Status
Available
Publication
Ballantine Books (1999), 368 pages
Description
Anna has returned from visiting her mother. Restless and unable to sleep, she wanders through her parents' house, revisiting the scenes of her childhood. In a cupboard drawer, folded and pushed away from sight, she finds a sepia photograph of her grandmother, Hanna, who she remembers as old and forbidding, a silent stranger enveloped in a huge pleated black dress. Now, looking at the features Anna recognises as her own, she realises she is looking at a different woman from the one of her memory. Set against the majestic isolation of the Scandinavian lakes and mountains, this is more than a story of three Swedish women. It is a moving testament of a time forgotten and an epic romance in every sense of the word.
User reviews
LibraryThing member janeajones
Hanna's Daughters is a novel of 3 generations of Swedish women.
Hanna, the daughter of peasant family, although raped as a young servant, she married an ambitious miller and moved into the country gentry. But as the country moved into the 20th century, the agricultural economy languished, and when
The summary sounds a bit like a soap opera, and Fredriksson sometimes resorts to stereotypes -- but novel weaves in a century of Swedish history with a compelling family history. She skillfully navigates different narrative voices as she moves back and forth within the generations.
As a fourth-generation Swedish immigrant from families of strong women, I identified with the familial patterns and expectations. It's probably not a book for everyone, but the women in my family loved it.
Hanna, the daughter of peasant family, although raped as a young servant, she married an ambitious miller and moved into the country gentry. But as the country moved into the 20th century, the agricultural economy languished, and when
Show More
Hanna's husband died, the family was forced to move to Goteborg and learn to make their way in the city. Johanna, Hanna's daughter, after a disastrous stint in domestic service with a doctor's family, worked in a delicatessen and joined the Social Democrats as a young woman. She married a dashing young carpenter who took her sailing and bought her a house with a garden. However, it was not until after WWII, when she returned to work, earning her own money, that she felt secure and respected. She had mixed feelings when her daughter Anna went off to university and moved within the bourgeosie, the class she had despised since her youth. Anna supported herself as a writer even after her divorce from her adored, but womanizing, husband. It is Anna who delves into the stories of her mothers and grandmothers, revealing generations of secrets.The summary sounds a bit like a soap opera, and Fredriksson sometimes resorts to stereotypes -- but novel weaves in a century of Swedish history with a compelling family history. She skillfully navigates different narrative voices as she moves back and forth within the generations.
As a fourth-generation Swedish immigrant from families of strong women, I identified with the familial patterns and expectations. It's probably not a book for everyone, but the women in my family loved it.
Show Less
LibraryThing member CandyH
A tremendous book about 3 generations of mothers and daughters. This is a wonderful tapestry of the lives of these women and the history of the family that is revealed throughout the pages. If you like stories of families and the history of their lives, this is the book for you.
LibraryThing member Stefanie2505
Families are the cornerstones of civilisation and this book tells the story of a family full of extraordinary women.
LibraryThing member cindyloumn
One of my all time favorites! The best book I have read in a LONG time. Not a mystery at all. Sort of a romance. But none of the women ended up really loving their men. True spirit, true life, true emotions of how people become the people they become. I loved it!
12/19/98
12/19/98
LibraryThing member Zmrzlina
This is a wonderful read. It starts out a bit slow, and a bit confusing. I wished many times I had written a family tree to keep track of the characters. However, by the time I was halfway through, I had a pretty good handle on the names. The story switches generations, but the style of narration
What I love is the history of Sweden, and the bits about how the Socialist Party came to be in Sweden, and that there isn't ever blame placed on another character for causing another to be the way they are.
Too often family sagas place emphasis on blaming someone for faults in another. There are accusations of wrong doing and horrible treatment in this story, but there is no blame. It is more about accepting what has been done, moving on and trying to make sure it doesn't happen again. There is "dysfunction" here but it is not the featured story. That is why I so enjoy this story.
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changes, too, so I never got confused. What I love is the history of Sweden, and the bits about how the Socialist Party came to be in Sweden, and that there isn't ever blame placed on another character for causing another to be the way they are.
Too often family sagas place emphasis on blaming someone for faults in another. There are accusations of wrong doing and horrible treatment in this story, but there is no blame. It is more about accepting what has been done, moving on and trying to make sure it doesn't happen again. There is "dysfunction" here but it is not the featured story. That is why I so enjoy this story.
