I wouldn't have met Piti if it hadn't been for a chichigua. To translate chichigua as a kite does not do justice to these beautiful creations of...
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I was not sure what to make of a novel by the acclaimed author of the Kurt Wallander series, but I was blown away by the textures and depth that the characters in Italian Shoes had. Never have I longed to live in solitude on a frozen island in the Swedish archipelago so bad in my life. Mankell made the desolate landscape seem like a safe haven from the skeletons we all have in our closet only to have that solitude disturbed by the most unusual set of circumstances. Mankell has a gift of serving up some very troubling topics that make the reader almost sympathize with the torment of each character. You want to believe that everything is ok, but sometime life is not ok. Mankell explores all the reality that is a man seeing the end of his life in the not so distant future, reliving the mistakes made when much younger, and trying to fix that cannot be fixed.
Mr. Boyden expertly explores and prods the grey matter that lies in between two cultures; those of the old ways and those of the new, i.e., World War I. Rarely have I read a book so firmly grounded in human nature while swimming in the cultural nuances of extreme polarities. The characters in Three Day Road are superb extractions out of Canadian history but really all of North America. The journey within these pages is wrought with conflict and a strange sense of justice that can only be experienced by going through a major ordeal like war. If you like this book, you should also read something by David James Duncan, another Canadian writer by the name of Michael Crummey, or the Watson Trilogy by Peter Matthiesen.
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Ryan Douglas has commented on (2) products.
Italian Shoes (Vintage) by Henning Mankell
Ryan Douglas, January 21, 2012
I was not sure what to make of a novel by the acclaimed author of the Kurt Wallander series, but I was blown away by the textures and depth that the characters in Italian Shoes had. Never have I longed to live in solitude on a frozen island in the Swedish archipelago so bad in my life. Mankell made the desolate landscape seem like a safe haven from the skeletons we all have in our closet only to have that solitude disturbed by the most unusual set of circumstances. Mankell has a gift of serving up some very troubling topics that make the reader almost sympathize with the torment of each character. You want to believe that everything is ok, but sometime life is not ok. Mankell explores all the reality that is a man seeing the end of his life in the not so distant future, reliving the mistakes made when much younger, and trying to fix that cannot be fixed.Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden
Ryan Douglas, January 5, 2012
Mr. Boyden expertly explores and prods the grey matter that lies in between two cultures; those of the old ways and those of the new, i.e., World War I. Rarely have I read a book so firmly grounded in human nature while swimming in the cultural nuances of extreme polarities. The characters in Three Day Road are superb extractions out of Canadian history but really all of North America. The journey within these pages is wrought with conflict and a strange sense of justice that can only be experienced by going through a major ordeal like war. If you like this book, you should also read something by David James Duncan, another Canadian writer by the name of Michael Crummey, or the Watson Trilogy by Peter Matthiesen.