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Elegy for a Fabulous World by Alta Ifland
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Elegy for a Fabulous World (original 2009; edition 2009)

by Alta Ifland

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1711,237,506 (4.5)2
Member:MichelleHoover
Title:Elegy for a Fabulous World
Authors:Alta Ifland
Info:Ninebark Press (2009), Paperback, 192 pages
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Elegy for a Fabulous World by Alta Ifland (2009)

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This review was written for LibraryThing Member Giveaways.
Upon reading this book, I found many of my preconceived notions about what it means to be a memoir (which I know this was not in the strictest sense, but in many ways it read in that narrative style, which quite piqued my interest), a work of contemporary fiction in general to be in shambles...in a rather enjoyable way. The stories contained within kept me guessing at every turn, playing with form, narrative style, and slightly surreal imagery in very unique and clever ways.

The world Ifland presents is both foreign and familiar. The Eastern Europe of which Ifland writes is not a place that I, myself, have ever known and yet I feel as though I am right there while reading it. "Elegy for a Fabulous World" combines folklore and a child's world view with realism and the cynical attitudes of an adult. The juxtaposition between the surreal and the completely real place the reader at a crossroads where they find themselves fully absorbed within the tale Ifland has woven for them. I am reminded of writers such as Flannery O'Connor and yet "Elegy" has an quality all it's own. This book is everything contemporary "gothic" literature (though I am deeply hesitant to put this book into any one genre) should be. ( )
  addictivelotus | Jan 19, 2010 |
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In the surreal and darkly humorous stories of Alta Ifland's Elegy for a Fabulous World, the narrator recalls an eccentric family and their polyglot friends and neighbors--Hungarians, Germans, Romanians, Gypsies, Jews, Russians--surviving together in a space where fable, reality, and State-issued lies are impossible to untangle. In the book s second section the narratives immigrate to the United States, where the skepticism learned in fabulous youth infects and frustrates American attitudes and institutions. Real fictions of strange lands, Ifland's stories demonstrate a deep sympathy with the visionary outsider and a vital and provocative international point of view.
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Alta Ifland is a LibraryThing Author, an author who lists their personal library on LibraryThing.

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Alta Ifland chatted with LibraryThing members from Oct 20, 2009 to Oct 30, 2009. Read the chat.

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