cream and general purposes. It is a big thing!
I inclose a thin slip as a sample. Did you ever see such charming ice?
From Mr. Pike Wandel, of New Orleans, to Mr. Jabez Hope, in Chicago, December 24, 1877.
Your letter was so abominably defaced by blotting and blurring that it was entirely illegible. It must have come all the way by water. By the aid of chemicals and photography, however, I have made it out. But you forgot to inclose the sample of ice.
I have sold off everything (at an alarming sacrifice, I am sorry to say) and inclose draft for net amount. Shall begin to spar for orders at once. I trust everything to you--but, I say, has anybody tried to grow ice in this vicinity? There is Lake Ponchartrain, you know.
From Mr. Jabez Hope, in Chicago, to Mr. Pike Wandel, of New Orleans, February 27, 1878.
Wannie dear, it would do you good to see our new warehouse for the ice. Though made of boards, and run up rather hastily, it is as pretty as a picture, and cost a deal of money, though I pay no ground rent. It is about as big as the Capitol at Washington. Do you think it ought to have a steeple? I have it nearly filled--fifty men cutting and storing, day and night--awful cold work! By the way, the ice, which when I wrote you last was ten feet thick, is now thinner. But don't you worry; there is plenty.
Our warehouse is eight or ten miles out of town, so I am not much bothered by visitors, which is a relief. Such a giggling, sniggering lot you never saw!
It seems almost too absurdly incredible, Wannie, but do you know I believe this ice of ours gains in coldness as the warm weather comes on! I do, indeed, and you may mention the fact in the advertisements.
From Mr. Pike Wandel, of New Orleans, to Mr. Jabez Hope, in Chicago, March 7, 1878.
All goes well. I get hundreds of orders. We shall do a roaring trade as "The New Orleans and Chicago Semperfrigid Ice Company." But you have not told me whether the ice is fresh or salt. If it is fresh it won't do for cooking, and if it is salt it will spoil the mint juleps.
Is it as cold in the middle as the outside cuts are?
From Mr. Jebez Hope, from Chicago, to Mr. Pike Wandel, of New Orleans, April 3, 1878.
Navigation on the Lakes is now open, and ships are thick as ducks. I'm afloat, en route for Buffalo, with the assets of the New Orleans and Chicago Semperfrigid Ice Company in my vest pocket. We are busted out, my poor Pikey--we are to fortune and to fame unknown. Arrange a meeting of the creditors and don't attend.
Last night a schooner from Milwaukee was smashed into match-wood on an enormous mass of floating ice--the first berg ever seen in these waters. It is described by the survivors as being about as big as the Capital at Washington. One-half of that iceberg belongs to you, Pikey.
The melancholy fact is, I built our warehouse on an unfavorable site, about a mile out from the shore (on the ice, you understand), and when the thaw came--O my God, Wannie, it was the saddest thing you ever saw in all your life! You will be so glad to know I was not in it at the time.
What a ridiculous question you ask me. My poor partner, you don't seem to know very much about the ice business.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Romain Gary Lady L.
The power of this short book lies in it's characters and in it's interesting details even in the historical ones which adds to the exciting story.
In this novel we encounter "Lady L." the old widow of an English aristocrat sharing with her admirer poet her well kept secret the wrecked love for Armand Denis a French anarchist. The high society of England - which treasures her as a national asset having her grandchildren in high positions like governmantal ministers, bishops, chairmen in the Bank of England, officers of her majesty the Queen - does not even think or suspect that she is not of blue blood. She is in fact Annette Boudin the daughter of a Parisian laundress and of an alcoholic printer who spends most of his time not working but drinking, preaching and printing the anarchist ideas of Bakunin or Kropotkin. While he preaches against suppression and explotation the family is sustained only by the mother's work. Annette hates her father and sees with good eyes everything her father is talking against: governmant, police, church, aristocracy. When her mother dies she has to take on the laundry work of his mother and even becomes a prostitute to ensure the daily ratio of drink and bread for his father who shows even intentions of abusing her sexually. Soon Mr. Boudin is found dead and Annete is just grateful for that. Working as a prostituate she is taken up by Alphonse Lecoeur the leader of the French mobsters who is involved with the anarchist. Thus she meets Armand Denis the gorgeous man who turned from a Catholic priest into a anarchist terrorist and mobster. Lecoeur decides to turn her into a bait and spy and pais for her classes which teach her how to act like a countess. Because of her beauty and aristocratic manners she can rapidly mingle in the midst of aristocratic circles not arousing suspicion at all helping to commit terror acts like the assasination of a Bulgarian prince and robberies. Annette who loves the angelical Armand has a serious rival. For the revolutionary Armand it is more important his passion for the masses for which he commits his crimes. He would never settle and would never want to lead a rich and calm life.
