Book Description
The partition of India into two countries, India and Pakistan, caused one of the most massive human convulsions in history. Within the space of two months in 1947 more than twelve million people were displaced. A million died. More than seventy-five thousand women were abducted and raped. Countless children disappeared. Homes, villages, communities, families, and relationships were destroyed. Yet, more than half a century later, little is known of the human dimensions of this event. In The Other Side of Silence , Urvashi Butalia fills this gap by placing peopleâtheir individual experiences, their private painâat the center of this epochal event.
Through interviews conducted over a ten-year period and an examination of diaries, letters, memoirs, and parliamentary documents, Butalia asks how people on the margins of historyâchildren, women, ordinary people, the lower castes, the untouchablesâhave been affected by this upheaval. To understand how and why certain events become shrouded in silence, she traces facets of her own poignant and partition-scarred family history before investigating the stories of other people and their experiences of the effects of this violent disruption. Those whom she interviews reveal that, at least in private, the voices of partition have not been stilled and the bitterness remains. Throughout, Butalia reflects on difficult questions: what did community, caste, and gender have to do with the violence that accompanied partition? What was partition meant to achieve and what did it actually achieve? How, through unspeakable horrors, did the survivors go on? Believing that only by remembering and telling their stories can those affected begin the process of healing and forgetting, Butalia presents a sensitive and moving account of her quest to hear the painful truth behind the silence.
Customer Reviews:
the only book of its kind.......2007-09-17
a lot of the criticism regarding repetition is fair, yes. But it misses the point. Ms. Butalia has done something that really no other author has: record first-person accounts of the partition violence, from a population that is rapidly dwindling due to age. It is regrettable that more of such work has not been done. Of course she has her own agenda-- she is angry, and especially towards the violence visited on women-- but at no point does she make an attempt to HIDE this bias. You've got to be blind not to know that there is a personal pain and anger driving all this, and what is the matter with that. Stop criticizing her for tangential stuff and focus on the unique scholarship here.
Cheap sensationalism.......2006-07-09
This book reads like the sensationalist columns of a cheap eveninger. The authoress has listed a number of supposed to be eye witness accounts of mass murders and other brutalities and passed it off as an intellectual work of great merit. I totally agree with many other reviewers view that the book is extremely repetitive. The current trend in the world of arts and literature especially in south Asia appears to be one of playing to the galleries of the west. Shock their ( west ) sensibilities about what is happening in the east and good readership and fame and name is assured .The book lacks any kind of depth and analysis. The work is shoddy at its best.
One important criticism about this work stands out: The author repeatedly blasts the mass suicides of the desperate victims of these riots. Does she mean to say that the invading armies of the rioters are nobleness and kindness incarnate ?
The hapless victims in the face of imminent slavery in the hands of the satanical mobs have little choice. Though unfortunate , suicide appears to be the only alternative. This practice has stood the test of time. From the times when the marauding armies of Mahmud of Ghazni swept the plains of Punjab, the helpless civilian populace knows what to expect and what fate awaits them in the hands of their brutal conquerors.
And this author has the cheek to question and criticize these practices...The author has chosen to turn a blind eye to these pages in history books. Or is it mere ignorance ? With this the author has hurt the sentiments of the victims of these riots. She has desecrated the memories of these victims and insulted the history of partition. This book is of little literary value and lacks penetrative opinion.
This book ought to be avoided like the plague. It gives a skewed understanding of the history of partition.
Unfortunately there is no way to give 0 or negative stars or I would have certainly given negative stars.
Book in need of an editor!.......2006-03-26
I ordered this book because I am extremely interested in the
untold stories of the Partition of India even though the
reviews told me not to. I wished I had heeded the advice. The book is incredibly repetitive--to the point of being unreadable. I learned very little. Not worth the time to read or money to purchase.
