- Paperback: 160 pages
- Publisher: Portobello Books Ltd; Tra edition (5 Aug 2010)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1846271576
- ISBN-13: 978-1846271571
- Product Dimensions: 19.2 x 12.6 x 1.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 875,396 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Madame Verona Comes Down the Hill
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
'A delightful oddity of a book - written in a quirky style, and manages to be witty, wise and moving' Waterstone's Books Quarterly '
Product Description
Years ago, Madame Verona and her husband built a home for themselves on a hill in a forest above a small village. There they lived in isolation, practising their music, and chopping wood to see them through the cold winters. When Mr Verona died, the locals might have expected that the legendary beauty would return to the village, but Madame Verona had enough wood to keep her warm during the years it would take to make a cello - the instrument her husband loved - and in the meantime she had her dogs for company. And then one cold February morning, when the last log has burned, Madame Verona sets off down the village path, with her cello and her memories, knowing that she will have no strength to climb the hill again. Poignant, precise and perfectly structured, this is a story of one woman's tender and enduring love - as a wife, and as a widow.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
Exquisitely written, Dimitri Verhulst's short novel is a work of rare beauty that is relatively uncommon in modern literature - a brief novella, a concise and poetic meditation on life, specifically on the condition of reaching the end of one's life. The life in question is that of Madame Verona, a widow living alone in a small village after the death of her husband Monsieur Potter. Although over the years her great beauty is desired by the men of the village, Madame Verona clings to the memory of her husband, keeping only the company of the stray dogs that are drawn to her - a simple but unusual attraction that she hopes will stand her in good favour in the next life.
Verhulst considers Madame Verona's condition at this delicate stage in her life principally through the setting - specifically in the little village of Oucwègne, a village build on three hills. It's to this remote little place of no more than forty people that once had a cow for a mayor that she, a piano teacher, had come to live with her husband, a renowned composer. Her husband now dead, her regular climb down the hill to the village comes to express something else - the realisation being that, in her old age, the day will come when she will not make it back up again. Adopting the tone of a fable, the novella considers the position of Madame Verona from a number of viewpoints - her own attempt to define her condition and also how she is viewed by the villagers of Oucwègne, but also through flashbacks that contrast the married woman with the widow, the younger woman with the older, and of course through the village itself which is also slowly dying in its distance from the modern world.
As well as finding much that is evocative in the setting and in the woods that border her house, Verhulst makes wonderful use of language and poetic imagery, considering for example the use a tree can be put to - a living thing reduced to wood that can be made into a coffin, or even a cello - and that the space the felled tree leaves behind will be occupied by something or someone. "It's like that for trees, it's like that for people". Gorgeously written in this respect, the novella finds a way to express the nature of life, of change and of the inevitable progression of time, seeking to find meaning in it all, or at least something of beauty.
Verhulst considers Madame Verona's condition at this delicate stage in her life principally through the setting - specifically in the little village of Oucwègne, a village build on three hills. It's to this remote little place of no more than forty people that once had a cow for a mayor that she, a piano teacher, had come to live with her husband, a renowned composer. Her husband now dead, her regular climb down the hill to the village comes to express something else - the realisation being that, in her old age, the day will come when she will not make it back up again. Adopting the tone of a fable, the novella considers the position of Madame Verona from a number of viewpoints - her own attempt to define her condition and also how she is viewed by the villagers of Oucwègne, but also through flashbacks that contrast the married woman with the widow, the younger woman with the older, and of course through the village itself which is also slowly dying in its distance from the modern world.
As well as finding much that is evocative in the setting and in the woods that border her house, Verhulst makes wonderful use of language and poetic imagery, considering for example the use a tree can be put to - a living thing reduced to wood that can be made into a coffin, or even a cello - and that the space the felled tree leaves behind will be occupied by something or someone. "It's like that for trees, it's like that for people". Gorgeously written in this respect, the novella finds a way to express the nature of life, of change and of the inevitable progression of time, seeking to find meaning in it all, or at least something of beauty.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
"Madame Verona Comes Down the Hill" is short - a novella, really - but beautifully written, polished and, in places, poetic. Set in a dwindling rural village, it tells the story of Madame Verona's life through her memories and those of the villagers who have observed her from the bottom of the hill. Having arrived in the village young, beautiful, and wedded to her composer husband, she captures the interest in the men of the village, who continue to yearn for her as she is forced to settle into widowhood. An exploration of love and loss which is slow-burning but ultimately charming.
Format:Paperback
This is a beautiful book- short, yes! But with a depth that lasts longer than many books. Without giving too much of the plot away, this the type of book that makes the reader reflect and wonder- not just about the book but your own path in life . Profound.... You decide!
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Touching reflection at the close of life
Im grateful to Whichbook.net and Amazon reviewers for persuading me to read a book I wouldn't normally consider. Read more
Published 13 months ago by R. S. Edwards
Simple, sad and lovely
Madame Verona Comes Down The Hill has at its heart a story that is simple, sad and lovely.
Madame Verona and her musician husband Monsieur Potter live in an isolated... Read more
Madame Verona and her musician husband Monsieur Potter live in an isolated... Read more
Published 18 months ago by Fleur Fisher
Bitter-sweet and Belgian
I was very taken by this concise little novella about a widow who has a cello made from the tree her husband hanged himself from. Read more
Published on 21 Mar 2010 by doublegone
A short but poignant read
This book is set in the tiny and remote village of Oucwegne, a place that is slowly dying due to the lack of girls being born in recent generations. Read more
Published on 17 Mar 2010 by H. Skinner
A beautiful novella. Well worth reading and recommending
'Madame Verona Comes down the hill' is a wonderful novella. The writing is beautiful, poetic and frequently very funny. Read more
Published on 12 Mar 2010 by She-who-reads-while-walking
A bittersweet little tale, well-written but a little unsatisfying
This is a well-written little novella (just!) padded out to 145 pages with double-spacing and larger text - if it was printed as a regular book it would struggle to fill 70 pages. Read more
Published on 3 Mar 2010 by Stealth Reviewer
An enjoyable short story
I found it a little tricky to get into the rhythm of the book, but once I had I found it a very enjoyable one.
Published on 25 Feb 2010 by Lukens
Fascinating stuff
This book is small in length but great in depth. A tale that seems to take you to another time and place; I didn't realise it was about contemporary times until about a third of... Read more
Published on 18 Feb 2010 by D. Thurgood
Insubstantial
The literary equivalent of candy floss, I'm afraid - a lot of showy colourful froth which turns out to have no substance in the mouth.
Published on 18 Feb 2010 by Mr. F. L. Dunkin Wedd
A tale of a community nearly lost
Madame Verona Comes Down the Hill is a very brief novel at only 144 pages, and I read it easily in an evening. Read more
Published on 14 Feb 2010 by Dinah93
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
