Powstanie Warszawskie (Tadeusz Bor-Komorowski)

W wakacje jak zwykle pojechalam z corka do Polski. Tym razem odwiedzilysmy Warszawe i spedzilysmy troche czasu z moja przyjaciolka (w jej nowym wspanialym mieszkanku). Nie widzialam Warszawy juz kilka lat. I jakie to wspaniale miasto! Wybralysmy sie do wielu wspanialych miejsc aby spedzic razem czas, a poza tym przedstawic mojej nastoletniej corce troche historii Polski. 'Podroze ksztalca' - tak tak, zgadzam sie z tym w stu procentach. (ah, tak mi brakuje polskich liter - ale probowalam juz tyle razy ustawic je w moim laptopie i nie dzialaja!).

Jednym z miejsc, ktore odwiedzilysmy to  muzeum Powstania Warszawskiego. Wspaniale muzeum. Moje wyedukowane w Wielkiej Brytanii dziecko sluchalo naszych opowiesci o Powstaniu z zainterowaniem. Pozniej latwiej nam bylo wytlumaczyc jej znaczenie pomnika Powstancow i tablic upamietniajacych to wydazenie.

Zakupilam ksiazke 'Powstanie Warszawskie' autorstwa generala powstania - Tadeusza Bora-Komorowskiego z plyta CD z orginalnymi przemowieniami i wywiadami. I coz to za ksiazka! Z ciezkim sercem czytalam jak to naprawde bylo, od strony dowodcy tego powstania, tak z zaplecza. I tyle sie dowiedzialam! Bo mnie w szkole (w czasach jeszcze komunistycznych) uczono bardzo okrojonej (ocenzurowanej)  wiedzy na ten temat (wybielajac oczywiscie totalnie brak poparcia ze strony Sowietow). A tu dowiedzialam sie nawet ze Sowieci do powstania nawet namawiali, a potem zamilkli, czekajac po drugiej stronie Wisly na jego upadek. Wszystko tu jest pieknie wyjasnione - krok za krokiem.

Przemowienie generala do Polonii w Nowym Jorku z 1946 roku (na dolaczonym do ksiazki CD) jest bardzo wzruszajace. Przedstawia on w nim cala sytuacje polityczna tamtych czasow i ma nadzieje na szybkie odzyskanie niepodleglosci przez Polske.... i pomyslalam sobie: jakie to smutne ze to zyczenie spelnilo sie dopiero po ponad 40-tu latach!

Maly fragment ksiazki:
"Obok wszystkich innych okropnosci "kanalarze" spotykali teraz na swojej drodze najrozniejsze zasadzki i niespodzianki. Niemcy wrzucali do kanalow granaty reczne, miny i puszki z gazem duszacym, blokowali przejscia workami z cementem i gruzem, wieszali wewnatrz kanalow odbezpieczone granaty reczne. Woda spietrzona za tama usypana przez Niemcow zatapiala tych, ktorzy te tame usuwali, gaz dusil i oslepial. Czasem dochodochilo do walk pod ziemia z saperami niemieckimi. Toczyly sie one ciemnosciach, w nieprawdopodobnym fetorze, pomiedzy ludzmi brodzcymi po pas w blocie. Walczono z bliska granatami recznymi, na noze, a komu braklo broni, ten zanurzal i topil przeciwnika w odchodach.
Wreszcie Niemcy wpadli na nowy pomysl: w odleglosci kilkuset metrow od najczesciej uzywanego przejscia spuscili do kanalu wieksza ilosc ropy naftowej, ktora podpalili. (...) Groze walk w kanalach powiekszaly jeszcze jeki rannych i histeryczne smiechy ludzi, ktorzy nie wytrzymywali nerwowo tego, co sie tam dzialo. Zelazne pancerze przewodow kanalizacyjnych potegowaly kazdy odglos, kazdy jek czy okrzyk; kazdy huk odbijal sie stokrotnym echem, mozna go bylo uslyszec z odleglosci paruset metrow."
 

'Donde se cruzan los senderos' & 'La voz del silencio' (Carmen Malarée)

Durante mis clases de "Español: la conversación y la cultura" hemos hablado mucho sobre la situación política en Chile en los años después de la segunda guerra mundial hasta los tiempos de dictadura, entonces leí estos libros de Carmen Malarée - una escritora chilena -  con mucho interés.