The other side of silence..........2004-05-06
I have read this book, Mr. Moon's "Divide and Quit", Mr. Khosla's work, "Stern Reckoning" amongst others on the subject of the Partition. Ms. Butalia's work is so saturated with her personal opinions and idealogy, that it almost ceases to be a work on history than the airing of one's thoughts and mindset. Almost a diatribe, if I may. I will agree with what john_galt_who has written. I think he has hit the nail on the head. I did not consider this book worth either the money or the time.
A waste of your time and money.......2004-02-23
The amount of matter which the author has repeated again and again if you minus all that repeated matter, the book would hardly be of about a 100 pages .. Don't even borrow to read it ..
Average customer rating:
- A grim, sad tale of abuse.
- Suffering, humiliation, love, revenge and companionship
- compelling ...
- Written by a man
- "Vengeance is mine" saith Hanna X.
|
The Other Side of Silence
Andre Brink
Manufacturer: Harvest Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 Contemporary
| General
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Literary
| General
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Historical
| Genre Fiction
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
War
| Genre Fiction
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Similar Items:
-
Imaginings of Sand
-
Before I Forget
-
A Dry White Season
-
Devil's Valley
-
The Rights of Desire
ASIN: 0156029642 |
Book Description
With hopes for a better future after a dismal past, a young German woman dreams of escape to her country's colony in South-West Africa. When she learns of the women being transported to the colony to attend to the needs of male settlers, Hanna X takes the leap.
In Africa she is confronted with the harsh realities of colonial life. For resisting the advances of a German officer, she is banished to Frauenstein, a phantasmagoric outpost that is at once a "prison, nunnery, brothel, and shithouse." When the drunken excesses of visiting soldiers threaten the young girl who has become her only companion, Hanna revolts. Mounting a ragtag army of women and native victims of brutality, she sets out on an epic journey to take on the German Reich. Combining the history of colonialism with the myths of Africa, this is an exquisitely written tale of suffering, violence, revenge, and, simply, love.
Customer Reviews:
A grim, sad tale of abuse........2006-04-08
"The Other Side of Silence" is one of the bleakest novels you'll ever read. It is essentially the story of one woman's unending suffering and misery. With each new stop in her life comes a new abuse. An orphan, she shuffles from one person to the next and almost always encounters someone who wants to exploit her. Everything is taken away from this woman, Hanna, including, at one point, her last name. When she finally, briefly finds love, that too is cruelly stripped from her.
I'll admit, despite some obvious flaws, I found Hanna's story engrossing and compelling. I really felt for this woman and became involved in her tragic life. My complaint, though, is that Brink's characters are too black and white -- either "evil" or "good." Catholics take a particular beating here (they are either rapists, sadists or hypocrites) and men do, too. It seems in this world that you are either malevolent or an angel. There are also too many cliche scenarios (mixed in with the more original and unique turns in the story they feel quite clunky).
All of this refers to the first half of the book. Part two of the novel takes an entirely different direction. Hanna, with a young orphan (Hanna all over again) and a ragtag army, sets out on some lofty revenge. I found this section of the book highly misguided and almost ruinous. It severely damages the book. Brink seems unsure himself about Hanna's rampage. He questions exactly why they're doing it and if it's a good decision, and he starts to write the officers they kill as nothing more than foolish kids, which makes Hanna seem just as cruel as the people we're supposed to be happy to see die.
The whole thing feels absurd anyway. One attack by Hanna's army on a fort is laughable. As the men of the army ambush officers in the desert, the women start to knock off men one by one at the fort, right out of "Ten Little Indians," and as men keep getting killed after going off with the women and the women keep firing shots into the air toward the desert as signs, you have to wonder exactly how long it will take the German officers to figure out that this party that has just arrived -- and brought with it sickness and death -- is not friendly. The whole episode is like a bad sitcom.