Because of these out of vengeance she causes the arrest of Armand and marries an extravant English aristocrat who knows her secret, even if she is pregnant with the child of Armand. But the hope of love never dies and she has the chance to encounter the fugitive Armand again. I invite the reader to discover the strange ending. Lady L. at Amazon.
In this novel we encounter "Lady L." the old widow of an English aristocrat sharing with her admirer poet her well kept secret the wrecked love for Armand Denis a French anarchist. The high society of England - which treasures her as a national asset having her grandchildren in high positions like governmantal ministers, bishops, chairmen in the Bank of England, officers of her majesty the Queen - does not even think or suspect that she is not of blue blood. She is in fact Annette Boudin the daughter of a Parisian laundress and of an alcoholic printer who spends most of his time not working but drinking, preaching and printing the anarchist ideas of Bakunin or Kropotkin. While he preaches against suppression and explotation the family is sustained only by the mother's work. Annette hates her father and sees with good eyes everything her father is talking against: governmant, police, church, aristocracy. When her mother dies she has to take on the laundry work of his mother and even becomes a prostitute to ensure the daily ratio of drink and bread for his father who shows even intentions of abusing her sexually. Soon Mr. Boudin is found dead and Annete is just grateful for that. Working as a prostituate she is taken up by Alphonse Lecoeur the leader of the French mobsters who is involved with the anarchist. Thus she meets Armand Denis the gorgeous man who turned from a Catholic priest into a anarchist terrorist and mobster. Lecoeur decides to turn her into a bait and spy and pais for her classes which teach her how to act like a countess. Because of her beauty and aristocratic manners she can rapidly mingle in the midst of aristocratic circles not arousing suspicion at all helping to commit terror acts like the assasination of a Bulgarian prince and robberies. Annette who loves the angelical Armand has a serious rival. For the revolutionary Armand it is more important his passion for the masses for which he commits his crimes. He would never settle and would never want to lead a rich and calm life.
Because of these out of vengeance she causes the arrest of Armand and marries an extravant English aristocrat who knows her secret, even if she is pregnant with the child of Armand. But the hope of love never dies and she has the chance to encounter the fugitive Armand again. I invite the reader to discover the strange ending. Lady L. at Amazon.
Friday, October 23, 2009
The judas tree by A. J. Cronin
The novel ties you down to finish reading it, but there is also the urge not reach the end because you sense that it will be a very bad ending. The main figure is never able to tell the truth as it is or to confront it but tries to mend the past wrongdoings by being charitable as money would solve everything. He remains deeply selfish never really thinking what his role was and that his present good intentions may leed to even worse.
He remains undecided to the end even if he made up his mind, just thinking he might suffer he changes his intentions.
The Judas tree is a story of a treason, the main character is David Moray, a doctor who lost his parents in his late childhood and since then he thinks that because of his sufferings he is entitled to better. At the beginning of novel we meet Moray as a successful, rich chemist owner of an enterprise living in his new lavish palace home in Switzerland. Acting as an omen, the treasure of his garden is a Judas tree. Soon his happy time in Switzerland is overshadowed by the rememberance of his past treason of his youth times. As a young doctor he fell in love with Mary the daughter of a baker. Mary was the fiance of Walter Stoddart, a local rich man's son. But the love between Moray and Mary grew stronger, Mary broke up with the insensitive Walter against the wish of his family and became the fiance of Moray.
Everything looked bright, Moray soon secured a position as a doctor at hospital but he got sick with his lungs and in order to recover due to the chance of a better weather had to embark as a naval doctor on a ship heading to India.
During his trip he was exchanging letters with Mary and with her brother, his good friend. But soon he grew fond of Doris Holbrook who is travelling with his rich parents involved in medicine business. The parents saw him as a potential husband for Doris proposing him a good position in the company. He saw this as a good opportunity for richness thinking the misfortunes of his childhood would be repaid.
Dear reader I stop here narrating, if the description caught your curiosity take up the novel. Judas Tree at Amazon.
He remains undecided to the end even if he made up his mind, just thinking he might suffer he changes his intentions.
The Judas tree is a story of a treason, the main character is David Moray, a doctor who lost his parents in his late childhood and since then he thinks that because of his sufferings he is entitled to better. At the beginning of novel we meet Moray as a successful, rich chemist owner of an enterprise living in his new lavish palace home in Switzerland. Acting as an omen, the treasure of his garden is a Judas tree. Soon his happy time in Switzerland is overshadowed by the rememberance of his past treason of his youth times. As a young doctor he fell in love with Mary the daughter of a baker. Mary was the fiance of Walter Stoddart, a local rich man's son. But the love between Moray and Mary grew stronger, Mary broke up with the insensitive Walter against the wish of his family and became the fiance of Moray.