Show Less
LibraryThing member glade1
I thought this book was good but not great. It was a bit inconsistent, in my opinion, and I did not grow attached to any of the characters. The language at times seemed a bit stilted (I actually thought early on that it was a translation from a Scandinavian language, but could find no evidence of
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this, so I guess it was written in English). With the characters' own reserve and the jumps in time, as well as references to historical and geographical points that are unfamiliar to me and which were not explained in depth, I don't feel that I really got the "whole" story; it felt as if there were gaps. I guess that would be the case if it were a true family history -- it would likely have greater gaps -- but in a novel I want a bit more. Show Less
LibraryThing member sunflowerandzucchini
Surprisingly good - as the book goes on, the writer's skill becomes increasingly apparent as she shifts tone/voice with various generations/individuals. Really interesting.
LibraryThing member John
This is a story of a young Polish man's odyssey through the work camps of the Soviet Union, including the dreaded Kolyma in Siberia, during WWII. He survived, obviously, and is now a well-respected plastic and reconstructive surgeon in the USA. Bardach was a Polish Jew, living in eastern Poland in
Bardach spoke Russian well as he was born in Odessa and his family still had a number of relatives there. He wasn't keen on joining the Red Army, but he did so, prior to the German invasion, and was sent to tank school in Russia. With the invasion of the USSR, his tank regiment was moving forward to the front lines when the tank he was driving turned over in a river as he was exploring a ford. He was arrested and convicted in a field court-martial of trying to sabotage the Soviet war effort and harbouring intentions of returning to this home town to assist the Nazis (this made up by the soldier left with him for a couple of days while they waited for help to pull the tank out of the water). He was sentenced to death, and then had the first of major interventions of fate, or luck, that kept him alive: the ranking NKVD officer was a Jew from Odessa who had lived on the same street as Bardach's relatives, and he commuted the sentence to 10 years hard labour.
Then followed a mind-numbing trip across the USSR from transit camp to transit camp, from prison to prison, in cattle cars, until he finally reached Kolyma. Along the way, Bardach escaped from the train, but was captured and viciously beaten for hours by the guards as an example to others who might think of escape. Perhaps his second stroke of fate/luck was that the commander of the train didn't want to be bothered with the paperwork involved if one of his prisoners died in transit. He didn't care what shape Bardach was in on delivery, but he wanted him alive. This slender thread saved Bardach's life.
The final stage of the trip to Kolyma was by ship with prisoners stuffed into the holds for a five day trip that the word nightmare does not begin to describe, particularly when one group of prisoners discovered that there were women prisoners on board. They broke through a wooden partition separating the two and went on a orgy of rape and murder. One could comment on the beastly nature of man, but I think that is giving animals a bad name: man is much worse because he has the capacity to think, and plan, no matter how limited or screwed-up his intelligence. As I read once:
Nothing in nature around us is evil. This needs to be repeated since one of the human ways of talking oneself into inhuman acts is to cite the supposed cruelty of nature....Cruelty is the result of talking oneself into the infliction of pain or into the conscious ignoring of pain already inflicted. The cuckoo doesn't talk itself into anything. Nor does the wolf.
In Kolyma, Bardach was set to work clearing forests and then in the mines in incredibly harsh and difficult circumstances. Then came the next stroke of luck/fate: while being transferred to an even more horrendous mine, the truck he was on had a accident, tumbled down a steep incline and burned: all on board except Bardach and one other person were killed. When he was taken to the hospital, he pleaded with people he met there and got taken on as a feldsher, a medical assistant, although he lied totally in saying that he had had three years of medical school in university. This was his salvation. Life was not easy, especially when he contracted TB and thought that he would die, but it was infinitely better than the mines or the forests. Bardach was finally released after the war, thanks to the efforts of his brother, a high-ranking officer in the Polish army working in the embassy in Moscow.
The book is well-written. It is a story of unbelievable hardship and depravity with flashes of compassion and feeling and sympathy. It is also a testament to the strength of the human will and what some people can survive. As a description of the senselessness, lawlessness and brutality that was the Soviet regime, it is a microcosm of the dismay, confusion, despair, incredible hardships, brutal deaths, and loss of hope that was multiplied by millions of people across the Soviet and Nazi regimes.
Bardach started out with the belief that the Soviet Union was the workers' paradise and that it would welcome with open arms refugees, including Jews, from the Nazis. He was soon disabused of this, but hung on for a while to the other myth that Stalin was a great leader and if only he knew of the unlawful arrests and persecutions, he would put an end to them. It speaks to the power of the image of the Soviet Union and the effectiveness of its propaganda as a country run by and dedicated to the workers, but as another writer has said:
...these theories which drift across the sky become ridiculous, blind, ignoble, bloody, vain. Gentle ideas are pregnant with mountains of corpses.
There is a Kafkaesque irony to the fact that in the midst of the camps where death was continual through a combination of overwork and malnutrition, or murder by the guards or other prisoners, there were hospitals dedicated to the recovery of patients. But as one doctor said, the limit of his interest in the well-being of his patients was: "I want to get him in better shape and send him back to the mines".