The first part of the book centers on Hanna's time in an orphanage and her stay in Frauenstein, a massive edifice in the African desert. I found her history -- violent and depressing as it was -- fascinating; Hanna becomes very real to you. You do want her to take the young orphan, Katja, and get away from Frauenstein, and briefly the book keeps pace by introducing a rather scary missionary when they leave, but as soon as this army forms and Hanna incessantly tries to justify what she's doing, the book falls flat on its face. And the ending is utterly contradictory and wholly unsatisfying.
I give the book four stars because for me it is really two books: Hanna's history, and the tepid revenge conclusion that has no real need to be here. Without the latter -- and with a real finish, in which Hanna saves Katja -- it would have been nearly perfect. But even as it currently is -- mightily flawed -- it is still worth reading.
Suffering, humiliation, love, revenge and companionship.......2005-11-03
Mr Brink tells the haunting story of Hanna X which takes place at the beginning of the 20th century in the German colony of what was then called Deutsch-Südwestafrika (German South-West Africa), now Namibia. It was then the custom that the Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft sent hundreds of women and girls to Africa "to assuage the need of men desperate for matrimony, procreation or an uncomplicated" love-making.
Hanna X, resident of a forlorn place called Frauenstein in the middle of nowhere in the desert, contemplates her face in the mirror. Tufts of blond hair hacked off with a kitchen knife, part of her right ear is missing leaving a dark hole, she has only part of the left eyebrow left, her face is criss-crossed with scars and most frightening of all, she has no tongue, only a small black stub, far back. The sound she utters is Ahhhhh... How did Hanna X undergo such hideous mutilations and who inflicted them to her?
And so the narrator traces back the harrowing tale of this poor orphan back to her childhood in Bremen. She grew up in an institution called the Little Children of Jesus where her books were confiscated by Frau Agathe, where she was "touched" by Pastor Ulrich and beaten regularly. Hanna found refuge with her teacher, Fräulein Braunschweig, who let her read stories like "Die Leiden des Jungen Werther" or that of Jeanne D'Arc.
Her years in service were also marked by desolation. With the Klatts for instance. Frau Hildegard was a mean-spirited woman and Herr Dieter had to be "serviced" for a few Pfennig. So Hanna decided to apply with the Kolonialgesellschaft and was granted passage to Africa by Frau Sprandel who dismissed her with the premonitory warning not to "expect too much of her palm trees". It is on board the Hans Woermann that Hanna experienced love and tenderness for the first and only time in her life with a girl called Lotte. It was after their arrival in Africa, during the train journey which was to take them to Windhoek, that Hanna was confronted with Hauptmann Heinrich Böhlke and the outcome of this encounter was what Hanna now sees in the mirror in Frauenstein: a monstrously disfigured creature...
Such humiliation and dismemberment was inflicted to her not because of anything she had done but simply because she was a woman. From then on, it is hatred that drives everything she does "as inexorable as the desert sun". This hatred is a form of liberation for Hanna as she begins her long journey with Katja towards the confrontation with the man or men who turned her into something "like out of hell". As the two women set off in the desert towards Windhoek, it is to keep an appointment with destiny...
"The Other Side of Silence" is probably the best novel ever written about the horrors of colonialism in Africa. Some passages in the book remind the reader of what happened during the Holocaust. Mr Brink has rightly been compared to the greatest writers of our times like Solzhenitsyn, Garcia Marques or Peter Carey.
compelling ..........2004-07-29
As a student of South Africa, I found The Other Side of Silence a fascinating addition to my understanding of the country's early colonization. The language is spare, important when mutilation is central to the storyline. I read it twice, the second revealed nuances missed during the first. On my recommendation, my book club will read this ...
Written by a man.......2004-04-16
No, I'm not a raging feminist who critiques all books on this subject but this does reasonably explain this one's faults. It's always a risk writing from a character's perspective who is of the opposite sex. Even an accomplished writer like André Brink can't make it float.
Now that I've stated this, I admit that it would be hard to give examples without giving away the whole story line. For those who read the book, what happens to Gisela bothers me. These are not the actions a mother would take. Also, what was Hanna looking for in Africa? What did she really want? She never ponders marriage, children, pursuits of women in her age. At least say why or why not and what alternatives were offered to her in those days (not many, I expect).
