Declare Books In Favor Of Stones from the River (Burgdorf Cycle #1)
| Original Title: | Stones from the River |
| ISBN: | 068484477X (ISBN13: 9780684844770) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Series: | Burgdorf Cycle #1 |
| Setting: | Germany |
| Literary Awards: | PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction Nominee (1995), Washington State Book Award (1995), Premio Grinzane Cavour Nominee for Narrativa Straniera (2000) |
Ursula Hegi
Paperback | Pages: 525 pages Rating: 4.08 | 91049 Users | 1989 Reviews
Description To Books Stones from the River (Burgdorf Cycle #1)
From the highly acclaimed, award-winning author of Floating in My Mother's Palm comes a stunning novel about ordinary people living in extraordinary times.Trudi Montag is a Zwerg—a dwarf—short, undesirable, different, the voice of anyone who has ever tried to fit in. Eventually she learns that being different is a secret that all humans share—from her mother who flees into madness, to her friend Georg whose parents pretend he's a girl, to the Jews Trudy harbors in her cellar.
Ursula Hegi brings us a timeless and unforgettable story in Trudi and a small town, weaving together a profound tapestry of emotional power, humanity, and truth.
Point About Books Stones from the River (Burgdorf Cycle #1)
| Title | : | Stones from the River (Burgdorf Cycle #1) |
| Author | : | Ursula Hegi |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | First Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 525 pages |
| Published | : | March 1st 1995 by Scribner Paperback Fiction (first published 1994) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Historical. Historical Fiction. War. World War II. Cultural. Germany. Holocaust |
Rating About Books Stones from the River (Burgdorf Cycle #1)
Ratings: 4.08 From 91049 Users | 1989 ReviewsComment On About Books Stones from the River (Burgdorf Cycle #1)
Trudi Montag, a manipulative, resentful, nosy dwarf uses the secrets she gathers to extract her revenge on the townspeople who consider themselves superior and shun her, during the period from the First to Second World Wars in Burgdorf, Germany. As far as synopses go, that would be pretty accurate but it wouldn't make you want to read the book. The main character may be less than sympathetic, but she is sharp and observant, and paints finely tuned, sensitive, and insightful pictures of herI am lucky that I was trapped on a train for six hours going to Hartford and back, or I think I would have had a hard time getting into this one. Ultimately, it was a lovely and rewarding book-- but the first couple of hundred pages are all setup and a bit difficult to sludge through.The book is about Trudi Montag, a young dwarf in rural Germany born to a WWI soldier and a crazy woman who grows up to defy the Nazis during WWII in her small town. The WWII portion of the book is fascinating and
A sensitively imagined portrayal of a small German town in the fateful years between the first and second World Wars narrated from the perspective of an appealing main character who is both of the town in that she is the keeper of their secrets and the source of their gossip, but also other due to her diminutive size, there's a lot to like about this rich and colourful web of life. For me personally it has the added attraction of this fictional town being situated just down the road, the
It was like that with stories: she could see beneath their surface, know the undercurrents, the whirlpools that could take you down, the hidden clusters of rocks. Stories could blind you, rise around you in a myriad of colors. Every time Trudi took a story and let it stream through her mind from beginning to end, it grew fuller, richer, feeding on her visions of those people the story belonged to until it lefts its bed like the river she loved. And it was then that she'd have to tell the story
I've got a German friend who every time the war is mentioned suffers a rush of blood to her face and looks physically pained. She continually makes me realise what a struggle it is for sensitive, generous spirited Germans to come to terms with what happened under the Nazis. And this despite one of her great grandfathers taking part in the coup against Hitler and being hanged. I mention this because the author of this novel is German and this novel, to some extent, is an attempt at atonement.
There aren't enough stars in the universe with which to rate this book. As five stars is all I can give "Stones from the River" I do so knowing that no amount of stars nor any review no matter how sexy or lyrical or witty or heart "wrenching-ly" beautiful could ever do the book or Ursula Hegi justice.I wish that "Stones from the River" had an infinite number of pages so that I could read it for the rest of my life.
This was an excellent book. I was astounded by Hegi's ability to capture both the everyday life of Germans over the 20-year span leading up to the end of WWII and the experience of a woman with dwarfism. Not once does she dramatize for the sake of Hollywood-like entertainment. Considering the standard treatments for both the topics of dwarfism and WWII, this is indeed a rare accomplishment. I myself have dwarfism and am usually sick of the average portrayal of dwarfs in the media as either
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