The Bridge Over The River Drina doesn't suck - but it is way too much for
me. It describes horrors - the same sort of horrors that happened and still
happen - and I know they happen, but in the book they got right under my
skin and I simply couldn't read on.
There is a South American poet I think who wrote something like
"There is nothing one man will not do to another."
Something like that.
So you know back to the Mills And Boon for me - can't cope with the
realities of history. Or indeed with the realities of the present day.
cheers - jen
----Original Message Follows----
From: Alison Croggon <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: "Poetryetc: poetry and poetics" <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: saddest book ever written? most repellent?
Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2007 23:22:13 +1000
This also made me curious enough to look it up. Library Journal reviews it
thusly:
Zimbabwean Vera has received wide acclaim in her homeland but is relatively
unknown in the United States, where her work has appeared in an anthology
and through a small press. Her latest novel is a rare work of beauty,
capturing the oft-tragic poetry of life in a black township of Rhodesia in
the 1940s. Surrounded by poverty and oppression, where blacks are not even
permitted to walk on the pavement, young Phephelaphi searches for her own
freedom and fulfillment in spite of the love of Fumbatha, a construction
worker more than twice her age. Vera's phrasing and style make mundane tasks
like cutting tall grass or waiting for a train sing with a music all their
own and give a simple story of love, longing, and betrayal a lyric quality.
Not that I think Library Journal is the be-all and end-all, but I'm curious
what causes the sucking. Poor people? Lyric beauty? Cutting tall grass?
All best
Alison
On 4/27/07, kasper salonen <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> > Can't read it. Makes me vomit. My friend Niksa in Zagreb tells me he had
>to
> > read it when he was a pre teen. I can't get through it. Awful awfui
>awful
> > book. Disgusting book. Loathesome.
> >
>
>that sounds precisely like the book I have to read for my entrance
>exam in june; 'Butterfly Burning' by Yvonne Vera. good lord it sucks
>
>KS
>
>
>
--
Editor, Masthead: http://www.masthead.net.au
Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
Home page: http://www.alisoncroggon.com
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