The only sympathetic male character was introduced in the last few pages. Otherwise, they're all evil.
It's true that the book gets so gory that you stop caring. It numbs you after intially being so shockingly horrible. With the holes in the plot, it starts to ring very untrue and unbeliveable. That was pretty compicated surgery, preformed on a train?? What happens with her little band bother me (only Katja and Hanna left?). How were they able to eat in the desert? The first fort takeover was almost silly. You'd think the German soldiers were the dumbist on the planet. I could go on and on...
He's still a great writer but "A Dry White Season" was much better. My South African cousin gave it to me, saying that it could describe the situation in her country better than she could. I couldn't bring myself to watch the film. The injustice that Brink pulled off there was so real. He lost that with this book.
Am I a hypocryte if I go out and buy the sequel? He says he'll write about Katja's child. I think it's a testiment to his writing. Too bad his talent is wasted on a feeble plot.
"Vengeance is mine" saith Hanna X........2003-07-07
And she says it in a big way.
This novel takes place in the early years of the 20th Century, among the German-occupied colonies of South-West Africa. From her earliest years as an orphan, Hanna X, the main character in Brink's novel, suffers incredible amounts of abuse. First off, there is the unreasonable strictness of Frau Agathe to deal with. Beatings are a regular thing at the orphanage "because it is a Christian place where evil will not be tolerated." Then there is the lecherous priest, Pastor Ulrich, who violates her physically and spiritually. Then, a series of transitional periods where the young Hanna is shipped from one place to another, and these experiences always result in trauma, disappointment, disillusionment. Her life becomes characterized by alienation, loneliness, pain, loss, and denigration.
Throughout all of this, Hanna hangs on to a fleeting childhood memory, something she refers to as "The Time Before"... in which she remembers meeting an Irish girl named Susan at the beach of the Weser in Bremen. Susan gave Hanna a shell, and told her to listen to its inner sounds. Hanna keeps this shell, and for her it comes to represent the "silence which she carries deep within her, from the lost time before she ever arrived at the orphanage..."
When Hanna hears that hundreds of women are regularly being shipped from Hamburg to the remote African colonies to serve as wives for the men stationed there... she signs up. What could be worse than what she is presently experiencing?
She arrives at Swakopmund, and ends up at an extremely remote secular nunnery known as Frauenstein.
Here (and on the way here) she will learn that there are places worse than the orphanage. Much worse.
What follows is a very dark story. Do not be mistaken, this is a story difficult to read for its brutal depictions of torture and violence, but written in a style and with an imagery that is evocative, unmistakingly vivid, even beautiful.
However, this is in no way a beautiful story where all is resolved at the end. Where justice has its day, where all is made right. One ought to be prepared for this fact.
It shows the most absolutely horrid aspects of human nature, and always face-up, in the full light of the hot sun. Not only are the perpetrators of crimes against Hanna (the heroine) shown in all of their shameless ghastliness, but she herself becomes nearly as brutal in the latter half of the book. There comes a time when Hanna says "No more" and understandably, we want her to succeed in her plans for vengeance against the greatest of crimes that have been commited against her. She assembles a ragtag band of vigilantes, those who have suffered injustices of their own, and together they set out on a quest to reclaim dignity, with Hanna as their (mute) leader.
This is a difficult book, but only because of its subject matter. The way it is written makes me want to read more by this wonderful author.
