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Sonata for Miriam: A Novel by Linda Olsson
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Sonata for Miriam: A Novel (original 2008; edition 2009)

by Linda Olsson

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2691397,974 (3.34)23
A middle-aged man living on Auckland's Waiheke Island recalls vividly the sudden death of his daughter Miriam. Grief silenced Adam at the time, but now he decides to break the silence and explore the secrets of the past. The search becomes a tribute to his daughter, and takes Adam from New Zealand to Poland. There he finds the truth about his past, but now he must live with it. On an island off the rocky coast of Sweden he re-connects with the love of his life. Sonata for Miriam is a heartbreaking tale of a man's search for his past, about the exposure of secrets that have been hidden for too long, and about the importance of talking about the most vital and the most painful in life. But more than anything it is a novel about love. Rich and satisfying, Sonata for Miriam will stay with the reader long after they have put it down.… (more)
Member:CynthiaScott
Title:Sonata for Miriam: A Novel
Authors:Linda Olsson
Info:Penguin (Non-Classics) (2009), Edition: Original, Paperback, 304 pages
Collections:Your library
Rating:***
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Sonata for Miriam by Linda Olsson (2008)

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» See also 23 mentions

English (10)  Finnish (1)  Swedish (1)  Norwegian (1)  All languages (13)
Showing 1-5 of 10 (next | show all)
A disappointment from one of my favorite authors. While the writing and structure are absolutely beautiful, the story and characters left me with no sympathy and no desire to get to know them better, as well as very little understanding of what the purpose of the story was.

Adam is grieving the death of his daughter, which happens very early in the story. He is grieving, but we seem to get in on the end of it because there is no sense of heart-wrenching, brokenness, or despair. Instead, I was left with the feeling that since a main aspect of Adam's life was now gone, he simply needed to replace it with something or someone else. And the story centers around this search.

Toward the end of the book, we switch to Cecilia's voice. The woman who gave up her child with no valid explanation. And we never understand why. We never understand what this grief is that Adam claims she has. She comes across as very self-serving, self-absorbed, and everyone panders to her.

All in all, this book is a collection of beautifully crafted sentences and paragraphs, which have nothing at all to say. Not recommended. ( )
1 vote CarmenMilligan | Jun 13, 2016 |
This is not so good an effort as [Astrid & Veronika]. It’s really Adam’s story, I think. But because she uses first person, and because Adam was unaware of Cecilia’s story, she has to switch to Cecilia’s outlook mid-way. This transition is awkward and disconcerting.

In effect there are TWO stories here. Adam’s search for his past. And Cecilia’s need to reconcile her past in order to explain her present, and possibly to build their future. ( )
  BookConcierge | Feb 12, 2016 |
Wonderfully beautiful but plain prose. This is a quiet book by a very talented author that manages to give the reader so many details in such a wonderful way that one can't help but placing themselves in the characters place as they are reading. If I had to choose a theme for this book it would be silence, this is mentioned so many times in so many different ways in this story. The silence of self delusion, of not wanting to know, of questions not asked nor answered, of peace and beauty and the silence of a remembered love. We travel from New Zealand, to Poland, to Sweden with a man who know longer feels that he has a future, so decides to seek the truth about his past. Need to go back and read this author's first book [book:Astrid and Veronika|181086, which I have heard amazing things about. ( )
  Beamis12 | Jan 30, 2013 |
Being a librarian in a small synagogue library has its perks. One of them is that I can put no my hand first on the new books the library gets. We get boos in two ways: I order them or someone donates them to us. The former method has little surprises, considering that I am in charge of collection development. But you never know what you get when people donate books. Last week a congregation sopped by with a short novel,by an author I never heard of, Linda Olsson. She is of Swedish origin, but after living all over the world settled in New Zealand.

When I encounter a book by an author I never heard of, next I check the publisher to get a sense of possible quality and genre. Sonata for Miriam was published by Penguin, which is insurance enough for me to at least start reading the book. For me it was an emotionally difficult book to read through for several reasons. For once it was about a father, a composer/musician, who lost his daughter, Miriam. (Now you understand the title.) Being a father of a young lady and enjoying looking at and playing with her amazing developing self and soul every day, I dread to find myself ever in a similar situation. It took me four days to finish the book, and for this period of time my mood was worse than usual. But I marched on reading the book, because it was beautiful written and I was curious about the end of the book and the beginning of its protagonist.

