- Paperback: 224 pages
- Publisher: St Martin's Press; 1st Picador USA Ed edition (27 Sep 2002)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0312420544
- ISBN-13: 978-0312420543
- Product Dimensions: 21 x 14 x 1.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 634,066 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Review
"A brooding, fog-shrouded allegory of life under the long oppression of the regime of Nicolae Ceausescu." --"The New York Times"
"A slim, masterfully written tale." --"Newsweek"
"A taut and brilliant book." --"Chicago Tribune"
"Powerful...Muller achieves something beautiful. She has wrested poetry from one woman's desire to remain human in an inhuman system."--"Newsday"
"Muller scatters narrative bombshells across a field of dreams." --"San Francisco Chronicle"
"With terse poetry, Muller brings to life a profoundly moving world...the lyrical beauty of the prose and its unflinching moral and emotional honesty carry the reader." --"Bookforum"
"A slim, masterfully written tale." --"Newsweek"
"A taut and brilliant book." --"Chicago Tribune"
"Powerful...Muller achieves something beautiful. She has wrested poetry from one woman's desire to remain human in an inhuman system."--"Newsday"
"Muller scatters narrative bombshells across a field of dreams." --"San Francisco Chronicle"
"With terse poetry, Muller brings to life a profoundly moving world...the lyrical beauty of the prose and its unflinching moral and emotional honesty carry the reader." --"Bookforum"
Product Description
"I've been summoned. Thursday, ten sharp". Thus begins a day in the life of a young factory worker in totalitarian Romania. Her crime? Sewing notes into the linings of men's suits bound for Italy. "Marry me" the notes say, with her name and address. As she rides the tram to her interrogation, she thinks over the events and people of her life under terror. In her distraction, she misses her stop, and alone on an unfamiliar street, Lilli discovers something far worse than anything she had feared.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The main character of this novel is summoned to an interrogation by the Romanian secret police for the crime of `prostitution in the workplace'. She had stitched her name and address in garments ready for export to Italy.
In the tramway which takes her to the interrogation office, she recalls the main events in her life: marriage, infidelities, brief encounters, professional traveling, sexual harassment, the alcoholism of her partner or the continuous monitoring of her private life.
In a melancholic tone and progressing by association, Herta Müller masterfully evokes a demoralized society ('the indifference with which I would have liked to have died down there, I who loved so devilishly life '), dominated by a corrupt bureaucracy ('perfumed communists') and plagued by alcoholism and suspicion (there are spies everywhere). In short, a dictatorship, a prison.
The only way to escape these hopeless living conditions is emigration at all costs to a free country.
The story exposes a system that has paralyzed an entire population in order to consolidate the power of a tiny minority of former revolutionaries, who became cynic tyrants.
Highly recommended to all lovers of world literature.
In the tramway which takes her to the interrogation office, she recalls the main events in her life: marriage, infidelities, brief encounters, professional traveling, sexual harassment, the alcoholism of her partner or the continuous monitoring of her private life.
In a melancholic tone and progressing by association, Herta Müller masterfully evokes a demoralized society ('the indifference with which I would have liked to have died down there, I who loved so devilishly life '), dominated by a corrupt bureaucracy ('perfumed communists') and plagued by alcoholism and suspicion (there are spies everywhere). In short, a dictatorship, a prison.
The only way to escape these hopeless living conditions is emigration at all costs to a free country.
The story exposes a system that has paralyzed an entire population in order to consolidate the power of a tiny minority of former revolutionaries, who became cynic tyrants.
Highly recommended to all lovers of world literature.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Herta Muller describes the day to day difficulties of existence in a suppressive environment with a beautiful poetic prose. Absorbing.
Format:Paperback
In communist Romania, we follow the thoughts and memories of a factory seamstress as she takes a tram ride to an interrogation.
Creative symbolism and sparkling prose develop a portrait of a difficult life haunted with loss, betrayal, oppression and failed escape. Occasional poignant details recall normality and contentment, but are often undermined. And the final scene forces everything in to a crushing claustrophobic perspective.
An illustration of the more subtle, personal devastations inflicted by totalitarian regimes.
Style: 8/10
Structure: 7/10
Depth: 7/10
Originality: 6/10
Unputdownability: 6/10
Creative symbolism and sparkling prose develop a portrait of a difficult life haunted with loss, betrayal, oppression and failed escape. Occasional poignant details recall normality and contentment, but are often undermined. And the final scene forces everything in to a crushing claustrophobic perspective.
An illustration of the more subtle, personal devastations inflicted by totalitarian regimes.
Style: 8/10
Structure: 7/10
Depth: 7/10
Originality: 6/10
Unputdownability: 6/10
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Couldn't finish it!
I couldn't wait to get my hands on this book having read the great reviews. The back of the book sounded so promising too. However, I was sorely disappointed. Read more
Published 6 months ago by M. Harney
surreal state of being under constant surveillance
As in 'The Land of Green Plums', Muller graphically relates how, living under the deadening effect of the relentless repression of Ceausescu's regime,people could barely remain... Read more
Published 6 months ago by Philip Herring
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