Amazon.com
The writing of gay history has been a relatively recent invention. Starting with such books as Jonathan Ned Katz's Gay American History (1976), Arthur Evans's Witchcraft and the Gay Counter Culture (1978), and Lillian Faderman's Surpassing the Love of Men (1981), gay and lesbian historians have charted both the presence of gay men and women in the world as well as their influence upon it. John Loughery's The Other Side of Silence builds on this foundation to great effect. Books of gay history (dealing with enormous amounts of new material to interpret) have tended to discuss politics and culture as separate concepts, and the complicated interrelationships between the two have often been confusingly contradictory. Loughery has pieced together--using the work of such historians as Katz, Alan Berube, John D'Emilio, and George Chauncy--a highly readable survey of eight decades of gay male life that knits together the political and the cultural. He is thus able to explain, for instance, how the openly gay career of Tennessee Williams existed during the homophobia of the 1950s, or how the Supreme Court's 1986 Bowers v. Hardwick decision (maintaining that same-sex couples do not have a right to engage in consensual sex in private) could be made at a time when gay arts and culture were flourishing in America. Loughery is as mindful of the passage of anti-gay laws as he is of the plots of gay novels and developments in gay theater; as a result, he manages to assemble--with wit and intelligence--a complex and illuminating social history of gay male lives of this century. --Michael Bronski
Book Description
Based on hundreds of interviews, new and classic texts, and little-known archival sources, an award-winning writer offers the first narrative history to consider the multiple meanings of "gay identity" in the whole United States.
Customer Reviews:
Silent all these years.......2003-04-25
An excellent, well written, researched and fascinating book that chronicles the life of homosexuals through the 20th Centrury. I can't imagine a book that could ever top this book for insight, accuracy and profoundity. I wish everyone--gay or straight--would read this.
Gay History, U.S. History.......2002-09-19
This book has been one of the best history books I have ever read. It is not only complete, but also well written in a very clear style which allowed a non-native english speaker like me to read it without much difficulty.
"The other side of silence" helped me understand the developments of the gay movement in the US, which give us many clues to understand its evolution in other parts of the world.
But I want to stress one particular aspect: Loughery's book is an excellent work of American history. As a non-US citizen, I have learnt a great deal about the evolution of American society in the 20th century. Explaining gay people's lives in the fifties, we get a clear picture of those rather somber postwar years in which suspicion seemed to be the rule. Then, we witness the ideological maelstrom of the 60s and 70s, a manifestation of which was the gay liberation movement in its openly militant version (which is not the birth of this movement, Loughery makes it very clear). Finally we are introduced to new right reaction, new conservatism, and AIDS crisis.
It is precisely its being an excellent book of American History which makes it a brilliant introduction to gay US history. Thanks to this book I have been able to better understand the movements which take place within American society. Those movements which often cause perplexity to a European mind, when confronted to the paradoxical coexistence of sodomy laws, far right influence, on one side, and one of the most active gay communities in the world, on the other.
History - not half-truths and myths!.......2002-03-23
It is refreshing to see someone attempting something approaching an actual popular history of gay people in America rather than the constantly invoked mythologies and distortions that usually pass for it.
This is an accessible book intended for the average reader, and if it gets widely read it could be a boon to rectifying the distorted picture American gay people have of their past. The bizarre idea that there was no such thing as being "out" prior to the Stonewall events and that there was no substantial gay subculture prior to then - vibrantly lived in the face of the overwhelmingly negative social environment - can finally be pitched into the waste basket where it belongs. The events surrounding the Stonewall raid opened up the eyes of many closeted men and women to the fact that thousands of gay men and women had already created a thriving subculture, and that given the extreme liberal drift in late 60s and early 70s it was safe to come out and participate in it if you dared.
Informative, Clear Prose.......2002-03-22
Very helpful in providing a sense of the change in the ...[gay] social scene in the United States. Loughery writes clearly using a good balance of factual trivia and generalizations. After reading this book, a ...[gay] ally will be better prepared to discuss human rights and the social constructs of gender and sexuality.
