- Hardcover: 288 pages
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC; First British Edition edition (22 May 2000)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0747547882
- ISBN-13: 978-0747547884
- Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 15.6 x 3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,568,607 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
| ||||||||||||||||||
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
Product Description
Framed by the nine-day Nagorno-Karabakh conflict of 1994, this volume is built up from a series of tales - tales of war and tales of women - intercut with passages of straightforward historical narration. It begins as Markus, a former German soldier, seeks atonement from an Armenian priest.
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organise and find favourite items. |
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This superb story of cross-historical conflict, exile and redemption makes plain an often unpalatable truth: that by and large, the perpetrators of the worst abuses against nations and their component peoples are not monsters.
What shocks us most about the greatest excesses of the twentieth century is the ease with which ordinary people with desires, interests and sympathies acceptable to the common majority advocated, accepted or indulged in massacre for the sake of national /political agendas and living space. In this respect, Kopperud gives us some interesting, flip-side views: Manfred's bright, symphonic renderings of his own war-time activities and relationships; Markus's colourful and uplifting imaginings and fables against a backdrop of burning villages and violated bodies; Rachel's horror at the mirror-image vindictiveness of the Jews' fight for a homeland and her treatment at their hands.
To make sense of the beliefs, actions and decisions of all Kopperud's characters is to understand the inherent capriciousness of humankind. Societies will continue to find cause to argue, and people will continue to kill for the sake of God, politics and space. When Markus as an old man in a new war asks a combatant how he will explain his actions to his God, you can pretty much insert your own answer: Because it was right. Because this is war. Because this is how it always is.
Excellent. Buy it.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The Time of Light is a superbly written book that captures the reader's imagination and provides a wonderful antidote to the simplistic and antiquated anti-Germanic sentiment still often felt almost 60 years after the Second World War ended.
Kopperud transports the reader into the minds of three young German soldiers fighting on the Eastern front. The atrocities perpertrated by these soldiers are graphically described. However, perhaps most interestingly, the psychological scars that these events have marked upon both the victims and the opressors are the meat of Koperrud's reflections. There are no excuses nor explanations for the many horrific crimes, just a call to see beyond their individual evil and contextualise them within a greater framework of a permissive regime and time.
The novel's reference to the modern day Azerbaijaini conflict is key in enforcing to the reader that there are still many places in the world that permit such atrocities and that the adjectivally impossible time of the War on the Eastern front is still being repeated today. A fantastic book well worth reading.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I will not supply plot details as another reader has amply and ably done so already, but I would add to the previous recommendation of this book. Kopperud attempts to draw parallels between fascistic tendencies within the current political ambitions of the Israeli state and the abuse that Jews obviously suffered in Germany and elsewhere during the second WW. Although I would agree that violent does indeed beget violence, I think this should not in any way justify what is happening to the Palestinians. This book is a masterpiece and rivals the work of Eva Hoffman in her Lost in Translation -- though in two different yet intersecting genres.
For the book's crystal clarity, we English readers need to thank Tiina Nunnally, the incredible translator. As I make part of my living as a translator, I take my hat off to this achievement.
I recommend this book most enthusiastically.
Dr. David Shea...
For the book's crystal clarity, we English readers need to thank Tiina Nunnally, the incredible translator. As I make part of my living as a translator, I take my hat off to this achievement.
I recommend this book most enthusiastically.
Dr. David Shea...
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
A deep humanistic meditation on hatred and war...
Emotive, cogitative treatise that constructs a deeply unifying philosophy of common human suffering through the narrative of young German soldiers caught up in the madness of the... Read more
Published on 10 May 2007 by J. P. Evans
Challenging, deeply moving and beautifully translated
This is not a conventional war story but something much deeper and richer. It is a superbly told tale that will make you think, question some of the views about modern events... Read more
Published on 13 Sep 2002 by Barton Keyes
The futility of war
This superbly written book tells the tale of Markus, Dieter and Manfred, three young German schoolboys who leave the peace and familiarity of their homes in Bavaria to experience... Read more
Published on 23 Aug 2001 by "andywjones"
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
- Books > Fiction > Contemporary Fiction
- Books > Fiction > Short Stories
- Books > Fiction > War
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.
