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Silk (Paperback)

by Alessandro Baricco (Author), Ann Goldstein (Translator)
4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
RRP: Ł5.99
Price: Ł3.78 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
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Product details

  • Paperback: 112 pages
  • Publisher: Canongate Books Ltd; New edition edition (7 Sep 2006)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1841958352
  • ISBN-13: 978-1841958354
  • Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 13 x 2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 6,797 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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    #1 in  Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > B > Baricco, Alessandro

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Product Description

Review

"An intensely powerful and perceptive drama of the deepest human desires... One of the most astonishing and moving novels I have ever read." Daily Telegraph "A heart-breaking love story told in the form of a classic fable... A literary gem of bewitching power." Sunday Times "Silk is the perfect pick-up book... A book of startling images and ideas." Observer "Deeply moving - A delicately crafted love story and an anatomy of desire." Guardian"


Mail on Sunday

‘A haunting and delicately erotic novella’ --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
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Customer Reviews

30 Reviews
5 star:
 (21)
4 star:
 (7)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:
 (1)
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Average Customer Review
4.6 out of 5 stars (30 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars "The inexplicable sight of his life as it had been...", 5 Mar 2006
By N. Clarke (Lancs, UK) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Silk (Paperback)
After medieval attitudes to outsiders and two large fantasy tomes, my most recent read was something of a change of pace: Silk, by Alessandro Baricco - a brief, moving, utterly beautiful fairytale of longing and loss, set predominantly in mid-19th-century France and Japan (& which, I hear, is to be made into a film, with Keira Knightley).

The story centres on Herve Joncour, a young French silk breeder. When silk production in his home town is threatened by disease, he travels to Japan in order to smuggle out uninfected silkworms. There, he finds himself captivated by the concubine of his local contact. Despite the danger, as Japan erupts in civil war, and despite his marriage to the loving but childless Helene, Herve finds excuses to return, repeatedly. Lacking a common language, never exchanging a mutually-intelligible word, and venturing little beyond stolen glances, Herve and the concubine fall in love.

It is told, with an elegant simplicity (one of the review quotes on the back compares the language to that of haiku, and I concur), in the rhythms and logic of fairytale. Lines and passages recur, becoming motifs, like the stylised repetitions of Herve's journeys to and from Japan, which punctuate the two poles of his life, his encounters with the concubine and his repeated reunitings with Helene. In a such a stripped-down narrative, the flashes of imagery - in particular, colours - are especially striking and resonant as evocations of mood and theme. The characters, likewise, are made archetypes, their longings and lusts universalised, larger-than-life.

And the conclusion, of course, is desperately poignant - bringing home, finally, how longings for things that will never be can obscure the things that are.

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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Silken words, 22 Sep 2004
This review is from: Silk (Paperback)
Only 100 pages long a mere haiku of a book but intensely poetic and emotionally charged and very re-readable. In translation from the Italian I personally will never know what it has lost if anything but a wonderful, peaceful, wistful thoughtful read.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A beautiful and sensual novella, 31 Dec 2005
By Depressaholic (London, UK) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   
This review is from: Silk (Paperback)
Barrico’s ‘Silk’ is the story of Herve, a young man working in the silk industry in Europe. Every year he must return to the orient to replenish the supply of silkworms because they cannot be bred in Europe. He develops an overpowering desire for his Japanese supplier’s daughter, despite only glimpsing her briefly. Back in Europe, Herve fantasises about her constantly, and is filled with longing for this girl who he has never really met. Each year is spent looking forward to his next trip to the east. Eventually he receives a letter in which the girl tells him of her desire for him, only to be shocked when he finally understands its source.
‘Silk’ is an achingly beautiful. It is sensual and erotic without being at all pornographic (except, perhaps, for the letter that eventually arrives). Herve’s love for this mysterious oriental girl is brilliantly contrasted with the loving familiarity provided by his wife in France. It is an examination of passion and the foolishness which accompanies it, and it is told in such plain language and simple style that it is instantly accessible to anyone who has every desired the unknown and mysterious.
‘Silk’ is only a small novella, but it completely blew me away. It is succinct, beautiful, familiar and powerful. Its sensuousness is overwhelming, and the denouement startling. One of the best novellas I have ever read.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Artificial silk
"Silk" is about a French silk merchant who travels to Japan to buy silkworms after the European silkworm stock is decimated. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Wiggles

5.0 out of 5 stars A Love Poem.
Around 1860 there is an epidemic disease among the silkworm eggs in France. Hervé Joncour organizes - in the course of four years - four expeditions to japan to buy healthy... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Jan Dierckx

5.0 out of 5 stars A True Masterpiece
A sensuous, eloquent, rhythmic narrative that reads like poetry. Beautifully tragic.

It very rarely happens that you can pick up a book and once you have read it,... Read more
Published 7 months ago by S. Carter

5.0 out of 5 stars You can't be human if you don't shed a tear or two at the end
Without doubt my favourite short novel. If you've seen the Kiera Knightley film, although it tried to stick firmly to the story it failed to capture the beauty of the novel, and... Read more
Published 7 months ago by D. J. Keyworth

5.0 out of 5 stars Poetic and sensual
`Silk' by Alessandro Baricco is a poetic, sensual novel set in 1862, France. The book is moderately short, but the quality of the writing transports you with the descriptions of... Read more
Published 16 months ago by Farah Yousif

4.0 out of 5 stars Lyrical, sparse and lovely
Certain reviewers compared this to Haiku, but to my mind this has something of the fable about it. It was reminiscent of a more pared down version of Angela Carter's The Bloody... Read more
Published 19 months ago by Mrs. K. A. Wheatley

4.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful but marred
This is a delightful haunting book redolent of Calvino's invisible cities,

but the second love letter is crude and jars in the otherwise parred down writing
Published 22 months ago by G. Williams

4.0 out of 5 stars fairy tale prose
Whilst never unique or monumental enough to be a classic, the charged writing masked within childlike fairy tale prose ensures this slim volume will capture the heart and mind of... Read more
Published on 13 Jul 2006 by deadmanjones

5.0 out of 5 stars Powefully Pereceptive of human desires...
A rare and wonderful find.Only 104pages long and easily read in one sitting.The prose is haunting and delicately erotic and flows from page to page. Read more
Published on 13 Aug 2005 by Karon.

4.0 out of 5 stars Hauntingly Erotic
This is a very serious book and it very deep. I thought it could have been slightly more light hearted in tone, but aside from that I felt it was very thought provoking and... Read more
Published on 27 April 2005 by dfoisy2

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