- Paperback: 288 pages
- Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd; Reprint edition (30 Jan 1997)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0140261907
- ISBN-13: 978-0140261905
- Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 11.9 x 2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,114,050 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
Agate was six when she and her family fled their comfortable parsonage in rural Latvia to avoid the Russian advance. First interned in Germany, they were sent to work at an institute in East Germany where they were bombed and then captured after all by brutal Russian Mongolian troops. A witness to rape, torture and executions, Agate and her sister played among the corpses as the family starved, awaiting death. Time and again it was their mother who kept them going, and yet it was one moment in which she lost hope that changes their relationship and haunts Agate. Ultimately the family is admitted to a Displaced Persons Camp in the British Zone. There Agate goes to school once more. It is her mother's wish for her daughters that they be well-educated; that although she was deprived of her chance, that the life of the mind will be theirs. In her spare time Agate reads a battered paperback first volume of Gone With the Wind, in Latvian. Five years later the Nesaules arrive, penniless, in Indianapolis where Agate teaches herself to read English from a library copy of the book. The Latvian community in exile clings together but Agate wins a scholarship to the university, fulfilling her mother's dream. Yet, though she assimilates, part of Agate is still frozen in the past, still overcome with the shame of "not being worth feeding, " and the terror of captivity, never at ease with her mother, always missing the affection they once shared. And she in unable to choose fulfillment over degradation in her private life... until she begins to tell her story.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I am a Latvian, close to Ms. Nesaules age, born in Latvia and I also spent years in Displaced Persons camps.
Unlike Ms. Nesaule, all my family and family friends shared memories good and bad of the war and of the refugee camps. We have several huge photo albums that include a lot of photos from the camps.
A book should be a memoir or fiction. If its a mix, then perhaps there needs to be some indicator as to what is memory and what is writers embellishment.
Ms. Nesaules opening statements such as "I have uncertainties about this story..." "...there is so much that I have forgotten or I never knew or understood." "No one in my family wants to talk about the war..." "And no matter how hard I try I cannot force myself to do research." "I can only tell what I remember. I have to speculate and guess, even to invent in order to give the story coherence and shape." "The matter of inventing requires a special note." Say what? This is a memior??
For someone who couldn't force herself to do research about DP camps, Ms. Nesaule seems to find no trouble in doing research about concentration camps. Reading and memorizing "The Diary Of Anne Frank", obsessing on photos of concentration camps (page 174) makes me question just what is really going on. The book of Ms. Nesaule brings up more questions than answers.
Yes, the refugee camps were like the war itself, horrific, dehumanizing and demoralizing, but they were NOT concentration camps. Our pain and horrors were real enough not to need any writers embellishments.
Page 179: "She tempers my fathers longing to return to Latvia by reminders of women having to do backbreaking work with out the benefit of running water, central heating and electrical appliances."
Page 184: "How can I say I dislike the Russians? My mother stills morns leaving 'dear mother Russia'..."
These statements show an almost deep contempt and ignorance about the true Latvia. Life was certainly hard on the small farms in Latvia as it was in 'dear mother Russia', but that was not the case for everyone.
Before World War II Latvia had one of the highest education rates, per capita, in the world. Riga was known as 'the Little Paris of the North' during Latvia's first independence. I for one find A Woman In Amber very offensive, full of misinformation ramdomly mixed with accounts resembling actual events.
For more information on Latvia, one might want to read the following: "A Guide to Latvia" by Inara Punga and William Hough; "The Northern Crusades" by Eric Christiansen; "The Latvians: A Short History" by Andrejs Plakans; and "The Testemony of Lives" by Vieda Skultans.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
"A Woman in Amber" is a touching and sensitive memoir of a young girl's escape from war-torn Latvia. Agate Nesaule left home with her family in 1944 along with more than one hundred fifty thousand other Latvians seeking refuge in the West. They were fleeing the oncoming Red Army and a resumption of the horrific Soviet occupation of 1940-41. Nesaule's family got only as far as what became the Soviet zone of Germany, a place of desperation and violence. Finally as the war neared an end they managed to reach the relative safety of a displaced persons camp in Berlin and eventually to secure passage to the United States. The second half of the book recounts the difficult experience of Nesaule and her family in starting their lives over in a new land. This book is not a history of the emigration but simply one woman's heartfelt story. Even amongst the description of all the pain and loss, there are scenes of heroism and humor. Once I started reading "A Woman in Amber," I could hardly put it down until I was finished. Highly recommended.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The title of this book is a remarkable, symbolically apt appellation, "A Woman in Amber"; imagine the imprisoned feeling. But the beauty of amber, as in the beauty of this book, is that light can be seen through it. After reading Dr. Nesaule's book, I purchased it as a gift for Latvian friends. My Indian women friends have used this book as study material in their bookclub and my Irish friends have received great solace from the work because of its honesty in its disclosure about the needs, desires, and trust that may or may not exist between a mother and a daughter. Self-honesty begets self-truth, and this book is an honest exploration that seeks whatever truths can be found between a mother and a daughter under the most extreme conditions - war and its aftermath. If you want language without pretense painting a daughter's portrait of her life's process that searches for solid ground on which to plant her understanding of forced exile - both physical and familial, then read this book. It is not a history book nor is it a travel guide to Eastern Europe. It is the finished product of a search many of us give up on after a parent's death. The book is a singular image of one Latvian family exiled by war; its deeper content however, is about the universal tugs of emotional wars that exist in many families. I questioned myself after reading the book and wondered how truthful I could be on paper if writing about my mother who left this world early with many of her own questions unanswered: I hasten to try. The author's up front disclosure about her own questioning of what truth in one's memory really is, is an honest prelude to this self-investigation. My treasured, older Latvian friends have discovered that "A Woman in Amber" was the #1 best seller in Latvia in 1998, and in reference to some critiques of the book, one friend recited a line she learned in a Latvian school during the war: "It is easier to perceive error than to find truth, for the former lies on the surface and is easily seen, while the latter lies in the depth, where few are willing to search for it." - Goethe. Dr. Nesaule is a courageous writer who had the guts to disembowel learned, protective protocol that can distort self-truth in any culture. I thank her for writing this book and wish her continued success.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Interesting but something was lacking
I read this book upon the recommendation of a friend. This is very much the type of book I enjoy, but this book left me wondering about the fact that many things were... Read more
Published on 4 Jan 1999
Superb book on the lasting effect of war on "civilians"
Quite simply, one of the best books that I've ever read--and I read for a living. The style is elegant but simple enough to be read by high school students. Read more
Published on 14 Jun 1998
A Stunning, Sobering, Remarkable Experience
Dr. K. Feig, author, Hitler's Death Camps: I suppose I have read 4000 memoirs of WWII experiences - and experienced each of those many times the range of emotions one could... Read more
Published on 8 Jan 1998
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