-
Seasonal Offer:
This title is part of our Seasonal Offers promotion.
Painter of Silence
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £2.45
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in Painter of Silence for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £2.45, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Special Offers and Product Promotions
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
'Painter of Silence is further testament to a talent gradually sculpting an impressive body of work. It proves
as smooth and serene as a slow incoming tide; the story washing over the pages until the reader is immersed in its depths. This is fiction of the most graceful kind.'
--Independent on Sunday, 26 February 2012
'Georgina Harding conjures a tale that recalls vintage Michael Ondaatje ... A novel about the passage of time, the senselessness of war, and the need to find and preserve meaning, this is a richly satisfying read' ----Daily Mail
'I loved Painter of Silence. It was like entering a dream world that became more and more real, until I actually needed to get back to it. Her writing is so gentle and beautiful and takes you so confidently on a journey. I let myself be carried away. Heaven' ----Esther Freud
'Harding's prose is a quiet storm of imagery and emotions ... The rubble and ruin of post-war Romania is tenderly rendered ... it's a heartrending predicament expertly realised. Painter of Silence is further testament to a talent gradually sculpting an impressive body of work. It proves as smooth and serene as a slow incoming tide; the story washing over the pages until the reader is immersed in its depths. This is fiction of the most graceful kind' ----Independent
'A must-read ... Hauntingly beautiful, for fans of The English Patient' ----Viv Groskop, Red
as smooth and serene as a slow incoming tide; the story washing over the pages until the reader is immersed in its depths. This is fiction of the most graceful kind.'
--Independent on Sunday, 26 February 2012
'Georgina Harding conjures a tale that recalls vintage Michael Ondaatje ... A novel about the passage of time, the senselessness of war, and the need to find and preserve meaning, this is a richly satisfying read' ----Daily Mail
'I loved Painter of Silence. It was like entering a dream world that became more and more real, until I actually needed to get back to it. Her writing is so gentle and beautiful and takes you so confidently on a journey. I let myself be carried away. Heaven' ----Esther Freud
'Harding's prose is a quiet storm of imagery and emotions ... The rubble and ruin of post-war Romania is tenderly rendered ... it's a heartrending predicament expertly realised. Painter of Silence is further testament to a talent gradually sculpting an impressive body of work. It proves as smooth and serene as a slow incoming tide; the story washing over the pages until the reader is immersed in its depths. This is fiction of the most graceful kind' ----Independent
'A must-read ... Hauntingly beautiful, for fans of The English Patient' ----Viv Groskop, Red
Review
Georgina Harding conjures a tale that recalls vintage Michael Ondaatje ... A novel about the passage of time, the senselessness of war, and the need to find and preserve meaning, this is a richly satisfying read Daily Mail I loved Painter of Silence. It was like entering a dream world that became more and more real, until I actually needed to get back to it. Her writing is so gentle and beautiful and takes you so confidently on a journey. I let myself be carried away. Heaven Esther Freud Painter of Silence has recently been longlisted for the Orange Prize, an accolade it richly deserves ... Exquisite ... Her deceptively simple prose gives a startling beauty to the ordinary, and evokes great depth of suffering Guardian Harding's prose is a quiet storm of imagery and emotions ... The rubble and ruin of post-war Romania is tenderly rendered ... it's a heartrending predicament expertly realised. Painter of Silence is further testament to a talent gradually sculpting an impressive body of work. It proves as smooth and serene as a slow incoming tide; the story washing over the pages until the reader is immersed in its depths. This is fiction of the most graceful kind Independent A must-read ... Hauntingly beautiful, for fans of The English Patient -- Viv Groskop Red
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
36 of 38 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Georgina Harding's latest novel 'Painter of Silence' is set in Romania; it is the early 1950s and a frail, almost skeletal young man is found collapsed on the steps of the city of Iasi's hospital. He has no papers on him and offers no information about himself - in fact he does not speak at all, and it is some days before it is realized that the man is a deaf mute. One of the nurses, a young woman named Safta, recognizes the mute patient but, for reasons of her own, does not want the other staff at the hospital to discover this. Safta, who knows the history of the young man, brings paper and drawing materials into the hospital so that they can communicate through the sketches they draw and, in this way, she hopes to encourage the man back to life with memories of their shared upbringing.
The young man's name is Augustus; he was the son of the cook at Poiana, a grand rural estate which was Safta's family home and the place where both of them were born six months apart. We read how, as a very small child "growing up beside him in the days even before she herself learned to speak, little Safta had come to know him with a quick intuition as if he was the silent side of her self." However, as Safta grows into a beautiful young woman keen to embrace all that life has to offer and becomes very attracted to a young visitor to Poiana, she moves away from Augustus and he becomes the silent onlooker to her sexual awakening. And when Safta leaves Poiana, Augustus stays on, living his life in the way he has always done, until World War II rages through Europe and Romania is left in ruins only to be followed by the Communist takeover. There are things that Augustus needs to tell Safta, but can they be conveyed through the medium of his pictures?
