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Indlæser... Waiting for Columbusaf Thomas Trofimuk
Top Five Books of 2015 (460) Indlæser...
Bliv medlem af LibraryThing for at finde ud af, om du vil kunne lide denne bog. Der er ingen diskussionstråde på Snak om denne bog. This book let me down. The only saving grace was that the writing was beautiful. Unfortunately that's not always enough to save a book. The idea was certainly interesting, but to me the execution failed. It also dragged. I wanted to reach inside the book and shake the narrator telling them to "get on with it already". I'd call this a pretty sub-par experience. This book is partly a mystery -- who is this man who believes he is Christopher Columbus, and why are the police looking for him? It is also an exploration of how we deal with trauma. The setting is an institution for the insane, where a strange man tells stories about his life as Christopher Columbus to his nurse. She and his doctors wonder if they will ever unlock the secret that keeps their patient locked in the 15th century. Columbus's stories are confusing...often set in a 15th century complete with telephones and television. The reader, like the other characters, is left wondering what grain of truth there is in the stories. The author brings it all together well. A great read. It has been often said that there is a fine line between genius and madness. But there is a thin line of text between our reality of today and history. That is the main theme that Thomas Trofimuk explores in his brilliant book Waiting for Columbus. Page 14-15 Up until a few weeks ago, Consuela did not go into his room unless she was with an orderly. Those first few days, when he was restrained, she was fine being alone in the room. But after the restraints came off, he was unpredictably violent, as well as incoherent, with occasional bouts of lucidity and a lot of gibberish. Even not he still strikes out with a righteous violence, and his resolve to escape is emphatic. Columbus wants to go to sea. This is clear from his babble. Apparently something horrible will happen out there. Something only he can stop. There are days when Consuela wonders if she should just tell him how the real Christopher Columbus has already been to the New World and returned. but she thinks that telling this story would be mean. This man does no harm by believing himself to be Christopher Columbus. This is the second of Trofimuk's books that I have discovered recently and it is brilliant. Usually when plot is muddled with too many voices, a book can be hard to follow but in Trofimuk's case, the mixing of voices works to build confusion adds to the narrative. Link to my complete review This is something I wrote for the blog, Books on the Nightstand: http://booksonthenightstand.com/2009/10/story-too-good-to-stay-buried.html
In fact, Trofimuk's novel is, in form, a kind of whodunit, complete with a police inspector, but with an unidentified victim at the heart of the mystery, as opposed to an unidentified perpetrator. Thomas Trofimuk’s latest novel has all the ingredients of a sexy, cosmopolitan mystery, deftly alternating between the viewpoints of its psychologically broken players, creating smooth transitions in what could have been a choppy read. Hæderspriser
Found in the treacherous Strait of Gibraltar, a man who answers only to the name of Christopher Columbus is delivered to a mental institution in Sevilla, Spain. Nurse Consuela, a lonely young woman searching for love, who listens to his fantastical tales of adventure and romance day after day, tries desperately to make some sense of why this man has been locked up. Waiting for Columbus vividly and tenderly explores the fragility of the mind when faced with incomprehensible pain and is a timely look at how the psychological reverberations of terrorism continue long after the blast. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Indlæser... GenrerMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.6Literature English (North America) American fiction 21st CenturyLC-klassificeringVurderingGennemsnit:
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The story mixes elements of the 21st century with a telling of the story of Christopher Columbus, through broken fragments from the memories of the mental patient. It is romanticised, because the mental institution is described in the same dreamy prose as the rest of the novel and of course the beautiful unmarried nurse Consuela is earmarked for a romance with her patient. The mystery element will pull many readers on through the book and this reader was not disappointed with the quality of the writing. The soft, sensual language can make this story seem more like a fairy tale than a modern day romance, but there are one or two sex scenes that introduce elements of reality. The characters are well developed and the dialogue works well enough. This is a love story, teetering on the edge of tragedy and kept me entertained during those inevitable downtimes when travelling. 3.5 stars. ( )