Because besides mourning his daughter the other thing the father did was looking for his roots. Hew knew that before moving to Sweden as a child he came from somewhere else, but didn't know anything about it. His mother was non-talkative to the extreme, so it took two coincidences and some persistence to find his way back to Krakow, Poland, where his family was from. The first coincidence was stumbling onto a picture at a Holocaust exhibition with his own name on it and the second is a call from an old acquaintance in Sweden asking to write the music for his new film. The first took him down the path of finding the chain of people who could tell more about his origins and the second gave him the impetus to travel to Europe again after 20 years of living in New Zealand.

To finish of covering the plot, but without giving away too much of it, I have to mention the hero's disrupted relationship with the mother of his child that he is trying to understand and recover. It is a central element, and thankfully big chunks of the second half of the book was written from that woman's perspective. That helps to grasp what is happening between these people who have an antagonistic relationship with communication itself.

Judaism or any Jewish topic is not mentioned in the book or practiced in any way by any member of the family, but it was a Jewish family suffering (and most of them not surviving) the Holocaust. Nevertheless I will add this book to the library's collection

What I enjoyed the most in this book was the musings about human condition. They reminded me of Milan Kundera's observations which manage to be deep and succinct at the same time and exciting to read even for me, who values the quick pace of page-turner actions books. Olsson has the same quality to her inward directed prose: worthy to read slowly, so you could peel off its meaning layer by layer and discover the similarities, or lack of, to your own past feelings. I found her a great teacher on how to observe the storms of the soul.
3 vote break | Jan 16, 2011 |
A complex, lyrical and haunting novel, but one that is simultaneously mysterious and piercingly honest. A story of family loss and lies of omission, of passion and misplaced promises. Very beautifully written, with an intelligent, honest and likable narrator. Strongly recommended. ( )
  Lcwilson45 | Dec 27, 2010 |
Showing 1-5 of 10 (next | show all)
Svenske Linda Olssons andre roman «Taushetens konsekvenser» har mange fine kvaliteter. Men den siste delen av romanen holder litterært ikke mål, den blir utflytende og uklar.
Linda Olsson har ikke ufortjent skaffet seg en stor leserkrets gjennom sin første roman «La meg synge deg stille sanger», som kom på norsk i fjor. Når hun nå prøver å følge opp suksessen med romanen «Taushetens konsekvenser», er ikke den en like vellykket gjennomført leseopplevelse
added by annek49 | editDagsavisen, Turid Larsen (Aug 1, 2009)
 
Oväntade vändningar i gripande historia
I sin nya roman Sonat till Miriam skriver Linda Olsson om en man utan förflutet, eller med ett tillrättalagt förflutet som han försöker tränga igenom för att se vad som egentligen hände med hans anhöriga. Och för att förstå vem han själv är
Låt mig blott säga att historien är gripande och att Linda Olsson hanterar de berättartekniska avslöjandena skickligt. Linda Olssons debutroman ”Nu vill jag sjunga dig milda sånger” kritiserades för att vara sentimental. Det lär även drabba den nya boken; till skillnad från debuten utspelas den dessutom inte i en ordkarg miljö. Det accentuerar en eventuell känslosamhet
 
Boken är uppbyggd som en sonat som titeln antyder. Det vill säga första satsen/kapitlet i solo och därefter återtagningar. Mycket virtuost det hela.
Och det är inte utan att jag emellanåt undrar varför hon har gjort det så svårt för sig. Och för mig som läsare också för den delen som rätt ofta tvingas bläddra fram och åter för att kunna följa melodislingan.
Men berättelsen om Adam och Cecilia och deras möte efter tjugo års irrfärder på skilda håll utgör i sig en roman.
added by annek49 | editExpressen, Pia Zandelin (Jun 9, 2008)
 
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Now I am here, in Krakow, where my life began.
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Life-changing events seem to be preceded by the least advance warning.
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(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
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A middle-aged man living on Auckland's Waiheke Island recalls vividly the sudden death of his daughter Miriam. Grief silenced Adam at the time, but now he decides to break the silence and explore the secrets of the past. The search becomes a tribute to his daughter, and takes Adam from New Zealand to Poland. There he finds the truth about his past, but now he must live with it. On an island off the rocky coast of Sweden he re-connects with the love of his life. Sonata for Miriam is a heartbreaking tale of a man's search for his past, about the exposure of secrets that have been hidden for too long, and about the importance of talking about the most vital and the most painful in life. But more than anything it is a novel about love. Rich and satisfying, Sonata for Miriam will stay with the reader long after they have put it down.

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