In reflecting on why some people survived the camps and others didn't, Bardach comes to the conclusion that to survive you needed strength and luck. He had the former, but this alone would not be sufficient, and he was very fortunate in the latter.
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the area taken over by the USSR under the Molotov-RIbbentrop Pact. Life under the Soviets, and in particular the NKVD, was bad enough but the townspeople settled into an uneasy pattern of existence. This was thrown to the winds with the German invasion of the USSR. Bardach spoke Russian well as he was born in Odessa and his family still had a number of relatives there. He wasn't keen on joining the Red Army, but he did so, prior to the German invasion, and was sent to tank school in Russia. With the invasion of the USSR, his tank regiment was moving forward to the front lines when the tank he was driving turned over in a river as he was exploring a ford. He was arrested and convicted in a field court-martial of trying to sabotage the Soviet war effort and harbouring intentions of returning to this home town to assist the Nazis (this made up by the soldier left with him for a couple of days while they waited for help to pull the tank out of the water). He was sentenced to death, and then had the first of major interventions of fate, or luck, that kept him alive: the ranking NKVD officer was a Jew from Odessa who had lived on the same street as Bardach's relatives, and he commuted the sentence to 10 years hard labour.
Then followed a mind-numbing trip across the USSR from transit camp to transit camp, from prison to prison, in cattle cars, until he finally reached Kolyma. Along the way, Bardach escaped from the train, but was captured and viciously beaten for hours by the guards as an example to others who might think of escape. Perhaps his second stroke of fate/luck was that the commander of the train didn't want to be bothered with the paperwork involved if one of his prisoners died in transit. He didn't care what shape Bardach was in on delivery, but he wanted him alive. This slender thread saved Bardach's life.
The final stage of the trip to Kolyma was by ship with prisoners stuffed into the holds for a five day trip that the word nightmare does not begin to describe, particularly when one group of prisoners discovered that there were women prisoners on board. They broke through a wooden partition separating the two and went on a orgy of rape and murder. One could comment on the beastly nature of man, but I think that is giving animals a bad name: man is much worse because he has the capacity to think, and plan, no matter how limited or screwed-up his intelligence. As I read once:
Nothing in nature around us is evil. This needs to be repeated since one of the human ways of talking oneself into inhuman acts is to cite the supposed cruelty of nature....Cruelty is the result of talking oneself into the infliction of pain or into the conscious ignoring of pain already inflicted. The cuckoo doesn't talk itself into anything. Nor does the wolf.
In Kolyma, Bardach was set to work clearing forests and then in the mines in incredibly harsh and difficult circumstances. Then came the next stroke of luck/fate: while being transferred to an even more horrendous mine, the truck he was on had a accident, tumbled down a steep incline and burned: all on board except Bardach and one other person were killed. When he was taken to the hospital, he pleaded with people he met there and got taken on as a feldsher, a medical assistant, although he lied totally in saying that he had had three years of medical school in university. This was his salvation. Life was not easy, especially when he contracted TB and thought that he would die, but it was infinitely better than the mines or the forests. Bardach was finally released after the war, thanks to the efforts of his brother, a high-ranking officer in the Polish army working in the embassy in Moscow.
The book is well-written. It is a story of unbelievable hardship and depravity with flashes of compassion and feeling and sympathy. It is also a testament to the strength of the human will and what some people can survive. As a description of the senselessness, lawlessness and brutality that was the Soviet regime, it is a microcosm of the dismay, confusion, despair, incredible hardships, brutal deaths, and loss of hope that was multiplied by millions of people across the Soviet and Nazi regimes.
Bardach started out with the belief that the Soviet Union was the workers' paradise and that it would welcome with open arms refugees, including Jews, from the Nazis. He was soon disabused of this, but hung on for a while to the other myth that Stalin was a great leader and if only he knew of the unlawful arrests and persecutions, he would put an end to them. It speaks to the power of the image of the Soviet Union and the effectiveness of its propaganda as a country run by and dedicated to the workers, but as another writer has said:
...these theories which drift across the sky become ridiculous, blind, ignoble, bloody, vain. Gentle ideas are pregnant with mountains of corpses.
There is a Kafkaesque irony to the fact that in the midst of the camps where death was continual through a combination of overwork and malnutrition, or murder by the guards or other prisoners, there were hospitals dedicated to the recovery of patients. But as one doctor said, the limit of his interest in the well-being of his patients was: "I want to get him in better shape and send him back to the mines".