Everything looked bright, Moray soon secured a position as a doctor at hospital but he got sick with his lungs and in order to recover due to the chance of a better weather had to embark as a naval doctor on a ship heading to India.
During his trip he was exchanging letters with Mary and with her brother, his good friend. But soon he grew fond of Doris Holbrook who is travelling with his rich parents involved in medicine business. The parents saw him as a potential husband for Doris proposing him a good position in the company. He saw this as a good opportunity for richness thinking the misfortunes of his childhood would be repaid.
Dear reader I stop here narrating, if the description caught your curiosity take up the novel. Judas Tree at Amazon.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Train to Trieste by Domnica Radulescu
Train to Trieste book was bought by my girlfriend in this August during our visit in Budapest.
She liked very much the book so I also read it. I found it rather mediocre but not bad at all.
I give it 3 stars out of 5. I am also aware that a novel written in English about the life of a Romanian immigrant discussing also the life under the communism is a daunting task and not appealing to the general public. Stereotypes, preconceived ideas or even trivial facts (probably for the reader with any Romanian background) can be found in abundance in the book. Probably they are meant to make more understandable the Romanian milieu of the novel for the non-Romanian reader. But some are funny, strange, ludicrous, misplaced or even seem false when they are mentioned : unique word dor , the 14 Dacian words, oaie word, the italian senza la valigia is almost in Romanian for her and so one. Maybe reading with Hungarian background a book written by a Romanian mind can explain it as we humans are in a natural way subjective beings.
Train to Trieste is the first novel of Domnica Radulescu who is born in Romania and lives in US since 1983, she is a professor of women studies and of Neolatin languages at Washington and Lee university in Lexington of Virginia state. The novel is narrated in the first person by Mona the main character, she remembers harsh times from communist Romania since she was 17 years old, her love for Mihai, her immigration to Italy and US and her life in the new world.
She presents the life of communist Romania a country which was run like a police state where every day life was poisoned by informers who intruded personal life, where food shortages, lack of necessities, inhuman treatments were part of existence. In the beginning of the novel we see Mona fall in love with Mihai, her deceased girlfriend's, Mariana's lover. From start her infatuation is poisoned by suspicion: she fears that Mihai has something to do with her death also later on she suspects him to be an informer of state security. Yet she continues to love him never questioning him whether he is an informer.
In Mona's case we can see what level can take the distrust, suspicion and the love can easily turn to hatred. She does not confine with him his intent of immigration, she fears that he might inform state security regarding the activity of her parents (his father is a fervent anti-communist who takes part in a conspiracy group), in fact she perceives him as an informant.
This lack of communication and even trust towards Mihai is evident. Mihai is living in Braşov while Mona is in Bucharest where she studies and she has to make travels mostly in vacations to keep up the relationship between them. When Mihai questions their relationship pointing out that they are living in two different worlds she answers with anger, hatred, hitting and spitting calling him by names an informer.
I would say that their relationship mostly a holiday type one, I would say Mona uses him to fulfill her sexual needs and fantasies without the need to confront him with her suspicion. This lack of communication is evident. Later on when her husband Tom (whom she marries in US not out of love as she admits) tells her that they should learn to communicate she finds it preposterous. In time his marriage with Tom becomes a wreckage, she cheats him and has an affair with the Serb Jovan. The fruit of this relationship is a child. For a period it seems that the newborn will mend her marriage as Tom accepts the child as his own after the storm settles between them. But when she has a child from Tom she breaks up the marriage, yet Mona describes Tom as a man good for being a husband.
The narrative is linear from the events in Romania to the immigration to Italy with the help of the Serbian Biljana, and the lucky travel to Trieste with an yellow Italian Fiat run by Mario. Instead of taking the train to Trieste from Yugoslavia she takes the lucky hitchhike with the Fiat. She stays in Trieste with Mario's family who help her and are very hospitable. Here she learns that Italy does not need immigrants and is better for her to apply for USA. They find work for her at friends, at a family in Rome until she is accepted and sponsored by USA.
She asks herself sarcastically what would the Italian family do with the household without the popping up Romanian immigrants. She is sponsored by an American family, she gets to the states where she starts a new life first getting rid of the bigot religious family who sponsored her, founds job in a shop, studies at the university, marries Tom, help his parents to immigrate to US, becomes a teacher for immigrants, has two sons. In US reaches her the news of Romanian revolution. Her relatives tell her that Mihai was shot in the revolution and he is dead, but when she visits her home country in her forties she finds out that it's just a rumor also the fact that practically Mihai was not an informer. Mihai is alive. The novel ends with her visit to her former lover who lives in the remote countryside with her hope in their future.