A great read!.......2001-11-18
Lougherty's monograph is simply the most comphrensive and most entertaining look at the evolution of gay rights in the past century. Starting with the police and military's treatment of gay servicemen in World War I and concluding with the formulations and issues with the gay movements of the 1990's, Lougherty tastefully explicates every issue that has affected gay and lesbian Americans. I was personally most interested in his first-person accounts from World War II veterans explaining both the military's systematic expunging of gay servicemen and its facilitation of gay self-identification by letting closet gays serve together. His examination of the McCarthy era and the Mattachine Society's beginnings are also quite interesting. His descriptions of the early peaceful protests were fascinating, providing a stark contrast to the peaceful protests I see as a student today. The first-person approach to gay history is something greatly needed in our movement, and I'm glad Lougherty was able to publish this before it's too late. A great read for people interested in the truths in gay history!
Book Description
A chapter-by-chapter update of a bestselling classic, the first and still the best book to link Christian meditation with Jungian psychology.
Customer Reviews:
The Difference Between Discussing The Journey And The Journey Itself.......2006-07-21
Morton T. Kelsey's `The Other Side of Silence', originally released in a hardcover edition by Paulist Press in '76 is now available in revised, paperback format. Kelsey, theologian, psychologist, priest and educator (professor of Theology at Notre Dame Univ.) is to be congratulated for being among one of the first Western, Christian theologians to attempt to make some inroads into the field of meditation that seemed to be the private domain of Eastern spirituality at the time.
Positives: Kelsey does an adequate job of laying out a solid intellectual framework for the novice meditator in his explanation of both the physical and spiritual aspects of the human soul, the presence of both angelic and demonic forces that one may encounter when meditating and most importantly how to recognize the presence of the Divine Lover (Christ).
Negatives: `The Other Side of Silence' turns out not to live up to the claim of being `A Guide to Christian Meditation'. It falls more into the category of intellectual discussion rather than practical "how to" guide. Yes it includes some personal experiences and the re-telling of a dream here and there, but it never really initiates the process of going within.
Kelsey is a good place to start for appropriating some basic concepts on Christian meditation and gaining an initial understanding of some of the subtle differences between Western and Eastern practice. However when you're really ready to seriously begin the journey you'll have to look elsewhere for your guide.
Confusing and repetitive.......2001-05-25
Our study group chose this book as a source to learn more about comtemplative meditation. I am very disappointed in the book. Kelsey repeats himself over and over again. He makes statements that have no legs to stand on - and without giving them any - it seems that he assumes everyone accepts his pronouncements as truth.
The short (of the long and the short) is that the book is poorly written and very confusing. It lacks clarity on every page.
Eastern Christianity.......2000-04-06
This book really changed my focus in life. It satisfied the craving that I had as a Christian for a deeper understanding of my relationship with God. I think that many Christians shy away from the unknown, like meditation and yoga, and as a result, cut out an essential part of our sprituality. Kelsey explains that this is why so many people today are turning to Eastern religions. Through this book, I found a way to incorporate silence and meditation into my life, and as a result, have found a deep peace, the peace that passes all understanding.
Bridges to cross, peaks to explore.......2000-01-31
I was first introduced to Morton Kelsey and his wonderful books in 1975. All of his books have come at a time when I was looking for confirmation of my lived experiences, expecially the inner life. What a blessing to have this author give of himself in this way. I will be eternally grateful for his passion for the spiritual. In his book The Other Side, one very important point has stayed with me all these years and that would be the focus on dreams. Morton Kelsey does justice to dreams in the christian life when so many other christian authors avoid this means of communicating with God. Morton Kelsey explains that dreams are the safest and least threatening way to visit the other side. God only goes where he is wanted, He will not intrude. MT 7:7 "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.
Customer Reviews:
Deaf Pride.......2004-04-18
For anyone that is studying to be an Interpreter, Teacher of the Deaf, etc., or has a Deaf family member, this book is a necessity. All areas pertaining to American Sign Language and the Deaf community were thoroughly explored and thoughtfully portrayed. There was so much infomation, personal interviews and stories about all aspects. Arden Neisser went everywhere and talked to everyone. This book was very rich in text and left little to be discovered. Nothing was missing! An invaluable source that will leave a tremendous impact on its readers.