In reflecting on why some people survived the camps and others didn't, Bardach comes to the conclusion that to survive you needed strength and luck. He had the former, but this alone would not be sufficient, and he was very fortunate in the latter.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Carolfoasia
This is a book that was read before I joined the Book Babes Book Club. So, I am reading all the books I missed over the last 11 1/2 years. I had heard from the original members that it wasn't good. So I was prepared not to like it, but I did. Some of the writing is exquisite: "These roamings over
It was slow going, but I decided this day to sit down and really savor and read it and loved its poignancy. Hanna, Johanna, and Anna. Johanna was born at the same time as my grandmother in the same area of Sweden too. It has special meaning as I realized I finished reading it on what would have been my dear Swedish mother's 85th birthday.
I did not get the ending with Sofie the photographer and Anna. If anyone does, please enlighten me!
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the years taught me a great deal about the sea, what it sounds like and how it smells in storms or calm, in dull weather, sun or mist. But I know nothing of its intentions, anyhow nothing I can put into words, though occasionally I think it is all-embracing like the presence of God." It was slow going, but I decided this day to sit down and really savor and read it and loved its poignancy. Hanna, Johanna, and Anna. Johanna was born at the same time as my grandmother in the same area of Sweden too. It has special meaning as I realized I finished reading it on what would have been my dear Swedish mother's 85th birthday.
I did not get the ending with Sofie the photographer and Anna. If anyone does, please enlighten me!
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LibraryThing member NeedMoreShelves
I can appreciate the craft that went into this novel, but I couldn't quite immerse myself fully in the story. There were places that I found quite fascinating - as Hanna's and Johanna's stories were unfolding, I was fully engaged. However, the sections of the novel that took place in the present
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never quite connected with me - the story felt like it lost momentum, and therefore lost my interest. It was a great idea that didn't live up to it's potential. Show Less
LibraryThing member christinejoseph
3 generations Swedish Women
Anna has returned from visiting her mother. Restless and unable to sleep, she wanders through her parents' house, revisiting the scenes of her childhood. In a cupboard drawer, folded and pushed away from sight, she finds a sepia photograph of her grandmother, Hanna, whom
Anna has returned from visiting her mother. Restless and unable to sleep, she wanders through her parents' house, revisiting the scenes of her childhood. In a cupboard drawer, folded and pushed away from sight, she finds a sepia photograph of her grandmother, Hanna, whom
Show More
she remembers as old and forbidding, a silent stranger enveloped in a huge pleated black dress. Now, looking at the features Anna recognises as her own, she realises she is looking at a different woman from the one of her memory. Show Less
LibraryThing member ClareRhoden
This is a family saga with many twists and turns, one to keep you going.
LibraryThing member janeajones
Hanna's Daughters is a novel of 3 generations of Swedish women.
Hanna, the daughter of peasant family, although raped as a young servant, married an ambitious miller and moved into the country gentry. But as the country moved into the 20th century, the agricultural economy languished, and when
The summary sounds a bit like a soap opera, and Fredriksson sometimes resorts to stereotypes -- but the novel weaves in a century of Swedish history with a compelling family history. She skillfully navigates different narrative voices as she moves back and forth within the generations.
As a fourth-generation Swedish immigrant from families of strong women, I identified with the familial patterns and expectations. It's probably not a book for everyone, but the women in my family loved it.
Hanna, the daughter of peasant family, although raped as a young servant, married an ambitious miller and moved into the country gentry. But as the country moved into the 20th century, the agricultural economy languished, and when
Show More
Hanna's husband died, the family was forced to move to Goteborg and learn to make their way in the city. Johanna, Hanna's daughter, after a disastrous stint in domestic service with a doctor's family, worked in a delicatessen and joined the Social Democrats as a young woman. She married a dashing young carpenter who took her sailing and bought her a house with a garden. However, it was not until after WWII, when she returned to work, earning her own money, that she felt secure and respected. She had mixed feelings when her daughter Anna went off to university and moved within the bourgeosie, the class she had despised since her youth. Anna supported herself as a writer even after her divorce from her adored, but womanizing, husband. It is Anna who delves into the stories of her mothers and grandmothers, revealing generations of secrets.The summary sounds a bit like a soap opera, and Fredriksson sometimes resorts to stereotypes -- but the novel weaves in a century of Swedish history with a compelling family history. She skillfully navigates different narrative voices as she moves back and forth within the generations.
As a fourth-generation Swedish immigrant from families of strong women, I identified with the familial patterns and expectations. It's probably not a book for everyone, but the women in my family loved it.
Show Less
Subjects
Awards
Dublin Literary Award (Longlist — 2000)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1994
Physical description
368 p.; 5.48 inches
ISBN
0345433491 / 9780345433497
Local notes
Fiction