I came across 'The Storyteller' by 'Antonia Michaelis' accidentally. I have a free ebooks app on my android which I frequently use because it has many books which are paid on Amazon. The free books on Kindle are generally self published and are of a hit or miss variety - the misses more frequent in terms of bad grammar, use of slang, you call this a storyline?, etc. The books on this app are legit published books so you are assured that at least the basics will be covered, although the storyline can still be a hit or miss (America is obsessed with a few common topics and one author on this topic sounds very much like any other).
This book blew my mind (yes this is a very childish expression but I have no words). I never knew words could be so beautiful. People who say that a picture can say a thousand words do not know that each word, if used with the right word, is worth a thousand pictures. The male protagonist narrates a fairy tale to his 6 year old sister in parallel to the story throughout the book. The story of the fairy tale and the way the imagery is drawn parallel to the real life in the book is astounding. Each sentence in the fairy tale is so right in creating a picture in your head that you feel as if you are there with them while all of the story is happening (and this is a translation from German!). After a long time, I finished a book with a clogged throat and a sense of desolation which would not go away, try as I might. This desolation was so strong that I tried thinking of happy events in the past and future so that I would have good dreams (I used to have a lot of nightmares when I was a teenager and I used to say the hanuman chalisa and imagine a happy future just before sleeping - it helped a lot). But the story was so effective in drawing out all the frustration against life that I ended up dreaming negatively about the very people I had remembered in thinking of a happy past. I suddenly woke up at 3.50 am and was very relieved that I still had an hour and 40 min to sleep but I was able to doze off only around 45 min later. The story kept running on a continuous loop in my head.
I am amazed. It is not just the story, but the way the story is told that doesn't let you stop thinking about it. I have read countless books about drug using parents and abused children but not one has been so heart tugging. Maybe because one running thread in the story is hope - you feel that this winter cannot go forever and the thaw will come and yet when the winter does end, you are left with 'Why God, how could you let this happen in Your world'? The only other book I can remember in the same vein was 'Gone with the wind'. Amidst all the struggles, there was always the hope that 'after all tomorrow is another day'. And at the end, when Rhett walks away, I was so profoundly sad that I never read the book again and never watched the movie. I have always thought that this was because I read the book when I was 14 and it was too impressionable an age. But, I think it is more because the protagonist is strong, gives fate a good fight and there is always HOPE in the story and when in the end it all crashes down, the very belief in life is shaken. For most of us, the most important foundation of our lives (after the love of family) is the faith that good things will ultimately happen to good people if they just hang in there and go on doing their best - and the end of both the books demolishes this foundation. It makes us question if life is worth living if it is full of suffering of this kind with no vindication at the end.
Another interesting thing about the book was the reviews. After finishing it, I was curious as to why I had not come across it earlier and looked up the reviews on Amazon. Surprisingly, there were very few reviews (maybe because it is originally in German?) and there were a couple of 1 ratings (1 is the lowest). I was really curious to see why people thought it was a 1. One person mentioned that it was too explicit for a book tagged for young adults. I agree - such a visceral book should not be tagged young adult. The second 1 rater said that she could not believe how the female protagonist still loved the male protagonist even after he did a very bad thing to her (details not given here to avoid spoilers). I can understand the reviewer's view because that it is a common attitude of the American people. Things go wrong, you stop loving your spouse and divorce happens the next day and the cycle is repeated with a different person. There is no question of trying to fix things.But, I disagree. Love is not something you can switch off when a person does something horribly wrong. You love the people you love in spite of their mistakes. And, in the book, both the protagonists acknowledge that what happened was really bad - he said that he could never even ask for forgiveness and she said that she could never forget what happened - but she wanted them to move on. I find that more realistic. I am sure all of us have been hurt by people we love but we still go on loving them.
I think this review is getting way too long. I will just say - Go harden your heart and read this book. Both the author and the translator have done a fabulous job.
This book blew my mind (yes this is a very childish expression but I have no words). I never knew words could be so beautiful. People who say that a picture can say a thousand words do not know that each word, if used with the right word, is worth a thousand pictures. The male protagonist narrates a fairy tale to his 6 year old sister in parallel to the story throughout the book. The story of the fairy tale and the way the imagery is drawn parallel to the real life in the book is astounding. Each sentence in the fairy tale is so right in creating a picture in your head that you feel as if you are there with them while all of the story is happening (and this is a translation from German!). After a long time, I finished a book with a clogged throat and a sense of desolation which would not go away, try as I might. This desolation was so strong that I tried thinking of happy events in the past and future so that I would have good dreams (I used to have a lot of nightmares when I was a teenager and I used to say the hanuman chalisa and imagine a happy future just before sleeping - it helped a lot). But the story was so effective in drawing out all the frustration against life that I ended up dreaming negatively about the very people I had remembered in thinking of a happy past. I suddenly woke up at 3.50 am and was very relieved that I still had an hour and 40 min to sleep but I was able to doze off only around 45 min later. The story kept running on a continuous loop in my head.
I am amazed. It is not just the story, but the way the story is told that doesn't let you stop thinking about it. I have read countless books about drug using parents and abused children but not one has been so heart tugging. Maybe because one running thread in the story is hope - you feel that this winter cannot go forever and the thaw will come and yet when the winter does end, you are left with 'Why God, how could you let this happen in Your world'? The only other book I can remember in the same vein was 'Gone with the wind'. Amidst all the struggles, there was always the hope that 'after all tomorrow is another day'. And at the end, when Rhett walks away, I was so profoundly sad that I never read the book again and never watched the movie. I have always thought that this was because I read the book when I was 14 and it was too impressionable an age. But, I think it is more because the protagonist is strong, gives fate a good fight and there is always HOPE in the story and when in the end it all crashes down, the very belief in life is shaken. For most of us, the most important foundation of our lives (after the love of family) is the faith that good things will ultimately happen to good people if they just hang in there and go on doing their best - and the end of both the books demolishes this foundation. It makes us question if life is worth living if it is full of suffering of this kind with no vindication at the end.
Another interesting thing about the book was the reviews. After finishing it, I was curious as to why I had not come across it earlier and looked up the reviews on Amazon. Surprisingly, there were very few reviews (maybe because it is originally in German?) and there were a couple of 1 ratings (1 is the lowest). I was really curious to see why people thought it was a 1. One person mentioned that it was too explicit for a book tagged for young adults. I agree - such a visceral book should not be tagged young adult. The second 1 rater said that she could not believe how the female protagonist still loved the male protagonist even after he did a very bad thing to her (details not given here to avoid spoilers). I can understand the reviewer's view because that it is a common attitude of the American people. Things go wrong, you stop loving your spouse and divorce happens the next day and the cycle is repeated with a different person. There is no question of trying to fix things.But, I disagree. Love is not something you can switch off when a person does something horribly wrong. You love the people you love in spite of their mistakes. And, in the book, both the protagonists acknowledge that what happened was really bad - he said that he could never even ask for forgiveness and she said that she could never forget what happened - but she wanted them to move on. I find that more realistic. I am sure all of us have been hurt by people we love but we still go on loving them.
I think this review is getting way too long. I will just say - Go harden your heart and read this book. Both the author and the translator have done a fabulous job.
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