I uploaded the cover of the Hungarian edition titled A trieszti gyors. You can check out Train to Trieste (Vintage) at Amazon.
If you are interested in other stories about communist Romania and about the escapes of immigrants visit the Escape ebook's site of Ernest Ionescu.
She liked very much the book so I also read it. I found it rather mediocre but not bad at all.
I give it 3 stars out of 5. I am also aware that a novel written in English about the life of a Romanian immigrant discussing also the life under the communism is a daunting task and not appealing to the general public. Stereotypes, preconceived ideas or even trivial facts (probably for the reader with any Romanian background) can be found in abundance in the book. Probably they are meant to make more understandable the Romanian milieu of the novel for the non-Romanian reader. But some are funny, strange, ludicrous, misplaced or even seem false when they are mentioned : unique word dor , the 14 Dacian words, oaie word, the italian senza la valigia is almost in Romanian for her and so one. Maybe reading with Hungarian background a book written by a Romanian mind can explain it as we humans are in a natural way subjective beings.
Train to Trieste is the first novel of Domnica Radulescu who is born in Romania and lives in US since 1983, she is a professor of women studies and of Neolatin languages at Washington and Lee university in Lexington of Virginia state. The novel is narrated in the first person by Mona the main character, she remembers harsh times from communist Romania since she was 17 years old, her love for Mihai, her immigration to Italy and US and her life in the new world.
She presents the life of communist Romania a country which was run like a police state where every day life was poisoned by informers who intruded personal life, where food shortages, lack of necessities, inhuman treatments were part of existence. In the beginning of the novel we see Mona fall in love with Mihai, her deceased girlfriend's, Mariana's lover. From start her infatuation is poisoned by suspicion: she fears that Mihai has something to do with her death also later on she suspects him to be an informer of state security. Yet she continues to love him never questioning him whether he is an informer.
In Mona's case we can see what level can take the distrust, suspicion and the love can easily turn to hatred. She does not confine with him his intent of immigration, she fears that he might inform state security regarding the activity of her parents (his father is a fervent anti-communist who takes part in a conspiracy group), in fact she perceives him as an informant.
This lack of communication and even trust towards Mihai is evident. Mihai is living in Braşov while Mona is in Bucharest where she studies and she has to make travels mostly in vacations to keep up the relationship between them. When Mihai questions their relationship pointing out that they are living in two different worlds she answers with anger, hatred, hitting and spitting calling him by names an informer.
I would say that their relationship mostly a holiday type one, I would say Mona uses him to fulfill her sexual needs and fantasies without the need to confront him with her suspicion. This lack of communication is evident. Later on when her husband Tom (whom she marries in US not out of love as she admits) tells her that they should learn to communicate she finds it preposterous. In time his marriage with Tom becomes a wreckage, she cheats him and has an affair with the Serb Jovan. The fruit of this relationship is a child. For a period it seems that the newborn will mend her marriage as Tom accepts the child as his own after the storm settles between them. But when she has a child from Tom she breaks up the marriage, yet Mona describes Tom as a man good for being a husband.
The narrative is linear from the events in Romania to the immigration to Italy with the help of the Serbian Biljana, and the lucky travel to Trieste with an yellow Italian Fiat run by Mario. Instead of taking the train to Trieste from Yugoslavia she takes the lucky hitchhike with the Fiat. She stays in Trieste with Mario's family who help her and are very hospitable. Here she learns that Italy does not need immigrants and is better for her to apply for USA. They find work for her at friends, at a family in Rome until she is accepted and sponsored by USA.
She asks herself sarcastically what would the Italian family do with the household without the popping up Romanian immigrants. She is sponsored by an American family, she gets to the states where she starts a new life first getting rid of the bigot religious family who sponsored her, founds job in a shop, studies at the university, marries Tom, help his parents to immigrate to US, becomes a teacher for immigrants, has two sons. In US reaches her the news of Romanian revolution. Her relatives tell her that Mihai was shot in the revolution and he is dead, but when she visits her home country in her forties she finds out that it's just a rumor also the fact that practically Mihai was not an informer. Mihai is alive. The novel ends with her visit to her former lover who lives in the remote countryside with her hope in their future.
I uploaded the cover of the Hungarian edition titled A trieszti gyors. You can check out Train to Trieste (Vintage) at Amazon.
If you are interested in other stories about communist Romania and about the escapes of immigrants visit the Escape ebook's site of Ernest Ionescu.
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