Wild swan: +1916
Thought this book was excellent. I inherited it from a friend leaving the country and read it without putting it down pretty much.
The narration by Death was quite a brave way to go about it but really paid off. I also particularly liked the characters of the parents and the use of the German words and phrases in the text – there are some things that it’s more important not to translate when they are so strongly associated with characters.
The writing style was really quirky as well, though maybe took a bit of getting used to…I’ve not really read anything like it before.
Would like to know what others think about it and if anyone has read anything else by the same author.
Any thoughts?
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Thought this book was excellent. I inherited it from a friend leaving the country and read it without putting it down pretty much.
The narration by Death was quite a brave way to go about it but really paid off. I also particularly liked the characters of the parents and the use of the German words and phrases in the text – there are some things that it’s more important not to translate when they are so strongly associated with characters.
The writing style was really quirky as well, though maybe took a bit of getting used to…I’ve not really read anything like it before.
Would like to know what others think about it and if anyone has read anything else by the same author.
Any thoughts?
Took me a while to get into the writing style too, but have to say that I am really enjoying it now – the imagery certainly makes me sit up and take notice! A real page turner – I recommend it.
With 250 pages still to go I’m caught in-between wanting to read on and find out what happens next, and not wanting ever to finish this wonderful book.
I think wonderful is the only word to describe it. Every page is overflowing with rich, beautiful, tragic, funny, original prose.
I think it’d be classified as ‘crossover literature’, which is usually defined as a children’s book that is read by lots of adults. Whilst the style isn’t reminiscent of Phillip Pullman, I think that it shares certain themes with His Dark Materials Trilogy.
Oops, sorry, just to pick up Gina’s point on the narration by death. He’s definitely one the most sympathetic characters. Kind of a Terry Pratchett-style, humanized death. But certainly a tricky narrator.
I’m only about a quarter of the way through the book and I’m really enjoying it. I like the style because it feels quite different but occasionally it seems to be a bit too aimed at younger readers (who are perhaps more impressed by short, slightly ‘mysterious’ statements, which I think are sometimes a bit over-used). However, the point is, it is a book aimed at a cross-over audience and I like the fact that I could have read this 10 years ago and still got loads out of it, but in a different way.
Looking forward to getting through the rest of it.
I love the character of ‘Papa’ – for some readson he reminds me of the Dad out of Danny the Champion of the World. I think it’s maybe something to do with the fact he is very caring but also all the smells and ‘roughness’ associated with him e.g. smell of kerosene, paint, tobacco etc!
OK, I have just finished. I have to admit there were quite a lot of tears at the end but I did realy like how the book finished. I am often disappointed with the endings of books, feeling that they don’t quite close things off but I did feel quite’at peace’ at the end of this one. Despite my initial reservations, I think that the style of the book worked really well, particularly in the narration by Death, and his intermittent interjections that helped structure the novel and draw attention to the important themes. A real masterpiece that made me want to learn much more about that period of history, particularly from the German side.
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