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bibliobrandie's review against another edition
2.0
This book took me a long time to read, I just couldn't get into it. I didn't care for any of the characters and this just wasn't my kind of read. There were some really beautiful passages, but not enough to sustain me. It did make me realize that I have a lot to learn about the history of this area of the world.
elenavillan's review against another edition
dark
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
froggin_around_'s review
3.0
3.5 maybe? this started really well and reading the first half was a really emotional experience for me, but then it kinda became weird and flat. this does not read as a novel, the so-called narration took away from the rest, which would have been a great long poem about loss, displacement and identity
kennedyfio_'s review
challenging
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
scarletohhara's review
4.0
This is a 4-star and not a 5-star only because of how the story/book ended - I didn’t follow the climax and thought the author lost her plot here. Except this one point, this is a marvelous book.
Losing the option to return to one’s motherland is sad. The fact that the said motherland doesn’t exist in the form we knew it is sadder (and I know it a little from the separation of the state in India where I grew up). Even losing your mother tongue and the fact that it is split into different languages from one - this is the worst, in my opinion.
How else is one supposed to express herself if the words are taken away? How are we supposed to heal if we don’t talk of our pained pasts from the motherland? These themes are dealt in great detail and beautifully in this book, and I enjoyed the various stories of the protagonists’ youth in their homeland, rather FatherLand Yugoslavia... most of them reminded me of the 90s India I grew up in and I put myself on their shoes and felt their pain to a slight fraction.
Definitely read this if you yearn for your motherland and mother tongue and your literature matters to you, and if you don’t live in your native land.
Losing the option to return to one’s motherland is sad. The fact that the said motherland doesn’t exist in the form we knew it is sadder (and I know it a little from the separation of the state in India where I grew up). Even losing your mother tongue and the fact that it is split into different languages from one - this is the worst, in my opinion.
How else is one supposed to express herself if the words are taken away? How are we supposed to heal if we don’t talk of our pained pasts from the motherland? These themes are dealt in great detail and beautifully in this book, and I enjoyed the various stories of the protagonists’ youth in their homeland, rather FatherLand Yugoslavia... most of them reminded me of the 90s India I grew up in and I put myself on their shoes and felt their pain to a slight fraction.
Definitely read this if you yearn for your motherland and mother tongue and your literature matters to you, and if you don’t live in your native land.
mangliu0130's review
4.0
在读赫塔米勒的间隙读Ugrešić好像不太公平，米勒的文字要优美得多，在情节上Ugrešić更下功夫。《疼痛部》前面80%为后面20%做了很漫长的铺垫，读者以为她在写以母语为本的记忆与思考，笔尖一转就来一场流亡者之间的冲突大戏，实在精彩。
paulineg's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
annemaries_shelves's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
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
4.0
I liked it but I feel a little off-kilter having finished the novel.
The Ministry of Pain is a novel of tensions of the former Yugoslavia through those who have been exiled and are now scattered as refugees across Europe. Ugrešić hyperfocuses on language, memory, and pain to explore those who want to forget and those who can't forget; those who remained and those who left (the only moment of triumph being that point of departure); those who can form connections and those who struggle to exist in reality; and the liminal and ever-changing space of Yugonostalgia.
The power of nostalgia as both a political and community tool was one of the strongest points of the novel. Ugrešić delved into its impacts on the individual, the interpersonal, and the community (to a lesser extent, the political system) and how this desire to selectively remember impacts your ability to remain in the present, look to the future, or connect with those around you who may share similar experiences but have very different approaches to the past.
Tanja at times has a bit of an unreliable narrator hue to her - her desperate desire to remember the past and reconcile all of the changes that have occurred to 'our language' and 'our home' perpetrated by 'our people' causes her to make questionable decisions and form ill-advised bonds with her students, many of whom have also escaped or otherwise been exiled from the former Yugoslavia. Setting the novel in Amsterdam made for an interesting contrast to Zagreb with respect to cultural differences, isolation, and the experience of having no true home in either region.
