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leowissler's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
4.0
pearloz's review
3.0
Grim and almost impenetrable—a novel of a girlhood in, probably, a South American country with German parents. Seems like dad was a torturer in...Argentina? Flitty book, reads like the recollections of an older woman telling stories of her youth she barely remembers.
pageglue's review
Beautiful writing, but don’t fucking care. We get vignette after vignette of this little girl just living her day to day life and observing the world around her, and it’s boring as hell.
czytomasz's review against another edition
5.0
Króciutka książka o ogromnej sile rażenia. Nie spodziewałem się takiego ładunku emocjonalnego, ale chwyciła mnie za gardło i nie puściła do ostatniej strony. Historia o życiu w państwie totalitarnym, o słowach i języku, które je opisują i o ciszy, niedopowiedzeniach. Wszystko dzieje się gdzieś obok, a pośrodku tego wszystkiego stoi dziewczyna, która z dziecięcą naiwnością pojmuje świat. Mocne i ciężkie do wyrzucenia z głowy.
phantasyia's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
3.25
cythera15's review
4.0
~Working through my "Currently Reading" List~
I am very confused about the book. I am not sure why the book is called The Book of Words because it seems to me that words disappear into the background as the story progresses. I guess, perhaps, it is meaningful because the protagonist's father discovers the 'truth' through the words that come out of the people he tortures.
The descriptions of torture were too grotesque for me. Even though they were just words, they made my stomach sick.
Bernofsky's addendum at the end is very helpful. It puts the novel into the German perspective. I was unsure what to make of Erpenbeck's writing about an anonymous South American country. At first, it sounded like people during imperial days writing about "African country." But Bernofsky shows ways that the tyranny of the unnamed nation connects directly to Erpenbeck's childhood in East Germany as well as to Nazi Germany.
I am not sure what happened at the end, though. Did the father abandon the mother when he first tries to flee in the car? Is he arrested but is he released after three years in prison? After all, he's done? What about the mother? Why is the daughter so mad at her mother?
This clarified my questions a little bit: https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/book-review/jenny-erpenbecks-the-old-child-other-stories-and-the-book-of-words
But still more confused about it than satisfied. I think I need to let it sit for a bit.
I am very confused about the book. I am not sure why the book is called The Book of Words because it seems to me that words disappear into the background as the story progresses. I guess, perhaps, it is meaningful because the protagonist's father discovers the 'truth' through the words that come out of the people he tortures.
The descriptions of torture were too grotesque for me. Even though they were just words, they made my stomach sick.
Bernofsky's addendum at the end is very helpful. It puts the novel into the German perspective. I was unsure what to make of Erpenbeck's writing about an anonymous South American country. At first, it sounded like people during imperial days writing about "African country." But Bernofsky shows ways that the tyranny of the unnamed nation connects directly to Erpenbeck's childhood in East Germany as well as to Nazi Germany.
I am not sure what happened at the end, though. Did the father abandon the mother when he first tries to flee in the car? Is he arrested but is he released after three years in prison? After all, he's done? What about the mother? Why is the daughter so mad at her mother?
This clarified my questions a little bit: https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/book-review/jenny-erpenbecks-the-old-child-other-stories-and-the-book-of-words
But still more confused about it than satisfied. I think I need to let it sit for a bit.
jimmylorunning's review against another edition
3.0
Those who. Then their friends. Those who remember. Who are afraid. And finally everyone. Everyone everyone.A skillfully woven, lyrical novel/poem with a bang. Not as good as [b:Visitation|8638226|Visitation|Jenny Erpenbeck|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1327920715s/8638226.jpg|10864336], but similar in its sense of absence. The empty house in Visitation that gets populated with stories is here replaced with an empty child, naive, almost without words, who becomes a vessel through which careful repetition and ominous clues are dropped; the reader is very subtley nudged towards the crux of the novel. I think where the book suffers is where it becomes almost too perfect, not enough rough edges, so that it feels engineered around a certain effect. The narrator is too much a tool, a vehicle for the book. I think of it as sort of an excellently told fable, a well oiled engine, but it lacks the grit of the dead mother's milk in its teething mouth.
profejennifer's review against another edition
5.0
I feel this is a book I would need to read several times over to fully plumb the depths of, but the haunting, disturbing feelings come through even on a first reading.
savvy999's review against another edition
challenging
dark
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Beautiful, horrific, visceral and intense uhhh that ending tho, torture scene with the 70s bops in the back horrifying
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Death, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Kidnapping, and Torture