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Indlæser... Apostoloff (2009)af Sibylle Lewitscharoff
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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. The basic premise of Apostoloff is that Tabakoff, a wealthy member of the Bulgarian diaspora in Stuttgart, has paid for the remains of several of his compatriots who left Bulgaria shortly after the war — including the narrator's father — to be re-interred in Sofia. The narrator and her sister go along, more out of curiosity and for the sake of the free trip to Bulgaria than out of family piety, and arrange to take a tour around the country afterwards, with Rumen Apostoloff, a godson and former neighbour of their Bulgarian grandfather, acting as their driver and guide. The novel, mostly in the form of the narrator's reflections from the back seat of Rumen's modest Daihatsu as they drive around the country, starts out with the narrator very bitter and sarcastic towards everything, in particular her father (whom she hasn't forgiven for killing himself when she was a little girl) and Bulgaria (which gets hammered three ways, as an ally of Hitler under Boris III, as a Stalinist dictatorship, and as a crumbling, mafia-infested and ugly post-communist state). We leap backwards and forwards alarmingly between Bulgaria now and Degerloch in the sixties as she constantly finds new things to make fun of, but it's not the universal and sustained anger of a Bernhard or a Jelinek: as the book progresses, the narrator gradually starts to thaw out. She is struck by the atmosphere of an icon-filled chapel, she has fond memories of her Swabian grandmother, she recalls her affection for Tabakoff's late wife, and she reflects with some respect and pride on her eccentric Bulgarian grandfather, a Tolstoyan idealist who wanted to make common cause between philatelists, rabbit-breeders and Esperantists. (Apostoloff has invested considerable time in the rather futile project of translating the grandfather's papers into German.) In the end, she even manages to establish a sort of rapport with her father's troublesome ghost. This is a very funny book in parts, especially when it's talking about Bulgarian architecture or the great Bulgarian-Swabian funeral cortège, but perhaps not one that you would want to recommend to anyone with a deep patriotic love of Bulgaria. Letzte Woche habe ich Frau Lewitscharoff bei der Verleihung der Landauer Poetikdozentur gesehen: http://www.sueddeutsche.de/kultur/sibylle-lewitscharoff-als-poetik-dozentin-gege... Ich fand das Gespäch sehr interessant, eigentlich ziemlich so, wie die SZ im verlinkten Artikel schreibt. Frau Lewitscharoff beschreibt in diesem autobiographischen Buch vieles, was sie selbst erlebt hat: Selbstmord des bulgarischen Vaters, Kruzifixsturm der sterbenden Mutter usw. Die Ich-Erzählerin sitzt auf der Rücksitzbank und kommentiert eine Reise durch Bulgarien. Stil und Wortschatz von Sibylle Lewitscharoff sind unvergleichlich, von mir aus könnte der Roman doppelt so lang sein. Obwohl die Ich-Erzählerin am heutigen Bulgarien kein gutes Haar läßt, bekommt man doch Lust, hinzufahren und sich selbst ein Bild zu machen; nach dem Motto "So schlimm kanns doch nicht sein". ingen anmeldelser | tilføj en anmeldelse
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"Gone, finito, The End, I say. A father who puts an end to it all before he wears down the whole family deserves more praise than damnation." Two sisters travel to Sofia--in a convoy of luxury limousines arranged by a fellow Bulgarian exile--to bury their less-than-beloved father. Like tourists, they are chauffeured by the ever-charming Ruben Apostoloff--one sister in the back seat, one in the passenger seat, one sharp-tongued and aggressive, the other polite and considerate. In a caustic voice, Apostoloff shows them the treasures of his beloved country: the peacock-eye pottery (which contains poisonous dye), the Black Sea coast (which is utterly destroyed), the architecture (a twentieth-century crime). His attempts to win them over seem doomed to fail, as the sisters' Bulgarian heritage is a heavy burden--their father, a successful doctor and melancholy immigrant, appears in their dreams still dragging the rope with which he hanged himself. An account of a daughter's bitterly funny reckoning with her father and his country, laden with linguistic wit and black humor, Apostoloff will introduce the unique voice of Sibylle Lewitscharoff to a new and eager audience. No library descriptions found. |
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Intelligent, sarkastisch, witzig, aber ein wenig beliebig. Extrem überzeugend, erst gegen Ende des Buchs fiel mir wieder ein, dass Sibylle Lewitscharoff in Wirklichkeit gar keine Schwester hat, vorher hatte ich mich gefragt, ob sie die manchmal etwas zu intimen Details über ihre Schwester mit ihr abgesprochen hat.
Insgesamt vergnüglich, stellenweise etwas länglich, aber ein schöner Roman mit der meisterhaften Sprache Lewitscharoffs. Leider fehlen die absurd-magischen Einschläge, die ich an anderen Werken aus ihrer Feder liebe. ( )