Deaf Pride.......2004-04-18
For anyone that is studying to be an Interpreter, Teacher of the Deaf, etc., or has a Deaf family member, this book is a necessity. Every single issue ever pertaninng to the Deaf community was thoroughly explored and thoughtfully portrayed. There was so much infomation, personal interviews and stories about every aspect of Deaf Life. Arden Neisser went everywhere and talked to everyone. This book was very rich in text and left little to be discovered. Nothing was missing! An invaluable source that will leave a tremendous impact on its readers.
A good book to add to your library.......2003-11-03
The other side of silence is a well written and researched book. It seems that now-a-days books about the Deaf and the Deaf community fall into either the oralist or manualist camp, with very little falling in the center. As a sign language interpreter I am biased (of course) towards the manualist view, and generally dismiss oralist themed books out of hand. However, I was pleased and fascinated to read a thoughtful and unbiased exploration of both sides of the age old argument.
Good Yet Challenging Read.......2003-09-01
Though no easy read, this book lets you peek into the world that Deaf individuals (such as I) encounter. It shows you first hand the discrimination that deaf and hard of hearing people experience on a daily basis. It tells of such issues as oralism and making American Sign Language known as the foreign language that it is (and not simply "English on the hands").
If you want to know more about the Deaf world, this book is full of interesting information, but be warned that you may have moments where you must return to the previous page to fully understand what you just read. Not for the light-hearted reader, this book is highly recommended by this Deafie. :v)
Recomended.......1999-02-24
This book gave a good insight into many of the issues of the Deaf Community. I enjoyed the many interviews with famous Deaf and hearing members of the Community. The book was not light or airy in content, but gave a good portion of facts in an easily understood manner. I recomend this book.
Average customer rating:
- Spy novel - slow but in-depth about the English traitors
|
The Other Side of Silence (Perennial Library Mystery Series)
Ted Allbeury
Manufacturer: HarperCollins Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
British
| World Literature
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
| 18th Century
| 19th Century
| 20th Century
| Classics
| Contemporary
| General
| Historical
| Humor
| Letters & Correspondence
| Middle
| Old
| Poetry
| Renaissance
| Shakespeare
| Short Stories
ASIN: 0060806699 |
Customer Reviews:
Spy novel - slow but in-depth about the English traitors.......1998-08-29
This was an interesting spy story which goes into depth about one of the three famous English traitors of the '60s, Kim Philby. It describes the search for truth via the eyes of a member of the SIS (British Secret Service) when Philby asks to return home to England from Russia.
It is not an exciting book in the sense that it has no action. Basically, the book evolves about a series of interviews that the SIS person has, The reader, through these discussions, slowly begins to understand what is happening. It has some pretty interesting twists and turns.
If one wants to go in deeper about what happened in this period, or if one knows something about these spies, then a reader will find the book interesting. Otherwise, for excitement, go elsewhere.
Customer Reviews:
Good Book on Meditation.......2006-08-21
Good author and comprehensive book on meditation, separated into five distinct parts.
Average customer rating:
- Keep This Book Under QT!
- Inner and Outer Lives
- a multi-stranded story such as I expect from Margaret Mahy
|
The Other Side of Silence
Margaret Mahy
Manufacturer: Puffin Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Action & Adventure
| Literature
| Children's Books
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0140378030 |
Book Description
In her brilliant but argumentative family, Hero is different, because she doesn't speak. Instead, she prefers the silence and solitude she finds climbing the trees high above her neighbors stately old house. But everything changes when Hero starts to do odd jobs for the neighbor -- and discovers a shocking secret high up in the tower of the house. "Mahy is a writer who just keeps getting better with every book."-- Kirkus Reviews, pointer review "Mahys exceptional imagination and storytelling prowess will make it difficult for readers to leave this book behind themhers is a tale with staying power."-- Publishers Weekly, starred review New Zealand author Margaret Mahy won the Carnegie Medal for The Changeover and The Haunting. Her most recent novel for Viking is Tingleberries, Tuckertubs, and Telephones.