´´Donde se cruzan los senderos”    -   El libro describe la vida cotidiana en un remoto pueblo chileno 'Aguas Sanas' y el fundo (que está cerca) entre 1939 y 1949. Todo empieza con el encuentro entre Dominga (mujer del director de escuela) y Amanda (mujer de un farmacéutico) que están conversando sobre el futuro de Pilar - una niña de 5 años que ha llegado equivocadamente a este pueblo. Lo único que saben de ella es su nombre y que vino de España y que llegó en el borde de Winnipeg para refugiarse de la Guerra Civil Española. Amanda, siguiendo la decisión de su esposo, quiere llevarla a un orfanato pero Dominga decide llevarla a su casa y cuidarla y educarla como si ella fuera su propia hija. El misterio sobre el origen de Pilar no se revela hasta las últimas páginas pero mientras tanto muchas cosas pasan en este pueblo entre diferentes personajes. Hay muchas historias individuales, pero entrelazadas, por ejemplo: una aventura amorosa entre una señora casada y un joven profesor, una historia de un matrimonio que después de años de indiferencia y orgullo descubren amor y felicidad matrimonial, también una historia muy emocionante de dos amantes que se encuentran después de muchos años y averiguan que su separación fue por causa de un malentendido, una trágica muerte de una adolescente inocente y muchos otros cuentos emocionantes. En mi opinión este libro es muy femenino. Pero hay también comentarios sobre la situación política durante esta época y yo estoy satisfecha con mi misma de poder entenderla.

 “La voz del silencio”   - Una novela corta que me tenía atrapada hasta el fin. Un terremoto, dos hombres y una adolescente atrapados entre las ruinas de un edificio. Uno de dos hombres antes de morir revela un misterio de desaparición y la muerte del hijo del otro hombre atrapado – la chica es un testigo de reconciliación con el pasado. Una historia muy emocionante – que me hizo llorar.

I am a very happy owner of both of the books with a personal dedication from the author. What a lovely and interesting lady she is!  I do hope Carmen publishes soon again.


 

"One Good Turn" (by Kate Atkinson)

Finished reading 'One Good Turn' almost two weeks ago.  Gripping -same as other books by Kate Atkinson  that I have read so far  - I could not put it down. Jackson Brodie - ex-policeman, ex-private eye, ex-husband, visits Ediburgh during the Ediburgh Festival, two years after 'Case Histories'. He is still with Julia (whom he met in 'Case Histories') but only just.
The novel starts with a road-rage incident and developes into murders somehow connected with one another. Russian girls, 'Honda man', a hitman, a writer of criminal novels, a wife of a rich dishonest businessman etc.. all together much much lighter than the 'Case Histories'. It even made me lough at times - at the end of the day it is subtitled "A jolly murder mystery" which implies that it is not as serious as the dark and gloomy 'Case Histories'.
 I love the way Atkinson tells the story from different characters' perspectives - I felt I wanted to know more about them and their lives. I have realised, with every Atkinson's book I read,  that the author has this capacity of encouraging certain bond between the characters and me - as it is easy to get an insight of the characters' mental state and inner feelings. Very enjoyable read, and I would recommend it as a holiday read.

One good quote (from Jackson Brodie):
"You said five little words to someone - How can I help you? - and it was as if you'd mortgaged you soul out to them."
 

'Case Histories' (Kate Atkinson)

This is the second book by Kate Atkinson that I have read, and Gosh did I enjoy it... I only confirmed my-previously-made opinion that Kate Atkinson is a brilliant writer.

Different cases, in different time - yet all connected as one private detective - Jackson Brodie - investigates them. A mystery of a child that dissapeared over thirty years ago, a murder of a young women ten years earlier, a story of a young mother sentenced to prison for murder of her husband... All is revealed in the end but the reader is kept in anticipation as the facts are given out slowly and in moderation presented within a totally manipulated timeline - once we are in the present, than in the past, then something happens then we are reading about what happened just before, than again we are going back to the past, all a bit gloomy yet written in great style.
 

I am so pleased  that there are more books by Kate Atkinson in my local library.

'Portrait in Sepia' (Isabel Allende)

I have just finished reading this wonderful novel and I am totally under the spell of the style and the characters in the book. I borrowed it from one of the participants of the  'Spanish - Conversation and Culture' class I attend each week. I assumed that I would not be returning it for a few weeks as I was in the middle of reading other books at the time. I couldn't have been more wrong. The moment I opened the book and immersed myself in reading the first few pages my attention shifted - I put aside all the other books, to read them later. I simply had to continue reading the 'Portrait...' It didn't take me long - I simply 'swallowed' it (I mean I read it very quickly).

Sitting on my sofa at home with a cup of coffee or tea in one hand and the book in the other, I was transferred to the 19th century San Francisco (US) and  Chile (with a quick visit to London and Paris). The story takes place before, during and after the War of the Pacific up until the first decade of the 20th century. A family saga with the most colourful, powerful and unpredictable characters one can imagine. Aurora del Valle is the narrator in the book. She describes her upbringing and the stories of her maternal and paternal relatives. Yet, not everything is revealed straight away as she does not actually know for a very long time who her parents were. She is in a strong need for closure and slowly over the years she keeps on finding out .... Aurora, suffers from terrible nightmares where people in black pyjamas appear. In the last pages the horrible truth behind the black-pyjamas people is revealed.

