Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Collection
Publication
Faber and Faber (1985), 170 pages
Description
"Let us not mince words here: Danilo Kis's Garden, Ashes is an unmitigated masterpiece, surely not just one of the best books about the Holocaust, but one of the greatest books of the past century." Aleksandar Hemon, from the introduction
User reviews
LibraryThing member arubabookwoman
This brief but dense novel is the story of Andi Sham, a sensitive young boy, and his father, an unpredictable and bombastic man whose sanity is questionable. While set in Eastern Europe during World War II, the Holocaust and the war are in the distant background, and seem to have little effect on
The prose is dreamlike and poetic, and the tone is introspective. While narrated by Andi, it is by no means narrated from the point of view of a child. This was a difficult, but rewarding read. Highly recommended.
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Andi's life. While the family frequently moves to avoid discrimination against Jews, the moves are sometimes the result of Andi's father's failure to support the family. Instead, his father is obsessively composing a book about, well, everything: "alchemical studies, anthropological studies , anthroposophical studies, archeological studies, studies in the doctrine of art for arts sake" and so on, alphabetically for several pages ending with "studies in unanimism, uranographic studies, studies in urbanism, urological studies, utopistic, venereological studies, studies in versification, voluntaristic studies, vulcanological studies, Zionist, zoogeographical, zoographic, zoologicalstudies."The prose is dreamlike and poetic, and the tone is introspective. While narrated by Andi, it is by no means narrated from the point of view of a child. This was a difficult, but rewarding read. Highly recommended.
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LibraryThing member pessoanongrata
Genius. A simultaneously intense and whimsical story of a Jewish family escaping persecution during WWII. Heavily influenced by Bruno Schulz and Borges. An overlooked classic...
LibraryThing member jonfaith
Tandem read w/ my own Mrs.
What ensued were plumes of discussion concerning the idea of Jewish lit within Balkan letters. I enjoyed the discussion as much as I did this haunted novel.
What ensued were plumes of discussion concerning the idea of Jewish lit within Balkan letters. I enjoyed the discussion as much as I did this haunted novel.
LibraryThing member stillatim
Many readers love this book, and it's worth knowing that I'm generally bored by holocaust art, and even worse, that I roll my eyes at the very idea. That's unfair to Kis, whose book is not at all another dull heart-string puller, but I can't help it. I'm just tired of attempts to capture, in art,
Leaving aside that whole question, though, Garden, Ashes is the kind of first novel that gets me very excited to read more by the same author. There's no unity here at all: some realistic depictions of a father figure, some surreal weirdness, some lavish (I mean that as a criticism) descriptive prose.
The early chapters, and the last chapter, are glorious, and I'll be re-reading them in the future. But the first-novel feeling reaches its height after the first hundred pages, when Kis decides, for no particularly good reason (I know, I know, it's because of the holocaust) to make the father the focus of the book, and then the father disappears. The following chapter is a fine short piece with little connection to the preceding pages. And then it all goes downhill. Other reviewers have noted that without the father the whole thing heads off the rails. Sad but true. I would put the decline even earlier: after the first "father" chapter, the book probably could have ended, but for the return to the narrator's fear of death in the final chapter.
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that singular horror. I miss something, then, because this is interesting attempt. Leaving aside that whole question, though, Garden, Ashes is the kind of first novel that gets me very excited to read more by the same author. There's no unity here at all: some realistic depictions of a father figure, some surreal weirdness, some lavish (I mean that as a criticism) descriptive prose.
The early chapters, and the last chapter, are glorious, and I'll be re-reading them in the future. But the first-novel feeling reaches its height after the first hundred pages, when Kis decides, for no particularly good reason (I know, I know, it's because of the holocaust) to make the father the focus of the book, and then the father disappears. The following chapter is a fine short piece with little connection to the preceding pages. And then it all goes downhill. Other reviewers have noted that without the father the whole thing heads off the rails. Sad but true. I would put the decline even earlier: after the first "father" chapter, the book probably could have ended, but for the return to the narrator's fear of death in the final chapter.
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LibraryThing member Dreesie
This novel is, probably, somewhat autobiographical. Andi, the main character, is a child describing life with and then without his father in the 1930s into the 40s. At least part of the book takes place in (or near?) Hungary. His father is Jewish in 1930s Eastern Europe, an alcoholic and dreamer,
I did not much enjoy this book--it was a slog--for a variety of reasons, but I don't know if it is the story or the translation I found difficult. It is describes as lyric and poetic, but I found the language stodgy and stiff, and overly descriptive. The entire story is told by older Andi looking back, so there is no mention of war or concentration camps, or Jews being deported--it very much reads as from a child's perspective. But. BUT. The language is not a child's. It is nearly all past tense, and so much is passive voice. So many of the words chosen (again--this is the translation--are odd). Fiacre for hackney. Demiurgial. Neurasthenic. Czardases, barcarolles. A whole lot of religious musings. References to older works--Neues Tageblatt; Last Abencerage; children's stories that may or may not be real.
Really this whole book feels like a specific writing for people who get it. Maybe that includes all of Hungary, and Serbia, and all of the Balkans. But I found most of it confusing and stodgy.
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and often disappears for months on end. The family of four moves often, and his father has a reputation among family and neighbors. Until finally he does not return. The family is hungry, and Andi has awful dreams.I did not much enjoy this book--it was a slog--for a variety of reasons, but I don't know if it is the story or the translation I found difficult. It is describes as lyric and poetic, but I found the language stodgy and stiff, and overly descriptive. The entire story is told by older Andi looking back, so there is no mention of war or concentration camps, or Jews being deported--it very much reads as from a child's perspective. But. BUT. The language is not a child's. It is nearly all past tense, and so much is passive voice. So many of the words chosen (again--this is the translation--are odd). Fiacre for hackney. Demiurgial. Neurasthenic. Czardases, barcarolles. A whole lot of religious musings. References to older works--Neues Tageblatt; Last Abencerage; children's stories that may or may not be real.
Really this whole book feels like a specific writing for people who get it. Maybe that includes all of Hungary, and Serbia, and all of the Balkans. But I found most of it confusing and stodgy.
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Subjects
Language
Original language
Serbian
Original publication date
1965 (original Serbo-Croatian)
1975 (English translation)
ISBN
0571134793 / 9780571134793