Georgina Harding describes the scenes and the characters of her story wonderfully and has a real skill in evoking a sense of time and place as she deftly weaves together people's histories, their memories and their longings. 'Painter of Silence' is an evocative, poignant and hauntingly beautiful novel written in a spare, but fluent and graceful prose that I found immersing and totally mesmerising. Highly recommended.
5 Stars.
The young man's name is Augustus; he was the son of the cook at Poiana, a grand rural estate which was Safta's family home and the place where both of them were born six months apart. We read how, as a very small child "growing up beside him in the days even before she herself learned to speak, little Safta had come to know him with a quick intuition as if he was the silent side of her self." However, as Safta grows into a beautiful young woman keen to embrace all that life has to offer and becomes very attracted to a young visitor to Poiana, she moves away from Augustus and he becomes the silent onlooker to her sexual awakening. And when Safta leaves Poiana, Augustus stays on, living his life in the way he has always done, until World War II rages through Europe and Romania is left in ruins only to be followed by the Communist takeover. There are things that Augustus needs to tell Safta, but can they be conveyed through the medium of his pictures?
Georgina Harding describes the scenes and the characters of her story wonderfully and has a real skill in evoking a sense of time and place as she deftly weaves together people's histories, their memories and their longings. 'Painter of Silence' is an evocative, poignant and hauntingly beautiful novel written in a spare, but fluent and graceful prose that I found immersing and totally mesmerising. Highly recommended.
5 Stars.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Without going into too many details in respect of the plot, this is a startlingly original novel. Relatively little has been written about Romania or its experience of the second world war, which lends an entirely new perspective to what may otherwise have been a very familiar theme.
Augustin's story, and in particular the horrors to which he was subjected during the occupation of Romania, is conveyed with extraordinary poignancy. However, it is the unfolding of the events in the summer months leading up to the outbreak of war which is truly mesmerising.
Georgina's Harding's evocation of time and place is superb, and absorbs the reader completely in to the life and characters of Poiana. An overwhelming sense of nostalgia pervades the novel, for a golden age lost and forever irrecoverable, particularly for Safta. The prose is spare and beautiful, and draws the reader entirely in to the carefree, but restless atmosphere of the great house and its inhabitants.
The tragedy of the central characters is deeply and effortlessly conveyed, and haunts you long after finishing the novel, in spite of the story's uplifting ending.
This book is just over 300 pages long, but it seemed much shorter and I really didn't want it to end. It is easily the best book I've read so far this year.
Augustin's story, and in particular the horrors to which he was subjected during the occupation of Romania, is conveyed with extraordinary poignancy. However, it is the unfolding of the events in the summer months leading up to the outbreak of war which is truly mesmerising.
Georgina's Harding's evocation of time and place is superb, and absorbs the reader completely in to the life and characters of Poiana. An overwhelming sense of nostalgia pervades the novel, for a golden age lost and forever irrecoverable, particularly for Safta. The prose is spare and beautiful, and draws the reader entirely in to the carefree, but restless atmosphere of the great house and its inhabitants.
The tragedy of the central characters is deeply and effortlessly conveyed, and haunts you long after finishing the novel, in spite of the story's uplifting ending.
This book is just over 300 pages long, but it seemed much shorter and I really didn't want it to end. It is easily the best book I've read so far this year.
15 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
Set in the early 1950s, in a Romainia still recovering from a brutal war and under communist rule, Painter of Silence follows Safta, once the daughter of a powerful business man, living in a great house where powerful men would come and visit, now a nurse with a bed in an overcrowded hostel, and Augustin, a deaf mute, son of Safta's famiy's cook and a missing father. The book explores their past together, and the events that leads them to be seperated and then reunited in a hospital in the crowded city of Iasi
Romania is a not often described country, and Harding describes it in such an evocative haunting way that it captivates and stays with you long after you finish the book. Her vast range of characters each with their own strongly developed back story and Harding's expert use of time brings the story alive and mays it a joy to read. I cannot emphaise enough what a treasure this book is, you become completely absorbed into Harding's world and never want it to end. Brilliant.
5 stars
Romania is a not often described country, and Harding describes it in such an evocative haunting way that it captivates and stays with you long after you finish the book. Her vast range of characters each with their own strongly developed back story and Harding's expert use of time brings the story alive and mays it a joy to read. I cannot emphaise enough what a treasure this book is, you become completely absorbed into Harding's world and never want it to end. Brilliant.
5 stars
Most Recent Customer Reviews
first e book
my first e book.Which kept me absorbed from the start,some really good characters,excellent story; very emotional and sad in places
Published 3 days ago by rosie reader
Superb...
........have just finished this beautiful haunting book, you must read it as it is without doubt one of the best books I have read in a very long time!
Published 3 days ago by F. Draper
Beautifully written
I agree with the comparisons made of this book to Ondaatje - it certainly has that languid pace and lyrical feel I've experienced in his work. Read more
Published 11 days ago by daisyrock
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.
|