Aurora was brought up by her paternal grandmother - Paulina del Valle - a huge-in-size business-orientated extremely-rich matron with the most interesting and headstrong personality - firstly in San Francisco then in Chile.  Her paternal grandmother was Chilean. Her maternal grandparents were Chilean and Chinese, but she could not remember them since she had lived with them only until she was 5. Throughout her life she missed her Chinese grandfather emotionally (as if there was a huge hole in her)even though her little head could not remember him physically (and she did not even know for a very long time he even existed) - as a little girl she had had such a strong wonderful bond with him that it affected all her life.
In my opinion Tao Chi (Aurora's Chinese grandfather) is the most beautiful character here - with his eagerness to help people (he had an acupuncture clinic in San Francisco), wonderful love for his wife, his children and Aurora, and humble yet noble personality and dis-attachment to material things (as for whatever money he could save he would buy young slave-prostitutes from the brothels of china town to set them free and give them chance of a descent life). There are many other brilliantly portrayed personalities: Paulina del Valle, her English butler Williams (later her second husband!), Severo del Valle (who married Aurora's mother when she was pregnant), and Nivea - second wife of Severo (with whom she had 15 children!)...

I am definitely going to read more of Isabel Allende.  I already have one of her books on my Kindle and there are plenty in the local library. I might even treat myself to one or two of her books in original Spanish.

 

Quotes:

 

" 'I'm going to die' I screamed, throwing myself on her.

  ' This is not a convenient time to do that,' my grandmother replied dryly."

(Aurora just discovered she was bleeding (menstruating) for the first time, on the same day Civil War broke out)

" 'You already lost one leg in the war, Severo; if you lose the other, you'll look like a dwarf'.
'I don't have any choice, I'd be killed in Santiago anyway.'
'Don't be so melodramatic, this isn't the opera!' "
(conversation between Severo and his aunt Paulina before he left for another war - he indeed had lost one leg in the previous war)

" 'A printing press? Here? In my house?' my grandmother bawled.
  'I'm afraid so, Aunt,' murmured Nivea.
  'Shit! What will we do now!' And the matriarch fell back into her chair with her head in her hands, muttering that her own family had betrayed her, that we were going to pay the price for such incomparable idiocy, that we were imbeciles, (...)

"Since she was always pregnant. Nivea never relied on counting days but calculated instead the proximity of the coming delivery by the number of times she used the chamber pot. When for two nights in a row she got up thirteen times, she announced at breakfast that it was time to send for a doctor, and in fact her contractions began that same day."

"He was breathing, but his soul was already travelling through other dimensions. 'Good-bye, Papa,' I told him. It was the first time I had called him that. He agonized for two days more, and at the dawn of the third day he died like a baby chick."
(death of Aurora's father - she found out he was her father only a couple of months before)

" 'Light is the language of photography, the soul of the world. There is no light without shadow, just as there is no happiness without pain,' Don Juan Ribero told me seventeen years ago during the lesson he gave that fist day in his studio on the Plaza de Armas."

"Leaf Storm" (by Gabriel García Márquez)

It has been such a long time since I read Márquez! I am still remembering what impression ´One hundred years of solitude´ made on me when I read it as a teenager (in Polish). Everyone was reading it those days in Poland (I am talking late 80s here). Anyway, since then I have not come back to reading Márquez till now.

 

This novella (short novel) introduces the village of Macondo (which is exactly the same place as in ´One hundred years of solitude´). It is just that ´Leaf Storm´ was published in 1955 and ´One hundred years...´ in 1967. One can read ´Leaf Storm´ at one sitting really as it is not exactly long. But it is not a light read. Written from the three individuals perspectives - the grandfather (the Colonel), his daughter and his grandson. Three of them go to the corner house to the wake of the hated-by-the-whole-village doctor. They come to fulfil the Colonel´s promise given to the doctor years back - the promise to bury the body of the doctor when the time comes. It is a gruesome scene - filthy neglected house in which lonely, withdrawn and rejected (with quite peculiar and not exactly pleasant personality) doctor hang himself. His body gets put in the coffin, one shoe left behind.... They are waiting for the official permission to bury the body. Time is dragging, and in the meantime the reader is being told the story of the doctor (and bits of the town´s story) in retrospection and in no particular order by entering the thoughts of those three characters (granddad, daughter and her son). It kept me guessing and interested. Yet, not everything is revealed - not even the name of the doctor, or where he really came from nor what happened to his Indian mistress (who mysteriously disappeared years earlier). Gloomy but brilliant!  

 

I am planning on reading ´One hundred year of solitude´ again but in original - the copy of the book on my book shelf - a gift from my partner - awaiting me patiently. I know it is not going to be easy to read it in Spanish (even though I have  read it before and in my native language - but it was over 20 years ago so it does not count) but I have been wanting to do it for quite a while now. 

'Gandhi' A photographic story of a life (by Amy Pastan)

It is a very well written biography and a quick interesting read. I know it is primarily written for younger people to introduce them to this important character of the relatively recent history, but I would very much recommend it to anyone who is interested in finding out about Gandhi's life and work but would not want to get into all the detail. Feel-good shiny quality paper and the content loaded with photographs and notes explaining key terminology or briefly introducing  other important characters in Gandhi's life make it feel like a treasure. I think this book would be a brilliant gift to a teenager. I fairly enjoyed reading it, and will strongly recommend it to my daughter in the near future.