Reading 1001 discussion

Rating: 4 stars


A semi-autobiographical story about a Serbian boy whose father went away. The boy's mother is Christian and the boy's father is Jewish. The book is set during WWII. Gorgeous writing about a difficult subject matter, even more so, since it based upon the author's own family and experiences.

Rating: 4 stars
Danilo Kiš is famous for simple and beautiful writing, short stories full of life, set mostly in poor and difficult reality.
This one is a story of his childhood in difficult times, before, after and during WWII. The central character of the book is Andy. The book is written in first person, and a boy tells us about his family: loving mother; alcoholic, unstable and often absent father and sister Ana. He reflects of various issues, including life and death, religion, family relationships, love. It is set in extreme poverty but Andy remains positive and optimistic child.

I also gave this book 4 stars for the beautiful writing and the author's ability to bring a child's very sensitive imagination to life in a very realistic context of hunger and poverty. The story tells of Andi Schaum's rich fantasy life paralleled by the story of his father, an alcoholic, messianic, erudite, bellicose man who wears many masks and therefore is never truly just a man, or just a father to Andi. Andi weaves his father's story into his own imaginings but in the end we learn much about a sad, wasted Jewish man during the time when even Hungarian Jews were being sent to the death camps. The insights are of a very personal nature with a backdrop of hopeless poverty.

Lovely evocative prose in this tale of a sensitive boy in the Balkan states in WW2 who uses his imagination, dreamlife, and the stories he hears and reads to escape hunger and the instability of his family. It also at some point becomes the story of his father, who is Jewish and is moved to a ghetto before disappearing on a train, as he has done before, but this time with other consequences.

Garden, Ashes by Danilo Kiš
2.5/5 stars

I was looking forward to this book as most members of Reading 1001 rated it 4 stars and loved it but I thought it was a slog for so many reasons. It took some digging but I found at least 2 other members who also rated it 2 stars. My rating is about enjoyment and not quality of writing.

The book is about Andi Scham’s childhood, his relationship with his father who appears to suffer from depression and his father’s book Bus, Ship, Rail, and Air Travel Guide.

The style of writing I just did not care for. First there was this list “he assembled an enormous listing of literature in the most diverse disciplines” and then he lists them all. What is the point of having an entire page of subjects listed? Then there is this obsession of language. I had to look up words in the dictionary for meaning, after ten words I quit counting. These obscure words did not add to the enjoyment of the book. Then there was the whole chapter on Genesis which the cover stated as “bizarre sermons he delivered to his befuddle family.” Then there was these bizarre musings: “post laxative glow”, “constipated sheep”, and “constipated with sin”. It was a struggle to pick this book up everyday and read one chapter. It was a short book but didn’t feel that way. I look forward to moving on from this book and I don’t think I will be reading more from this author.

Pre-2016 review:

** 1/2

This novel was meant to describe, as a sort of autobiographical memoir, the escape from the Nazis of a Serb Jewish family. Some of their wanderings brought them to Hungary, where they were relatively safe(r). The narrator is a child in his early teens who has a very developed imagination and a tendency to lyrically romanticize. While there are beautiful poetical moments, the whole remains hard to read and to remain engaged; it also contains some confusing aspects. For example, while this is a Jewish family, the narrator kept making references to his attending the church (never was there a reference to a synagogue): was that meant to imply that church attendance would lead the authorities to believe that they were Christians and not Jews? This was never clarified. Anyway, I struggled through this one, but maybe a re-read at some point might be in order.