Burmese Lessons: A True Love Story

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Nancy Hieronymus, February 6, 2011 (view all comments by Nancy Hieronymus)
Karen Connelly writes beautifully about her journey to Burma to gather information about the brutal political system in Burma.
She finds warm, loving people there and finds herself immersed in their political struggles. She interviews Aung San Suu Kyi.
the opposition leader who has been detained in prison and her house. She witnesses demonstrations and protest meetings. She ends up
in the Thai-Burmese border and meets Maung, a resistance leader, whom she falls in love with. She realizes she can not live this harsh life and so returns home. This book is filled with true, high adventure and tells the hard, sad tale of the Burmese people.

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Marc Kelly, January 2, 2011 (view all comments by Marc Kelly)
I would suggest to you that Karen Connelly is not a writer. Instead, I would put forward the argument that she is an artist who paints pictures with words. The sentences she writes exude literary color and vibrancy like thousands of Bollywood dancers all dressed in the brightest and most eye catching Saris performing their greatest routine. On more than one occasion I found tears streaming down my face when I took myself out of the narrative. I had become overwhelmed by the sheer beauty of the pictures she had painted through the strokes of her words. At times I felt submerged in the environments described to the point I was almost feeling the Buddhist serenity and smelling the Burmese foods. The page truly is her canvas upon which she paints vivid imagery using the brush of her heart and the paints of her soul.
'Burmese Lessons' dissolves Ms Connelly's personal experiences and the day to day lives of the Burmese people, who live under a military dictatorship, into a memoir. Like the proverbial tea and sugar they start out as separate entities but one is added to the other and the stirring of a relationship takes place that has Ms Connelly drinking from the cup of love. Outside of this cup the Burmese table, on which the cup sits, is covered with dishes filled with oppression and injustice. Intimately linked to the Burmese culture Ms Connelly puts her safety on the line so we too can sample the foods that cover this table, digest the sociopolitical situation and taste for ourselves the life changing events of which she partook in the mid 1990s.
Reading this book was the literary equivalent of making love one last time to your soul mate in a four poster bed, on a balmy night, on top of the finest satin sheets and never wanting that night to end. It was bittersweet...full to the brim of joy and love yet overflowing with hurt and pain. So wonderful is the writing that the book itself is like a living, breathing entity that is full of life, love and sorrow. If you want to read a factual work that will move you and leave a lasting impression on your heart then look no further than 'Burmese Lessons'

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Product Details

ISBN:

9780385528009

Author:

Connelly, Karen

Publisher:

Nan A. Talese

Subject:

Asia - General

Subject:

Personal Memoirs

Subject:

Burma Politics and government 1988-

Subject:

Burma Description and travel.

Subject:

Essays & Travelogues

Subject:

| Travel | Asia

Publication Date:

20100531

Binding:

HARDCOVER

Grade Level:

General/trade

Language:

English

Pages:

400

Dimensions:

9.50x6.64x1.31 in. 1.57 lbs.