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Loading... Primeval and Other Times (1996)by Olga Tokarczuk
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. I had already read House of Day, House of Night by Olga Tokarczuk and liked it very much. The same kind of form happens in Primeval, where we are given stories about common people, millers, housewives, in a small village . Their stories are divided into "Times" and given a mythological quality in the telling. In the background, or around them, we would read too about the larger workings of history, the Nazis, the Wars. But the main thrust of the book is still very much about presenting history from the common person, not a big-man/official/objective telling of history. What I liked most was probably how the common, the banal stories were written with such grandiose that seems contrary to the people the stories were coming from. Also always enjoy Olga's ponderings and renderings of religious (in the Christian tradition usually) thought & myths. Within the story, there is a "game" where she introduces 7 different kinds of worlds where God manifests or exists differently. It's one of my favourite parts of the book. This is an intriguingly unusual book, and not one I feel I understood well enough to review adequately. It is an allegorical modern fairy tale set in a Polish village as it is subjected to the vagaries of twentieth century history. Tokarczuk's vision has a creator God at its centre, but one who has lost much of his power, and the whole thing is suffused with a rather surreal folklorish atmosphere. Realismo mágico polaco, que no es como el colombiano pero encandila lo mismo. Otra forma de narrar una saga familiar, en apenas 200 páginas vemos desfilar 3 generaciones de un entorno rural y llegamos a conocerlas como si fuera una de las familiar de Tolstoi. Sentimientos a flor de piel, magia interior, el paso del tiempo, nacimiento, muerte... las guerras europeas como telón de fondo, con su horror y sus "herencias", la vida entendida por cada uno según su historia y su caracter. Un gusto de lectura.
For me, it’s rare for an author of fiction to accomplish “soul-touch,” but Olga Tokarczuk does just that with her captivating spiritual imagery and layers of characters that touch the heart-depths of readers’ imaginations. Primeval and Other Times is an award winning novel (first published in the 1990s) that takes place in a mystical Polish village guarded by four archangels through the 20th century. AwardsNotable Lists
"Set in the mythical village of Primeval, a microcosm of the world populated by eccentric, archetypal characters and guarded by four archangels, the novel chronicles the lives of the village's inhabitants over the course of the feral 20th century and the episodice violence visited on them."--Book flap. No library descriptions found.
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)891.85373Literature Literature of other languages Literature of east Indo-European and Celtic languages West and South Slavic languages (Bulgarian, Slovene, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Serbo-Croatian, and Macedonian) Polish Polish fiction 1919–1989 1945-1989LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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L’uomo è una creatura sciocca, ha bisogno di imparare. E così fa aderire su di sé il sapere, lo va raccogliendo come un’ape e via via lo accumula, per poi usarlo e trasformarlo. Questo però non cambia quel tanto di “sciocco” che è in lui e che ha bisogno di apprendere.
(19)
Gli uomini credono di vivere più intensamente degli animali, delle piante, e a maggior ragione delle cose. Gli animali intuiscono di vivere più intensamente delle piante e delle cose. Quanto alle cose, durano, e questa durata è più vitale di tutto il resto.
(50)
Dunque le facce erano tre. All'improvviso Izydor provò una profonda sensazione di incompiutezza, avvertì la mancanza di qualcosa di straordinariamente importante.
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Capì dunque quale fosse la causa di quella sensazione di mancanza, della tristezza che è al fondo di tutto, che da sempre è presente in ogni oggetto, in ogni singolo fenomeno: l9mpossibilità di comprendere contemporaneamente ogni cosa.
(201)
Cosa significava che erano passati? Erano passati come i paesaggi che ci lasciamo alle spalle quando camminiamo, ma che rimangono comunque in qualche luogo e continuano a esistere per altri occhi? O forse il tempo, preferendo cancellare ogni traccia dietro di sé, riduce in polvere il passato e lo annienta irrevocabilmente?
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