Anthony Marra
Paperback | Pages: 416 pages Rating: 4.13 | 44517 Users | 6577 Reviews
Define Books Supposing A Constellation of Vital Phenomena
| Original Title: | A Constellation of Vital Phenomena |
| ISBN: | 0770436420 (ISBN13: 9780770436421) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Setting: | Chechnya(Russian Federation) |
| Literary Awards: | National Book Award Nominee for Fiction (2013), New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award Nominee (2014), Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Fiction (2014), California Book Award for First Fiction (Gold) (2013), PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize Nominee for Shortlist (2014) Dayton Literary Peace Prize Nominee for Fiction (2014), National Book Critics Circle Award for John Leonard Prize (2013), The Athens Prize for Literature - Περιοδικό (δέ)κατα (2014), Andrew Carnegie Medal Nominee for Fiction (2014), Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Fiction (2013) |
Narrative During Books A Constellation of Vital Phenomena
A brilliant debut novel that brings to life an abandoned hospital where a tough-minded doctor decides to harbor a hunted young girl, with powerful consequences.In the final days of December 2004, in a small rural village in Chechnya, eight-year-old Havaa hides in the woods when her father is abducted by Russian forces. Fearing for her life, she flees with their neighbor Akhmed—a failed physician—to the bombed-out hospital, where Sonja, the one remaining doctor, treats a steady stream of wounded rebels and refugees and mourns her missing sister. Over the course of five dramatic days, Akhmed and Sonja reach back into their pasts to unravel the intricate mystery of coincidence, betrayal, and forgiveness that unexpectedly binds them and decides their fate.
With The English Patient's dramatic sweep and The Tiger's Wife's expert sense of place, Marra gives us a searing debut about the transcendent power of love in wartime, and how it can cause us to become greater than we ever thought possible.
Describe Of Books A Constellation of Vital Phenomena
| Title | : | A Constellation of Vital Phenomena |
| Author | : | Anthony Marra |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Anniversary Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 416 pages |
| Published | : | February 4th 2014 by Hogarth (first published May 7th 2013) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Historical. Historical Fiction. War. Cultural. Russia. Literary Fiction |
Rating Of Books A Constellation of Vital Phenomena
Ratings: 4.13 From 44517 Users | 6577 ReviewsPiece Of Books A Constellation of Vital Phenomena
Oh, what a joy to read a fully-realized, beautifully written, totally engrossing novel. I haven't read what GR friends have said about this book--I'm coming to it a little later than most--which made it all the more of a pleasure. The novel brings to life the cruel absurdities of war with moments of light and humanity. I knew little of Chechnya, and Marra does a masterful job of supplying enough information without weighing down the narrative. I have a few small quibbles, the first being theDecember 4th, 2013: This is not on the New York Times' Ten Best Books of 2013 but it should have been.In a fantastic profile of the writer Colum McCann in yesterday's New York Times Magazine, the writer sat with a class of high school students from Newtown: "He told them about an organization he recently helped found, Narrative4, which brings together kids from different places sometimes directly contentious places, sometimes just places with their own hardships and how over a span of days the
I am in awe; Anthony Marra has a rare gift with words.Marra tells his story set in Chechnya, a country ravaged by wars and occupied by foreign forces. It is the story of a girl who has lost her parents and of the man who saves her and the woman who gives her a place to stay. But it is also so much more. It is a book about resilience in the face of indescribable horror. It is a book about human connection and about how little acts of kindness can create more kindness. It is a book about
Upon starting this book I had heard of Chechnya. I couldn't point it out on a map though. Or even have told you what part of the world it was in. This book takes you there. Not just in mind..but in spirit also. The author states he chose to write about this area after hearing about the death of journalist Anna Polikovskaya from her reporting she did from Chechnya. He read up on the non-fiction reports he could find from the area. I'm glad he did it. My eyes would have glazed over from the
Yet again I am left baffled by the glowing reviews and the hype. This book proved tedious, convoluted and an insomniac's dream.There was no plot, at least not a discernible one for the majority of the book. There are tedious, long-winded entries of characters that end up giving little to the overall book. There is repeated foreshadowing in the variety of "in seven years he will become a [insert profession here]," and mind you these little inputs added nothing to the main characters or the story
We all know, as William Tecumseh Sherman once noted, that War is Hell! Later, Jean-Paul Sartre concluded that Hell is other people. It therefore stands to reason that war is other people. Good thing for me that it's about others because what Marra described in this book sounded awful. We got chopped off fingers, burned down houses, torture-induced ratting, and a whole host of other atrocities. It was set in Chechnya in 2004 with much of the story backfilled from the prior decade of war. Russian
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