Customer Reviews:
Keep This Book Under QT!.......2005-04-20
I didn't like this book. It was just too weird.
Hero, 12 is selectively mute (selectively mute as distinguished from electively mute in that the person speaks in specific instances to certain persons). She was named for a character in Shakespeare's "As You Like It." Her siblings have the odd names of Athol, 23 Ginevra, 21 and younger sister Sapphira comprise the family along with their conventionally named author parents Mike and Annie. Annie is a lover of words and Ginevra follows in her footsteps by writing a book about how intelligence is stimulated by vocabulary enrichment. Sapphira gets on everybody's nerves with her use of arcane words such as "collieshangle," "cogger" and others.
Ginevra returns home with boyfriend and baby on the way; Hero is hired to work in her neighbor's garden and do light housekeeping. Plenty of weird things take place in this book and the girl in the attic was just too implausible to be taken seriously, even on a literary level. The ending is just as bizarre as the rest of the book. Forget this book. There are better books about elective (choosing not to speak) mutism and selective (speaking only under specific conditions) mutism.
Inner and Outer Lives.......2001-09-25
Another fine book from Margaret Mahy dealing with the complex emotional lives of teens. Hero, the silent one, struggles to deal with her loving, but clueless family of geniuses. Mom is well-known author on childhood genius (based on her own children's lives), Dad is a stay at home mom, her older sister uses her gift for math and physics to wreck cars and her brother is a secret script writer for a steamy soap opera. Amid this chaos Hero lives two seperate lives, an inner life of fantasy adventures and outer life mostly defined by her voluntary decision not to speak, which puzzles and frustrates her family.
A chance encounter with a mysterious neighbor lady at once expands Hero's scope for innocent fairy tales while at the same time forcing Hero to confront the darker side of the fantastical. As her curiosity takes her into the neighbor's own bizarre life she learns the awful consequences of living a fairy tale and the differences between voluntary and involuntary silence.
Plenty of plot and not without touches of humor, Hero's quest to unite her innner and outer selves provides a thoughtful look at growing up and finding one's own voice in the world.
a multi-stranded story such as I expect from Margaret Mahy.......1997-12-07
A difficult but rewarding story, and it reminds me of some of Jan Mark's latest books and of FIRE AND HEMLOCK by Diana Wynne Jones. If anyone else has noticed this, I'd love to hear from them.
Books:
- The PMP Exam: How to Pass On Your First Try (Test Prep series)
- The Power of Focus: How to Hit Your Business, Personal and Financial Targets with Absolute Certainty
- The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart: Poems for Men
- The Road (Oprah's Book Club)
- The Sackett Companion
- The Source: A Novel
- The Verbally Abusive Relationship: How to Recognize it and How to Respond
- The Washington Manual Internship Survival Guide Second Edition
- The Wedding Day: A Novel
- The Wicked Games of a Gentleman: A Novel (Boscastle Family)
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- History: Fiction or Science
- Corps Commanders of the Bulge: Six American Generals and Victory in the Ardennes
- Weygandt: Solutions Manual to Accompany Solving Principles of Accounting Problems Using Lotus 1-2-3
- Yu-Gi-Oh! Reshef of Destruction
- Applied Ethics for Program Evaluation
- Bring Me That Horizon:
- China and the Legacy of Deng Xiaoping: From Communist Revolution to Capitalist Evolution
- Costos y Gestion - Con Un CD ROM
- Who Needs Credit
- Oaktown Devil
A Concise History of India
Borders & Boundaries, Women in India's Partition
Women in Modern India
Sultana's Dream and Selections from The Secluded Ones (A Feminist Press Sourcebook)
Remembering Partition: Violence, Nationalism and History in India (Contemporary South Asia)