As the novel progressed into the final part and the classroom framing device is removed, Tanja felt like a shadow of herself as the author more directly discusses the book's themes with the reader. I felt like this choice stalled our main character's presence and growth in the final 50 pages unfortunately.
I also didn't love the penultimate interaction (or final one tbh) between Igor and Tanja. I think the author made some pointed and ultimately effective choices as Tanja is in many ways unknowable to both herself and the reader. But to me, Tanja's reactions were irritating (to say nothing of how Igor acted). I did appreciate the callback to the bullet though.
I think ultimately this novel was a processing of the emotions and grief of being in exile/a refugee from a situation that the international community didn't care about soon enough. There's some really poignant passages about grief and how time heals or at least scars over the pain that I think a lot of people can relate to.
Overall, I appreciate novels like this as I don't know much about the former Yugoslavia or the experiences of those left to survive in the settling of the dust. If you like more literary writing with some bizarre metaphors and unsettling yet melancholic tension, I recommend picking this one up.
(For a different, darker type of novel that also explores the victims of these wars, I highly recommend The Unquiet Dead by Ausma Zehanat Khan, which follows Canadian police investigators on a case with ties to the 1995 Srebrenica Massacre in Bosnia).
The Ministry of Pain is a novel of tensions of the former Yugoslavia through those who have been exiled and are now scattered as refugees across Europe. Ugrešić hyperfocuses on language, memory, and pain to explore those who want to forget and those who can't forget; those who remained and those who left (the only moment of triumph being that point of departure); those who can form connections and those who struggle to exist in reality; and the liminal and ever-changing space of Yugonostalgia.
The power of nostalgia as both a political and community tool was one of the strongest points of the novel. Ugrešić delved into its impacts on the individual, the interpersonal, and the community (to a lesser extent, the political system) and how this desire to selectively remember impacts your ability to remain in the present, look to the future, or connect with those around you who may share similar experiences but have very different approaches to the past.
Tanja at times has a bit of an unreliable narrator hue to her - her desperate desire to remember the past and reconcile all of the changes that have occurred to 'our language' and 'our home' perpetrated by 'our people' causes her to make questionable decisions and form ill-advised bonds with her students, many of whom have also escaped or otherwise been exiled from the former Yugoslavia. Setting the novel in Amsterdam made for an interesting contrast to Zagreb with respect to cultural differences, isolation, and the experience of having no true home in either region.
As the novel progressed into the final part and the classroom framing device is removed, Tanja felt like a shadow of herself as the author more directly discusses the book's themes with the reader. I felt like this choice stalled our main character's presence and growth in the final 50 pages unfortunately.
I also didn't love the penultimate interaction (or final one tbh) between Igor and Tanja. I think the author made some pointed and ultimately effective choices as Tanja is in many ways unknowable to both herself and the reader. But to me, Tanja's reactions were irritating (to say nothing of how Igor acted). I did appreciate the callback to the bullet though.
I think ultimately this novel was a processing of the emotions and grief of being in exile/a refugee from a situation that the international community didn't care about soon enough. There's some really poignant passages about grief and how time heals or at least scars over the pain that I think a lot of people can relate to.
Overall, I appreciate novels like this as I don't know much about the former Yugoslavia or the experiences of those left to survive in the settling of the dust. If you like more literary writing with some bizarre metaphors and unsettling yet melancholic tension, I recommend picking this one up.
(For a different, darker type of novel that also explores the victims of these wars, I highly recommend The Unquiet Dead by Ausma Zehanat Khan, which follows Canadian police investigators on a case with ties to the 1995 Srebrenica Massacre in Bosnia).
Content Warnings
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Suicide, and Grief
Minor: Torture, Vomit, War, Death, and Genocide
sophiavillanueva's review against another edition
3.0
"... porque regresar es la muerte, y quedarse, la derrota..."