Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
Αθήνα : Κέδρος, c1999.
Call number
4.123.0
Subjects
ISBN
9600417059 / 9789600417050
Description
Zigzag through the Bitter-Orange Trees weaves together the stories of four disparate young people in modern Greece: Lia, dying in the hospital from a mysterious virus; her brother Sid, the disaffected wanderer, her only remaining connection to the outside world; Lia's nurse Sotiris, an unstable blend of cowardice and desire; and the twelve-year-old rebel Nina, who dreams to break away from the humdrum life around her. Their four unforgettable voices mingle in a poignant black comedy of isolation and yearning, illusion and vengeance and the hunger for connection. With disarming power, Sotiropoulos portrays the conflicted world of the young-passionate and cynical, beautiful and grotesque.
User reviews
LibraryThing member papalaz
I first discovered Ersi Sotiroupolos through her acclaimed short story collection Landscape with Dog and my enthusiastic review of that perfect little volume held her up as an exemplar of the 21st century short form. I was in two minds as to whether or not to adventure into her novels since few
ZigZag is her fifth novel but the first to be translated into American, and I stress American rather than English, and in some palpable sense this makes reading the translation a double translation exercise for while Peter Green translates the words beautifully there is something not quite perfect about the translation and had I not read the short stories so wonderfully rendered by Karen Emmerich I would be hard pressed to put my finger on what it is. Put simply some of the essential contemporary Greekness of her characters seeps out of Green’s translation that Emmerich captures perfectly in her rendering of the short stories.
Quibble over, I must now turn to the more pleasurable task of reviewing the work itself. ZigZag is actually the motif that the author uses throughout the work and uses to great effect. Sotiropoulos is a master of character and here she gives us four memorable, fascinating characters whose lives in modern, pre-austerity Greece each zig and zag across the others’. She zigzags so cleverly that one almost misses the twists and turns that connect the four characters. In fact had I not previously noticed how Paul Auster often stitches three novellas together to make his most amusing and entertaining novels I might have missed it altogether. As a structure it is not entirely novel but it makes for a reading experience that challenges and rewards the attentive reader and entertains the casual reader.
Her prose is exact, colloquial. and entirely convincing and yet it yearns toward the poetic. Her characters are strong, flawed and often troubled. Her situations are challenging for both the characters and the reader. This is first class, top notch modern writing that restores my faith in modern literature. I look forward to reading more of her work as it is translated and am particularly to see how she portrays austerity Greece and its beleaguered citizenry - I have high hopes.
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modern writers handle both forms well: I was wrong, she is a master of both forms.ZigZag is her fifth novel but the first to be translated into American, and I stress American rather than English, and in some palpable sense this makes reading the translation a double translation exercise for while Peter Green translates the words beautifully there is something not quite perfect about the translation and had I not read the short stories so wonderfully rendered by Karen Emmerich I would be hard pressed to put my finger on what it is. Put simply some of the essential contemporary Greekness of her characters seeps out of Green’s translation that Emmerich captures perfectly in her rendering of the short stories.
Quibble over, I must now turn to the more pleasurable task of reviewing the work itself. ZigZag is actually the motif that the author uses throughout the work and uses to great effect. Sotiropoulos is a master of character and here she gives us four memorable, fascinating characters whose lives in modern, pre-austerity Greece each zig and zag across the others’. She zigzags so cleverly that one almost misses the twists and turns that connect the four characters. In fact had I not previously noticed how Paul Auster often stitches three novellas together to make his most amusing and entertaining novels I might have missed it altogether. As a structure it is not entirely novel but it makes for a reading experience that challenges and rewards the attentive reader and entertains the casual reader.
Her prose is exact, colloquial. and entirely convincing and yet it yearns toward the poetic. Her characters are strong, flawed and often troubled. Her situations are challenging for both the characters and the reader. This is first class, top notch modern writing that restores my faith in modern literature. I look forward to reading more of her work as it is translated and am particularly to see how she portrays austerity Greece and its beleaguered citizenry - I have high hopes.
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Language
Other editions
Il sentiero nascosto delle arance by Ersi Sotiropoulos (Hardcover)